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We’ve developed a number of principles to support the generation of healing and hope in groups.  This article explores…

Principle #1: Healing is an increase in the degree of truth expressed in your life. 

This happens when we live so that our words are aligned with our actions, and the values we speak show up in how we live.  

It’s important to note that when we speak of truth, we’re talking about what is true for us at any given moment. This knowledge is available to every living thing and you don’t need a Ph.D. When we are not living in alignment, we feel off. We sense it in our bodies. Suppress what’s true for long enough and physical ailments will follow. Ailments like anxiety, depression, chronic fatigue, cancer, etc.

Steve’s story of inner alignment

While working as an engineer in the defense industry in my mid-30’s, I began experiencing increasing levels of fatigue. While I began experimenting with conventional and alternative approaches to healing my body, deep down, I knew something more fundamental was at play. I would often describe my day-to-day work as “soul-sucking.” It seemed and felt destructive to me no matter how well I or my peers tried to rationalize otherwise. 

As a hopeful dreamer from a young age, I yearned to contribute to the advancement of humanity…to be doing something meaningful, creative, and constructive with my life. In meditative moments, I would sometimes hear an inner voice that said, “When you are doing what you were built to do, you will have all the energy you need to do it.” This felt true for me, and scary too. I lived in a remote desert town built around the industry for which I worked. How would I survive if I left it? 

That question was answered over many years of searching and moving one small step after the next toward doing what I was put here to do. It was a gradual journey of re-aligning with myself…my soul.

Relevance: Facilitation as an Act of Forgiveness. 

Some of the most insidious misalignments we experience come from the inside. That is, the judgments we hold against ourselves. All judgments ultimately resolve into the lie that, “Something is wrong with me (or you).” And judgments about others are merely projections of self-judgment, the healing of which comes by forgiveness, primarily self-forgiveness.

We continue to find in our training courses that participants lack self-confidence, sometimes to the point of self-loathing. In other words, severe self-judgment. We remember once telling a class that, “There is nothing wrong with you.” The room went absolutely silent and we could feel that it struck a strong chord.

The combination of self-judgment and resulting lack of confidence too often has good people sitting on their hands, not speaking out and taking the actions they know are being called for. Instead, they stay stuck in fear.

Application: Have the Courage to Forgive

The first step toward living in alignment with your truth is to let go of the negative thoughts about ourselves…our self-judgments. They are not true and do not deserve our attention. Nearly everyone is feeling the pain and loneliness of self-alienation that comes from not accepting ourselves as we are.

While this may sound like a small and insignificant act, it is not. Relaxing the pointing finger of: “you’re not enough” can be like removing the proverbial finger from the dam…releasing a lifetime of dammed up energy.

Meet your own thoughts of self-judgment with forgiveness. How do we forgive? We let go of the negative thought. If another one comes, and it will, we let that go too. We replace these thoughts with a sense of love for ourselves; the same feeling of love you might offer your hurting child, spouse, or pet. 

Early in our facilitator training journey, we realized the powerful impact that “teaching” facilitation had on us as teachers. The first step to enabling people to experience high functioning groups was to facilitate a very holistic environment for learning. This meant carefully constructing a safe, trusting, and creative “container.” Once shaped, the container not only offered vastly accelerated learning but also something we didn’t anticipate: it generated curative, transforming insights for all the individuals involved, including us as teachers. We came to know the container itself as an element of healing.

Healing showed up in many ways. People more frequently spoke their truth. They were more at choice in the presence of dysfunctional habits. Others became more confident with their strengths. We could see the difference in the participants…and in ourselves as teachers. We became humbler and less preachy because it was not about what we knew but the shared experience of transformation. 

Relevance: Facilitation as an Act of Healing

We realize that speaking of healing in the context of facilitation and leadership may be a stretch for some. So let’s look at a definition from Wikipedia: Healing is the process of the restoration of health from an unbalanced, diseased, damaged or unvitalized organism. The result of healing can be to cure the cause of a health challenge, but one can grow without being cured or heal without “a cure”.  

This leads to our definition of healing: The alignment of thought and actions with values; Integrity in thought and deed. 

Application: Creating a Container of Healing and Hope. A powerful healing container for groups contains three elements:

1. Shared Purpose (What & Why). When we have a clearly articulated purpose on which we agree, then we all know what we are gathered to do.  If in coming to this shared purpose, we are also clear about why it is important, then this purpose has meaning for us all. We now know the direction of “true north.” Anyone in the container can now point out when the group seems “off course.” Without this shared knowledge, groups can argue incessantly and get caught in tangents that rob them of their creativity and energy.
   
