Monday, September 04, 2017

I was working with a team of children's workers - all women.





Somalia
Bangladesh
Mauritius
W Indian
Nepal
London
Italy
German
Jamaica
and more ....

I was working with a group who's ethnic roots range from the above - 
and more.
One of the privileges I have , 
living and working a lot in multi-cultural London town.

This group was not a team, 
and one of the objectives of the day, was to achieve that. 
We rocked.
It happened.

They were all working with children.
All I did with them was 
to process their natural insecurities into self revelation - 
in a facilitated experiential session. 
I made gentle moves to water the seeds in the plastic cup 
and the roots went down and the shoots went up.*

Then they opened like flowers to the sun. 
They trusted me. 
They trusted my facilitation. 
The believed that I would not lead them into a place called failure, ugliness or shame. 
The had fled from such so many times in their lives.

These were all women with considerable experience of life - 
in some cases longer lives - some shorter.
I kept them active and sharing - and stretching.
The I took the risky option from my long list of prepared options.

I facilitated an experience.
Touching the deep emotions of a child.
Getting inside their skin.
Feeling rejection.
Hurt.
Terror.
Aloneness.
........... and more.

At one stage - when I was processing their own analysis through the feelings contained in one grown up mature woman, 
in the role of a nine year old child, she said::
"I cannot speak any more"
She was choked in emotion.
She was stuttering to a stop.
Life had got in her gut
in her gullet
in her mouth
and she could not articulate any more.

There were others similar.
For all, it became an experience of learning.

NEVER again will these leaders be insensitive to little ones.
Never will they listen to and angry child, 
a demanding child, 
an attention seeking child .......
without looking into their eyes and reading their little faces of need...... and their souls.
They have been there. 
They feel the pain ........

When it we all over.
They were buzzing
They were happy and satisfied.
They were a team.




*
All we ever need to know - we learned in the Nursery::
 "Be aware of wonder.
Remember the little seed in the polystyrene cup;
the roots go down and the shoots go up,
nobody really knows how or why,
but we are all like this"

Robert Fulghum, from
'All I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten'










"Experience is,
for me,
the highest authority.
The touchstone of validity
is my own experience.
No other person's ideas,
and none of my own ideas,
are as authoritative as my experience.
It is to experience that I must return again and again,
to discover a closer approximation to truth
as it is in the process of becoming in me.
Neither the Bible nor the prophets
-- neither Freud nor research 
--neither the revelations of God nor man
-- can take precedence over my own direct experience.
My experience is not authoritative because it is infallible.
It is the basis of authority because
it can always be checked in new primary ways.
In this way its frequent error or fallibility is always open to correction."

Carl Rogers
-- On Becoming a Person






             Dance like no-one is watching
             Sing like no-one is listening
             and
             Love like you have never been hurt.