Facilitating Focus Challenges During Connection Practice

Connection practice is a facilitated group process designed to foster meaningful emotional connection. A place to practice active listening skills, witness vulnerability, compassion, and empathy. Where witnessing kindness unlocks parts of us, so we can sit with our own shame… our own mystery and be held by others. 

As a space owl (a co-facilitator available should a participant need one–on one support) I learned to hold space for a single person: listening tools, compassionate boundary setting, how sharing my own emotional response can calm and reassure folx aren’t alone. In the three years I’ve been practicing connection, the most transformative thing I’ve learned is how powerful simply holding space for someone can be. Gone the feeling of impotence when I couldn’t help someone with advice, or resources, or just “cheering them up”, that frustration of not being able to “help”.  Holding space had such an immediate and clear effect for folx suffering. 

Holding space: to witness another’s experience without judgement, with compassion and curiosity. Holding space requires emotional presence, which I don’t always have access to. So, It requires a certain amount of realism and self-reflection on my own state. 

It’s this nature of holding space, of focusing on one person and the challenge of moving from one-on-one to a group. One assumption baked into Connection Practice is serial focus: the group takes it in turn to focus on one person and hold space for them. Where the challenge occurs is when another participant other than the sharer becomes activated, and our focus becomes blurred. How then to hold space for two-or more? 

One of the things that makes this kind of situation emotionally challenging is it feels like caring for one person is at the expense of another. In addition, we are rarely without our own bias, and may be painfully aware of them. 

Here are a few approaches I have observed, which I feel are in alignment with Seek’s principles. 

• Be overt about our focusing. Reminding the group of our focus on “Billiam”, assuring Billiam of my own care and curiosity for them, ask how the share-back landed for them. 
• Reveal: what’s up for you right now. Concern for individuals, the group, how you look to others… 
• Seek consent: ask Billiam if it’s OK to take a pause to check in on others in the group, and then seeking permission from the whole group.  
• Check in with the whole group. What color are they, what feelings are up for them. 
• Seek consent to switch focus or ask if one-on-one focus would better suit anyone activated. 
• Take lots of breaths. 
• Lead a grounding exercise. 
• Be clear that this kind of focus switching is hard because our caring for one person can feel like it is at the expense of another. So, this will take some breathing and pausing and consent seeking and clarity around where our focus is. And demonstrating that we all are worthy of care. 
• Ruptures happen, they are normal and to be expected. It’s how we mend that counts. 

I’m sure there’s more and better approaches. I also have concerns regarding oppression, air time, and optics. 

I look forward to hearing from folx on this challenging topic.