   
2. Operating Agreements (How). It’s seems normal today to be in a perpetual state of harried action, where we are stressed out and filled with dysfunctional communication patterns. Like driving a car with one flat tire, it’s easy to get caught up in getting to our destination as quickly as possible while ignoring the fact that something is seriously impacting our progress. 
   
   You can also agree on norms when issues arise in your process. For example, if a cell phone rings frequently during your meetings, suggest stowing electronic devices. Or, if people often talk over one another, suggest that only one person speak at a time.
   
   When participants are reluctant to develop operating agreements, ask this question:  What behaviors would GUARANTEE that we have a terrible meeting? Once you list these, then invert them and make the negative behavior into a positive. For instance, if they give the example of talking over each other, then you would list not interrupting as an operating agreement.
   
   
3. Recruit Committed Participants (Who). It’s important to have the right people present in any group effort. Be sure to involve those who have the expertise, experience, relationships, or affiliations required to support the effort. Include those who have the decision-making authority necessary to support your outcomes. Once your team is assembled, assure that everyone is committed to the work and supportive of the process. If not, find out why and see if the misalignment can be corrected. It’s ok for people to opt out if they find they have other priorities or interests. 

Now that you have a container, your work in groups can be healthy, energizing, and innovative…healing what was old, tired, and dysfunctional!

Experience:  Raw Wonder

I turned the handle at the sink, staring with wonder. The water ran as it normally does, but for the past 18 days, warm running water had scarcely come from a facet.  Living in the wilderness, hiking the John Muir Trail, we were far from such comforts. Water was just the beginning. My hiking buddy and I went to dinner to celebrate my 50th birthday and plates of food arrived hot to the table. Ice came in glasses…shining plates appeared along with silverware. Everything was so clean! Days passed in this state of wonder experiencing deeply little things I normally took for granted.  The journey home began.

For a few days, I afforded myself a gentle return staying at my mom’s house in Southern California. My adventure had left me a bit raw. I had significant blisters, tingling, and hot spots in my feet. My body was tapped out and tired. To recover, I slept long hours in bed over several days. It felt luxurious after getting up with the dawn and hiking all day until nightfall. Sleep helped immensely to provide healing and recovery. I noticed also that staying quiet helped my body and mind to settle down in the midst of cars and people, cement and television.  The quiet allowed me to connect with a rhythm I had experienced in nature, and it was still alive even in the city. Each day, I took time to reflect on the experiences of the trail… the people we’d met, the sights we’d seen, and the memories both tough and triumphant. I made sure the trail journal I had kept along the way got filled in with details while they were still fresh.

Relevance: Integration Space

Returning from a big event, accomplishment, or breakthrough in your life is exciting. You cross the finish line in a race, get a standing ovation after a talk, or you and your team nail a major proposal. It’s time to celebrate! After the celebration though comes the return. It is easy to overlook that you’ve just pushed hard and run the motors at full. Taking time to rest and reflect provides a space of transition. This space allows for the integration of what was learned and experienced. It can replenish energy and refuel the body and mind. However, we often rush back into our routines, skipping this step altogether. It can feel like running into a brick wall! This can leave us overstressed, resigned, and depleted.

Practice:  Recover, Reflect, Reveal

To allow for transition, here are some tips for creating an integration space:

1) Build in time to RECOVER. Put several hours on the calendar to relax. Schedule them ahead of time. If you’ve worked particularly hard, take a whole day or more. 2) REFLECT on what you’ve experienced. Write down what you’ve learned or talk it over with a friend. Take a walk or enjoy a quiet moment to collect your thoughts. 3) REVEAL your experiences and share them with others.  When you’ve returned from an important milestone, sharing lessons learned can be like giving gifts. There is a spirit that is both generous as well as renewing. When you give in this way, your own learning deepens and people in your life, from home to work, benefit. Expressing the trials and the triumphs, you weave stronger social connections as well as contribute to increased effectiveness.

Experience: Primal Gratitude. 20 miles before the end of the journey, we’d nearly run out of water. The sun was setting. Stream beds were dry everywhere we looked…and the few people we ran into shook their heads dejectedly. We had too little water to cook with and not enough for drinking. Things didn’t look good.

