3P Random Reflections Blog

Well, facilitating my first 3P (Innate Wellbeing) workshop was definitely a challenge... When I arrived at the homeless shelter, I was advised that the classroom was unfortunately not available, so they set me up in an open area where the acoustics were really bad and where we were frequently interrupted by doors opening and closing, employees and clients talking on phones or passing through the area, and about 6 groups of young school kids being given a tour of the facility.

The participants had some problems hearing me, and I had some problems hearing them, so there was a lot of pausing until the noises passed, along with the need to keep asking the participants to repeat what they were saying.

But, it wasn't like I haven't been through similar situations when training before. One memory comes to mind of a training session at a hotel being unexpectedly renovated... managing the timing of my facilitating around the jack hammering outside, working along side the drip drip drip of a ceiling leak, which if the noise wasn't enough, ended up adding a terribly musty smell to the room and a potential mutiny of the participants who were bothered by it. And then there was the need to continually navigate the sight lines to some participants whose tables were partially hidden behind structural support poles. So, been there, done that. :)

Next for my 3P workshop challenge, was the slight awkwardness and unfamiliarity of delivering this message to a group for the first time. That's just expected, as the norm for any new course I would teach, but this one came with the ridiculousness of conveying a message that doesn't just effortlessly drop into everyone's laps. I wasn't sharing something for them to learn, as much as something invisible for them to see. And who really understands the mysteries in how and when this message gets through, other than being open to doing whatever occurs to us in the moment. And so that's what I did, as best as I could.

As part of that delivery, I could see myself dropping in and out of my ego-need to be the facilitator and get them to understand, and then having the occasional realization of my human-ness once again, and relaxing into that instead.

And then there were the logistics of working with a group of individuals who had to manage the distractions of the training space, along with the somewhat magnified personal, physical, and mental challenges that they may have carried in with them. They were sometimes struggling with articulating their thoughts, and I in turn was sometimes struggling with understanding them. And there's always the possibility that any of them may have been dealing with challenges diagnosed as a particular disorder or condition, besides just trying to understand what the hell I was likely inarticulately talking about.

Fortunately, they were all human, and so for the most part, we managed to have some human conversations. And like any other training class I have delivered in the last 17 years, there was a mix of under-participators and over-participators, some who connected, some who disconnected, some who softly engaged, and some who challenged.

Within the two hours, I could see some possible leaning in to the understanding and definitely some resistance to it as well. But at the end, three of the participants were interested in borrowing some of Syd's books/CDs/DVDs that I had on hand, so I'm choosing to label that as a good sign. :)

As with any training, I hope and expect it to get a bit easier with time...I did happen to come home with a whopper of a head ache, and shoulders that felt like a rock, so that's a sure sign of being stressfully tied more to the outcome than I had intended.

But despite my made up stressful thinking, I'll be talking with my contact at the shelter with the intent of scheduling 2 or 3 more sessions. I have no idea where this will all go, and I know that ultimately no matter what happens, and whether I continue with this or not, I'm the one who is and will be creating my experience of what I'm currently seeing as a challenge.

To be truthful, I really would have preferred a softer entry into this work, but as Sydney Banks so aptly shared, "life is a contact sport". And I'm sure that anything I make up about my 2 hours of challenging delivery of this understanding, will pale in comparison to the realities that the homeless participants are managing 24/7. How amazingly resilient they all are... and what a testament to the truth that lies beneath this understanding... if only they were to see it for themselves.

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