When facilitating, I often have the urge to push participants to go deeper. Share more personal stories. Show the masked emotions. So, I frame my questions to elicit that depth. Sometimes it works gracefully. Other times, it all crashes. And then I hear my mentor, Guthrie Sayen’s voice in my head, saying, “Do not worship at the altar of vulnerability.” Agreed, Guthrie.
“I won’t do this. It’s painful. And unnecessary.” Saying this, a participant in one of my creative facilitation trainings walked out. I froze. I was confused. I had asked the group to explore a challenging situation in their life, and reflect on how they had grown. It was an exercise on resilience. But, I had hit a nerve with this person.
“When you asked us to share a memory of the neighborhood we grew up in, I found that so weird. I shared, but wondered what the point was,” said a client of ours while reflecting on a LATE NITE ART experience.
But then, she said: “When I look back, that remains my favorite moment of the evening. Our childhood is central to our identity. Yet, we don’t talk about it at work. She had learned a new way of being at work…
