Author: Tenneson Woolf

This is some of the learning that my partner Teresa Posakony is exploring and practicing with deliberativeness.

Below is an excerpt from an article by Alice McCall (shared with me by Teresa) that clarifies some of the underlaying premises of this body of approaches.

These are beliefs and practices that ring very true for me. In my own practices and in the underlaying wholeness and systems views that I’ve long been exploring and applying in my work of facilitation with groups. I love how this helps to see more of the ever present yet invisible dynamics. And I love how this invites us individually and collectively into additional and needed levels of depth that these times call for.

“I [Alice McCall] am a Transformational Energy Healer and Spiritual Counselor, who successfully healed myself of breast cancer without medical intervention in 2007. It is my passion to help people heal, stay healthy, and prevent illness of any kind.

The basic premise of my healing practice is that the root cause of all health issues, emotional issues, disease, and unwanted life patterns is a negative thought or emotion buried in the cells of our bodies.

Thoughts and emotions are powerful. Anytime you hold onto a negative thought or emotion, it is automatically buried in the cells of your body. It is held there as dense heavy dark energy, versus the light bright energy that you were born with. Your body was not designed to carry this density and it can lead to a malfunction or health issue in the part of your body where it is primarily stored. If it is held in the kidneys, it can cause urination problems or kidney disease. If it is held in the colon, it can cause Crohn’s disease or IBS. The location of the stored density is determined by the type of negativity you are experiencing. Sadness, for instance, automatically becomes buried in the heart, and anger likes to find a home in the liver or lower back.

Simply stated, our mind, emotions, spirit, and body are all connected. Intuitively we know that there is a connection between having a nagging worry and feeling our heart racing or our stomach turning in knots. We have felt that mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical effect when we obsess with that worry. By using the principles of energy healing, we have an arsenal of tools to help us overcome these thoughts, and prevent them from becoming part of our being.”

I am often asked about video harvesting from Participative Leadership events, trainings, and conferences. How can you create a video of people in dialogue and other participative formats that conveys what is important? It is an important question. Particularly for those of us who are changing the culture of how meetings happen. A short, simple video with minimal production can become a very useful artifact for encouraging the continued use of the format, both as follow-up and as invitation to future events.

I’ve seen a number of these videos. And feel grateful in particular for the ones from events of which I have hosted. The best that I’ve seen include these qualities and aspects:

1. Short — 3-5 minutes is enough. It is not about capturing all of the content, nor even the process. It is just enough to invite people to get a taste and to be curious enough to ask a question about what happened there.

2. Set to Music — it just adds immensely to the appeal and welcome to experience the overarching spirit of the gathering.

3. Captures People in Interaction — sometimes this is dialogue. Sometimes it is play. Sometimes it is in the words that are being written on flipcharts and post-it notes. The principle I often reference to support a participative format is from living systems theory — If you want a system to be healthy, connect it to more of itself. The video shows some of the connecting.

4. Speaking of Purpose — this is just a bit of voice to help set the context of the gathering. Sometimes it is about the purpose of the event. And also, it is about the process of the event, how we will be turning to one another. Often spoken by the conference organizers and those that have designed and are hosting it.

5. Reflections from Participants — it’s helpful to splice together some of the participants responding to a questions. Often this is linked to the purpose of the event and what people learn while together. For example, if the conference is about collaborative leadership, ask participants, What is at the heart of collaborative leadership for you?

Since I’m asked often, I want to offer a compilation of a few that I’ve appreciated to inspire a few choices:

The New Mentality: Disable the Label — July 2012 (6 minutes)

The Art of Hosting Singapore — March 2012 (3 minutes)

Collective Story Harvest of the United Churches of Langley — March 2012 (5 minutes)

Day Two AoH Learning Event in St. Paul, MN — March 2012 (4 minutes)

The Finance Innovation Lab — February 2012 (9 minutes)

Me to We: Generosity Everyday — February 2012 (5 minutes)

Healthier Healthcare Systems — January 2012 (3 minutes — I don’t care for the first 30 seconds of this; it feels over dramatized and distracts from the fundamental essence of people turning to one another.)

The Art of Hosting Introduction, Egypt — June 2011 (4 minutes)

There is also a vast collection linked to the Art of Hosting website. It includes videos like the ones I describe above. It also includes longer, teaching videos.

I’ve recently learned some alternative explanations for this classic issue in quantum physics. Still appealing to me to think of the perceptual discipline to welcome both and invoke it to being.

• This is a good read from Alice Walker in YES Magazine. On wonder and the places that scare you. http://bit.ly/SxUQbh 
• There is an art to convening in faith communities. Skills. Important conversations. New narrative. Join us in Utah: http://bit.ly/SAJBex 
• Come to this year’s Bowen Island Art of Hosting: Participative Leadership and Social Collaboration. It’s Bowen! http://bit.ly/RyflDZ 
• An utterly fantastic article on awakening the mind and soul, by John O’Donahue. Sit with this one. http://bit.ly/MqBseW 
• http://yfrog.com/klvwpzvj  Seeing Wicked with Zoe. Dad / Daughter date at SLC’s Capitol Theatre.
• http://yfrog.com/mophawj  Gladiolas that I planted this year. One of my Mom’s favorites when I was a young(er) boy.