Happening upon an abandoned high sierra station called Sunrise Camp, we searched for any sign of working pumps, trickling streams, or other potable sources. We bushwhacked up the hills and studied the maps. Nothing. Doubt then dread started to fill my mind. What if we had no more water? We’d have to ration for the next 24 hours using the 2 liters left between us while eating only dried food.

After searching around the camp for almost an hour my friend Chris gave a welcome cry from across the darkening hillside. “I found some.” A tiny trickle gurgled out of a shallow hole: enough water to fill our thirsty filtering bags. I was overcome with relief. My heart beat fast and my mouth quivered with a mixture of smiling, laughing, and crying. I felt a resolved doubt in the ability of the trail to give us what we needed to survive. Nature and the trail, once again, had provided. We cooked our last couple of meals in pure bliss…enjoying every drop of water from the filtering bags into our pots and cups. This water would easily take us to the end of the trail! Gratitude welled up inside of my belly, warming my entire body head to toe. It was a massive gift of life. I was awash in primal gratitude.

Relevance: Pure Appreciation

People who work in groups often expect their processes and systems to be in order: the machines powered, the supplies stocked, and the floors cleaned. When basic processes fall short or shut down, groups can revert to blame or panic. We have become so accustomed to things being taken care of that we lose sight of what is working in the background to support us and what it takes to deliver the goods. Practicing gratitude in a full-bodied way enables not only kindness but also humility. It acknowledges that we can’t do things by ourselves. Being actively aware of this can move us from a dim glow of thanks to a shining light of pure appreciation.

Practice:  Long Term Gratitude

Here are a few ways of practicing gratitude. (1) At the beginning and end of every meeting or event take a moment to share words of appreciation. Start with the facility and food, and then work your way to those who put in extra time to ensure copies were made and data available. It may feel awkward at first but over time this muscle of gratitude will strengthen. (2) Stop to thank people for the job they are doing in the moment. Share a gracious word with the person cleaning the bathrooms. Give a smile to someone pouring water in your cup. (3) Before you go to sleep, take time to recall acts of help or sustenance you received. Bring these thoughts front and center; allow them to circulate in your belly, heart, and mind. This practice can help you sleep and over time deepen into long term gratitude.

Experience: Invest in Rest

Hikers learn lessons directly in the body. It’s not a theoretical thing. We’d stayed overnight at Muir Trail Ranch, backpacker haven, after 10 days and 100 miles of wilderness through-hiking. Strapping on our backpacks, full of water, food, and rest, we climbed a steeply pitched trail to the ridge above. We resumed the everyday life of the trail step by step. However, my body felt different. Each step had a spring in it and my legs bounced forward with renewed strength. The warm soaking baths and cushioned mattress the night before did the trick. My physical and psychic batteries felt recharged. Clearly, we had needed to rest. Until then the relentless pursuit of miles numbed the signals to slow down and take a break. We had neglected this lesson from our bodies as well as more experienced souls on the trail.

Some of the most interesting and wise people we met were called “PCTers.” PCT stood for the Pacific Crest Trail, a 2,600-mile route from the Washington Cascades to the Mexican border. PCT hikers stood out from the other folks on the trail. Unlike weekend hikers or us John Muir Trail (JMT) adventurers, PCTers traveled extremely light; masters of bare essentials. Normally they carried what amounted to a fully equipped day-pack, instead of the expedition sized monstrosity others used. Somehow, they managed to put everything they needed into it, including food, a sleeping bag, tent, cooking supplies, and clothes. Their reduced weight allowed them to hike long distances, sometimes twice that of JMT hikers. With the increased miles though came an emphasis on rest. Most PCT hikers we met took one or more days every week on the trail to refresh themselves. Their example lived in our bodies now that we’d felt the benefits of rest first-hand. Our experience improved dramatically and we enjoyed almost everything more: from the food to the scenery. The newest lesson: when taking on something big, you must invest in rest.

Relevance: Task and Affordance

Groups can get very task-oriented. It’s easy to do when you have an agenda to get through and limited time. To keep moving when people are tired, bored, frustrated or worse, however, offers diminishing returns. Pushing for things to get done in the face of these warning signs usually leads to below average results. Groups will “satisfice” by deferring to people in power, delivering the least common denominator answers, or falling into dysfunctional patterns. Deciding that it is time to regroup means that you give an affordance for balancing task with the capacity to accomplish it.

