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Part of my intentions with Chrysalis Facilitation programs is to support participants with internalizing their sense of belonging, thereby increasing their sense of worth and agency, through glimpsing their ability to feel deep connection with themselves and others. I reflect on this challenge through the question, “How can temporary intentional communities promote a sense of belonging that is influential enough for individuals to have the positive effects continue with them when they leave the community or the community dissolves?” The latter sessions are designed to provide space for reflections on how each individual can internalize their sense of belonging and externalize the community we created. During the Enlivened Creativity program, participants showcase their intentional short-term community built through these programs to another community, thereby providing them an opportunity to reflect on different communities and their qualities. Participants more deeply reflect on what they gained from being part of this program by working towards bringing it to others. Participants are set-up to leave the program with ideas of how to continue the positive feelings they gained from being part of such an open and supportive group meeting with each other every week through various means. Greater long-term work has to be done towards adjusting infrastructures to demonstrate the inherent value of individuals as emotional beings and to prioritize connection with others, but supporting individuals through facilitating these structured programs is a great catalyst for these necessary changes.
“Wild elephants are noble, honest, loyal and courageous. They are strong and powerful. But they are wild elephants. They can’t be a hummingbird. And they can’t be a gazelle. They can’t be delicate. They can’t be things that they’re not. If people do not understand you, then you’ll just have to hang out with other wild elephants."
- Debra Sands Miller Belonging: “the understanding that you are an integral part of a community that embraces you… for being authentic” To create an environment where individuals are an integral part of a community that embraces them, we prioritize building our community and support system within each program. A large contributor to our dynamics includes existing as a shared space that is separate from other aspects of the participants’ communities and external life.
This community space allows participants to deeply reflect on those around them within the group, their lives, and their society and re-evaluate perceptions and impressions of others by listening to points of view they would not typically access.
Full Value Contract Worksheet
Quoted from Diversity In Action
“Be gentle, be kind, be safe.” The purpose of the Full Value Contract is to define an emotionally and physically safe environment that all group members can support. Behavioural norms are agreed upon to ensure that everyone fully understand what is expected and what is accepted. It is a shared creation, developed in words or symbols that are relevant and understandable for all group members. Full Value Contract includes: -What hopes do you have for this time together? -What fears do you have for this time together? -Defining behavioural norms that support fully valuing each member of the group. -Unanimously committing to those norms. -Accepting shared responsibility for the maintenance of those norms -Inviting participants to share their ideas and opinions openly and honestly. -Promoting feedback, positive as well as critical. -Asking participants to listen and communicate effectively with each other. -Encouraging all participants to work together to create a safe and caring learning environment. Adapted from Project Adventure
To allow for vulnerability, one must set up spaces of inclusivity where norms are established and agreed upon. The first requirement is for people to know what they can expect from each other in the community, including community norms, rules, or laws. Through a sense of order, one can predict, plan, and commit. I utilize tools of Full Value Contract and Challenge by Choice, as found in Project Adventure,* to establish the collective space.
"There’s actually no such thing as an adult. That word is a placeholder. We never grow up. We’re not supposed to. We’re born and that’s it. We get bigger. We live through great storms. We get soaked to the bone. We realize we’re waterproof. We strive for calm. We discover what makes us feel good. We do those things over and over. We learn what doesn’t feel good. We avoid those things at all cost. Sometimes we come together: huge groups in agreement.
Sometimes we clap and dance. Sometimes we look like a migration of birds. We need to remind ourselves—each other—that we’re mere breaths. But, and this is important, sometimes we can be magnificent, to one person, even for a short time, like the perfect touch—the first time you see the ocean from the middle. Like every time you see the low, full moon. We keep on eating: chewing, pretending we know what’s going on. The secret is that we don’t. We don’t, and don’t, and don’t. Each day we’re infants: plucking flower petals, full of wonder." - Micah Ling http://www.hobartpulp.com/web_features/3-poems--22 "Why not go out on a limb? That’s where the fruit is.” –Mark Twain When people ask me what “answers” I came to with my Question (“What conditions optimize a sense of belonging?” or what my biggest discovery was, I tell them what most surprised and disappointed me. I had hoped to explore the environmental conditions that would create a sense of belonging so that individuals would not have to do any work to feel that they belong. I wanted to find structures that would allow the default to be connection. I love psychology and space architecture, including thinking about how environments influence our experience of connection. These fields are still huge areas of interest for me and ones that I did not have the opportunity to explore at Quest due to other choices I made regarding my educational path. I found myself easily drawn towards what I already knew, such as program-development, compared to more foreign areas, such as architecture. I ended up looking at ways self-reflection and vulnerability enable connection. We can and should change environments to better connection and community, but I also found the value of empowering individuals to believe they are worthy of such connection and community.
It’s not an end goal, it’s a process and it starts and ends with me, you, and all of us.
Within the final component of the first Authentic Reflections program I asked participants to bring what they learnt to their greater communities (internalize belonging and externalize community). They came up with some community values that they wanted to share: The following is a summarization of several of our conversations. I see these values as the foundation of what the program meant for the participants and a good starting point for facilitating intimacy as a group.
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AuthorVrindy Spencer is constantly seeking inspiration on topics of personal and human development, leadership, community, connection, and intimacy (with self and others). Archives
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