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What distinguishes conscious caring for from unconscious taking care of among members of a collective?

Submitted by Glenna Gerard on June 21, 2008 - 15:53.

In all the years I have facilitated and taught dialogue I have lived with and into this question.  I often notice that when a member of a group is feeling distressed, in pain, uncomfortable members of the group, including myself, respond in distinct ways. 

 

They may identify with the experience the person is having and in their identification, particularly if the experience is a strong uncomfortable feeling, they will attempt to “make it better” or “fix”.  When this happens the group may actually do what I refer to as “collapse” into the experience of the other.  When this happens the state of awareness of the group becomes enmeshed in the issue and perspective is generally lost.    I call this identification and the impulse to “fix” taking care of the other.

 

Another option is that the group will choose to hold a field of witness for the person.  They do not “collapse” into the experience.  Rather they offer compassion and by maintaining a field of witness they allow the group and the other to gain perspective on the experience, to integrate it into a large whole and to learn from it.  This I call caring for the individual and the group. 

 

I wonder what your experiences with these two realities have been/are and how you see and act from a sense of responsibility in such circumstances.

Re. Collapse, Group Shadow & Responsibility

Submitted by Larry Glover on July 7, 2008 - 19:11.

I love your distinction, Glenna, between "taking care of" or "fixing, and "caring for...," an individual or a group. Particularly as it relates to the shadow realm, and I'm not sure I do have more wisdom to add.

 

I tend more toward questions than answers but here, given some recent experiences, I'll attempt a brief synopsis of what stirs in response to the invitation.

 

The word shadow is used here in the tradition of perceiving it as an energy field carrying both the positive and the negative aspects or potentialities of an individual or system.

 

I suspect an individual (ecologically this may be a group or a "hive") can carry the shadow for a collective. That is, they can carry an unseen (unacknowledged, not honored...) voice or behavior or illness or symptom... for the group. This living systems wisdom is often recognized in shamanic societies when say, a family or even tribal community is treated in response to an individual within it falling ill.

 

There is a kind of participative witnessing here that calls to me.

 

The tradition of ‘holding witness' is powerful and one I find myself identifying with in our times... as destructive forces do the work which must be done for renewal and rebirth to have their time. The afflicted ‘individual' might even be seen as carrying a gift-as a spirit that seeks witnessing in order that healing might come.... Then again, the gift might be some wisdom that the group itself would prefer not to integrate-perhaps because a new Self would have to be born....

 

Within a group setting, as participant or facilitator, this means for me, in the order of this moment's flow:

 

1.  Being willing to show up... and to witness... to stand as much as possible outside of judgment;

2.  Cultivating and holding practices in my own life that honor the shadow realms, the skills and arts of which are now tested ‘in community.'

3.  Honoring my own perceptions and truths, while being willing to see the world differently, from another's perspective;

4.  Deep listening;

5.  Courageous voicing;

6.  Seeking collective commitment to intention for learning and growth and support of the individual and the whole...; Honoring the Circle;

7.  Being willing to look inside for what is stirring... particular for what might be ‘reacting,' as well as for what might feel ‘of accord;'

8.  Carrying with humility the wisdom that says, as people reach for their wholeness, their "higher selves"..., also stirred to seek expression and healing are all the rejected fragments of our selves;

9.  How do we hold space for that, individually and in a group?

10.         How does a group honor a ‘negative shadow' that arises... and not be diverted by it? Not "collapse" into fixing and taking care of?

11.         How do we hold space for the shadow that would perceive itself as ‘more evolved' than others... that gains identity from the same?

12.         How do we hold space for the non-human realms?

13.         How do we hold space for diversity within community?

14.         Where do we gravitate toward joy or bliss or... as escape from their polarities, and so reduce our capacity for what we desire?

15.         Where do we bow to authority or our domestication over our authenticity?

16.         Where am I complicit in my life... with the very self and world structures I would facilitate the death and rebirth of?

17.         Where do I clasp and grip to identities that no longer server me? What is the collective manifestation of that? Its source?

 

Uh Oh. I better stop now. The questions are starting to roll!

 

"People are beginning to see that personal pain and global pain are not two separate factors, but very much interrelated. Some people experience inside of themselves what they conceive of as being the pain of the world, but in a way it's the pain of themselves. There are others who experience inside of themselves what they conceive of as being purely personal pain. In a way, it's the pain of the world." -Christopher Titmuss

Collapse, Group Shadow & Responsibility

Submitted by Glenna Gerard on July 1, 2008 - 23:01.

What is right action when the shadow dynamics of a group come forth?  What are our experiences?  I have seen instances where shadow opens portals for new insights and great learning.  If shadow is honored for what it attempts to offer and is not allowed to "take over" the center of the group.  I suspect that caring for the whole of what is unfolding and resisting the temptation to collapse into identification with or reaction to whatever shadow is arising is key to our being able to hold a state of awareness and witness and therefore open our hearts and minds and learn from one another.  What happens in our world when whole nations collapse into shadow?  How can we hold a Place for rectification work to bring wholeness and perspective?

 

Larry, I'm hoping that you might have something to add here gleaned from some of the experiences you spoke very briefly about when we were walking on the Land.  I suspect there are kernels of wisdom...so if you feel called to add to this field in any way please do. 

 

 

 

We are not and cannot be disconnected from our life nor this Earth to which we belong

Group Collapse and Rebuilding the Circle

Submitted by Doug Ross on June 22, 2008 - 20:13.

I've seen this over and over again in groups.  It's as if nobody knows what else to do.  I've even seen group facilitators/leaders be the ones who make this happen, and one professional I highly respect uses it as his modus operandus.  I can actually see the collapse happening. 

When I am facilitating, what do I do?  I think there is no one answer, but what I want to do, what I try to do is "rebuild the circle".  Sometimes I've asked if anybody else is having this experience.  Sometimes I take a time out and say something about the power of all of us learning together here, it isn't just the broken one we're here about.  It looks, even to me sometimes, like I don't want to go into the pain, or that I'm skipping off the edge instead of going into it. 

So I want to know more about "holding the field of witness".  How do each of us see/feel that?