Practice:  Breaking into Rest

You can break into rest in a number of ways. Try getting up out of your seats and moving. Standing instead of being seated can switch the verbal channel enough to renew a tired group. You may also experiment with a reflection break. Give participants time to wander the halls, building or going outside with a question to reflect on. Manage the process by giving them a specific return time. Finally, cancel your standing meeting. Yes, that’s right! Give people a break from the normal routine and invite them to rest. Encourage them to NOT do something related to work in the time they’ve earned by renewing themselves with a hobby, going to coffee with a friend, or exercising. Emphasize that this is a time for renewing and refreshing. It’s a time for breaking into rest.

The Experience…Hikers have a saying: “The trail provides.” As we ventured further into the wilderness — over 100 miles now from our starting point at the Cottonwood Lakes trailhead — this materialized in both everyday moments and significant events. 

We left a freezing cold night at Evolution Lake camp irritated and sleepy. Aching feet, a dry granola bar, and a bad attitude don’t make for much of a start. We clambered slowly down the trail to meadows below, feeling sorry for ourselves. As the morning wore on though, the trail flattened out. What was rocky and uneven, became sandy and relatively smooth. We joked that the trail turned into a high altitude freeway jetting us ahead at nearly 3 miles per hour. When you are carrying a 40-pound pack at 10,000 feet, 3 miles an hour feels like flying. By lunchtime, we were well in range to arrive at Muir Trail Ranch. “MTR” — as hikers like to call it — was one of the few places on our route where we could resupply food and equipment. We were hiking too far to be able to carry all of our food and water. So MTR was an oasis.

As we neared the turnoff for MTR, we met a young woman fresh from the resupply shack a mile or so below us. She greeted us cordially and mentioned in passing that MTR had cabins left for rent. Our pace quickened in anticipation. Arriving at MTR was like entering a high sierra Shangri-La. The shack mistress greeted us warmly and showed us around the grounds. She previewed the cabin rental package including hot soaking mineral baths, two warm meals, and a place to wash and hang dry clothes. She said with a grin that this was the LAST night of the year to rent cabins. They closed for the season the next day! We couldn’t say YES fast enough. I nearly wept when we entered our spartan log cabin to find grandmotherly sewn quilts and the first flushing toilet in almost two weeks. The day after a bitterly cold night, when we needed it most, the trail provided. It was like being visited by angels, just in time. After that night, they visited more often. Time-Angels started showing up in unlikely, sometimes strange, and in desperately needed places. Fear and judgments drove them away, while a mindset of abundance increased the chances that they would visit. For sure, I needed to be on the lookout to make sure I didn’t miss them. This abundant attitude enabled me to embrace whatever came my way.

Relevance: Abundant Attitude

Groups get very messy at times. Conflict between people, differences about which direction to take, and tough personalities are common. It can feel stifling and raw. It is easy to resist these difficult situations because they can be unpleasant. Shutting yourself off to the unpleasant situations also shuts you off to potential gifts. It is a package deal. As a group leader, holding the space for all these conditions to be welcomed will allow you to be available for whatever shows up. Bringing an attitude where all things have value translates into greater openness, awareness, receptivity, and growth. I like to relate to this as holding an abundant attitude.  

Practice:  Responsive Stance

Stand up and place your feet shoulder-width apart. Gently bend your knees. Lift your hands slightly above your waist and open them as if you’re going to catch something. This is a responsive body stance; the stance of abundance. Before people gather for a group meeting or any kind of engagement with others, strike this pose. Have a fun time with it. Practice being fully receptive to everything that will come your way. Picture the people who will be there, review the topics and purpose for gathering. Now you are both mentally and physically ready to embrace whatever happens. Your practice is walking with the tough stuff as well as receiving the gifts of the time-angels.

The Experience…

In the high country, it can get cold. Fast. The weather changes without much notice and it is the constant subject of passing hikers on the John Muir Trail. On day 10 of our hike, we summitted Muir Pass, the namesake of this famous route. As we got close to the nearly 12,000-foot peak, we saw a band of dark clouds moving toward us. By the time we found the top and entered a rock-domed shelter called Muir Hut, half the sky was dark. We decided not to wait out the storm, but to hike through it. We left the shelter and headed straight for the storm. Pellets — neither hail nor snow — fell from the sky for the next two hours, blanketing the ground.

