(from what I learned from my failures and the feasts) #FacilitationWeek
I’ve been thinking about the unseen labour and quiet courage it takes to hold space for others. Facilitation is not about directing from certainty, but about staying present inside the unpredictable field of human sense-making.
So, in support of all buddying facilitators, especially those learning through both their feasts and their failures, here are a few field notes from my own practice
1. Stay in the “howwhy”
If you feel pressured to explain your purpose or perfect your method, pause.
Fidelity often lives between why and how, not before or after them. (Here’s an article that goes deeper into this.)
2. Let recognition precede movement
When people feel stuck, frustrated, or uncertain, your first gift is not progress.
It is intelligibility.
“That makes sense, and… what more do you notice here?”
3. Questions are threshold objects
They are not prompts, tools, or interventions.
They are places where people can stand still together
without being asked to resolve anything yet.
4. Hold friction without recruiting it
The tension in the room does not need to be leveraged or hosed down…
It needs to be held long enough to show what it’s protecting.
5. Trust is felt somatically
If your body is rushing, explaining, filling silence, trust is thinning.
Slow your speech.
Invite people breathe some fresh air
Get some too
Let pauses do some of the work.
6. You are not outside the field
Facilitation is not help from above.
It is companionship from within the same uncertainty.
7. Care before clarity
Clarity will come if it’s needed.
Care must come first, or clarity will turn coercive.
8. Leave something unfinished
End sessions with space rather than a summary.
What remains unfinished keeps people in relationship with their own thinking.
An invitation to continue thinking
Well after next Monday…
What freshest stories come to mind?