After 17 miles and many hours of climbing and descending, our bodies couldn’t go any further than Evolution Lake – a place that sits exposed and wind-swept with high passes on all sides. That night as the storm blew over the temperature dropped. We pitched our tent between two lonely trees on an otherwise rocky hillside desperate for relief from the cold. It didn’t help. My hiking buddy and I put on all of our clothes, including down coats and thick hats, and climbed into our sleeping bags. By 2:00 a.m., I was shivering. I curled into a fetal position, sat on my hands, covered my entire head with the top of the bag. Nothing worked. Hypothermia didn’t cross my mind, but it wasn’t out of the question under these conditions. Glancing over at my friend, he looked peaceful in his sleeping bag. So I waited for dawn: freezing cold. My eyes teared and my jaw clenched. I hit the wall, totally naked with desperation. Then something unexpected happened: I surrendered. My breathing slowed and my belly softened. All of my attention narrowed and I gave up on the flood of thoughts about being cold. In the hours that followed, I slept soundly until clear daylight entered the thickly frosted tent.

Relevance: Collaborative Destruction
Surrendering means accepting what IS. As the adage goes, the truth of any situation can “set you free.” Working in groups, it’s natural to come with a plan and an agenda. You want things to go in a particular direction. Often, however, they don’t. Surrendering allows you to give up or change significantly what you are currently doing. Surrendering looks like starting clean. Unlike improvisation, which is more playful and fun, surrendering burns down the understory. It’s a form of destruction.

Practice: Resetting
When difficulty shows up, try resetting by surrendering. Slow down. Breathe from your belly. Bring your attention from the thoughts in your head to the middle of your body. Try to completely and fully lean into what is happening. Embrace without pre-judging, blocking, or resisting. Look at the situation as you would through the eyes of a child. Let the initial waves of anger, fear, self-pity, and assumptions pass by. Now look again…and then again. Keep resetting, surrendering, to allow for a clearing away of the debris. Surrendering in this way leads to fresh possibilities…and the chance for opening.

The Experience…

Above 11,000 feet the landscape is nothing but rock… a barren, Martian-like terrain that excites and haunts. I’m perched on the top of a pass in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, hiking the famous John Muir Trail. It’s a physically demanding venture, where my hiking pals and I traverse thousands of vertical feet every day up and over the passes to make sure we can break camp in the safety of the alpine meadows below. We maneuver around all manner of obstacles: roots, rocks, boulders, slippery sand, water, and the occasional horse droppings. Good old road apples! Still, no matter how many trees or clear lakes come our way, the rocks stand out: mysterious and powerful beacons.

I’ve been hiking with quite a bit of pain. For the past week or so, my feet have swelled, and now press against the top of my leather boots. Blisters on my toes have ballooned to twice the normal size. Every step makes me wince. And we are hiking 15 to 19 miles a day for eight or more hours. So I have a choice: either I can dwell in the pain or find another way to work with it.

Through the hours of silent, strenuous hiking and mountain passes, I become aware of the power of rocks. It’s an energy that is easy to miss: giants in the shadows. As I writhe away in self-pity, the rocks send an eerie, persistent signal. Worn out and with little else to grab on to, begrudgingly, I turn my attention to focus on the rocks, boulders, and solid features. The rocks vibrate with energy. They are calm and strong. And the pain starts to shift. I am gifted with wonder and mystery. Somehow the pain breaks free and I become solid, grounded, and strong. Supported. I am rocked.

Relevance: Grounded for collaboration

One way to think about collaboration is connecting with another in a way that makes you available to fresh possibilities. It’s like a dance. To allow for this connection, grounding yourself is foundational. Without it we can be taken away by physical or emotional pain, conflict, internal mind-chatter, and other distractions. We become unavailable for collaboration. Coming from a place of solidity — sometimes called centeredness — is a moment-by-moment practice: a muscle we build that helps us return again and again to what is taking place in front of us. While we may not always have rocks around, our feet and bodies can nearly always find this ground. And when we find our center, we are available for the mystery and wonder of what may come next. We unveil the limitless potential of collaboration.

Practice: Finding your rock

Focus on your feet. Really attend to them on the floor. Feel the balls of each foot. Feel each toe. Plant them firmly, but not rigidly. This rootedness connects you to the earth. Throughout your day keep returning to the feeling of your feet being planted on the floor. When distracted or taken away by strong emotion, physical pain, mental checklists, conflict with co-workers, or anything else, practice returning to your feet being rooted and connected — as solid, aware, and wise as a rock!