Back In My Seat

A few weeks ago I held an Authentic Relating circle in Annapolis. A small room named after the Piscataway peoples. The Buddhist trinkets, the simmering pot of kitchari — it felt right. I had been looking forward to this night for months. A new space, new chapter for this offering I love so much.

After a round of sentence stems we came back into circle and everyone was sharing how delighted they were with the connections they had enjoyed. I asked if any of the participants had a different experience and one participant raised their hand and shared they disliked when a fellow participant refuted their experience.

During my facilitation, I had overheard the conversation that I believe they were referring to, and part of me was proud of them for bringing their experience in. While outwardly, I was able to stay with them in their experience, I now know inside I lost contact with myself and the room. Thoughts accelerated. Suddenly, I was managing and strategizing, disconnected from what I was actually experiencing; it was difficult to stay present.

This hadn't quite happened to me in this way while facilitating, so I could tell something was amiss, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I was carrying on with the practices outwardly in the world, but unable to slow down and come into contact with the corner of my inner world that felt disconnected in that moment. I didn't have the language for it then. But I do now.

A moment of contact with myself would've perhaps looked like admitting out loud that I had lost connection to myself and them. Or that my thoughts were speeding up. It might have started with something like "I notice something in me disconnected and I think my body is trying to send me a message." "Can we take a few deep breaths and be in silence for a moment?"

It might have looked like owning and revealing my need for slowness or silence in that moment. Or, it might have looked like closing my eyes for a few moments, letting my hand touch my heart, and narrating my somatic experience.

I believe after a few moments I might've landed on something like "I notice I feel guilt that I may have missed some instructions there at the beginning, I'd like to take responsibility for that" and letting that move through my body and through the room.

That is not what happened. The rest of the evening carried on, and I carried on missing from myself. And so something was missing from the room. Had I been able to name and reveal this, I would've been back in my seat. Not managing the room, but helping us attune organically to reality through my own truth.

To be honest, there was a moment afterwards of: Am I doing this right? But beyond regret or criticism, what's truer is that I want to learn what it takes to lead us into more wholeness, both individually and collectively. And it's exactly these moments that teach me and the room how to do that.

I now know I need to make room for the possibility, out loud, that even as a leader, I may lose contact with myself. That even with the best intentions, sometimes I miss the beat of my own experience. And I need to tell the people in the room what that looks like, and how I'll find my way back.

That evening ended with part of me missing. Everyone went home, and perhaps no one noticed, but I noticed. Most of all, I carry with me a clarity that the room is most complete when we are all in connection with ourselves, and a desire to do my part to bring myself in at every moment. These are the kinds of rooms I want to create, where we can trust each other to be in the practice of noticing when we go missing, inviting each other in with vulnerability, and finding our way back to ourselves and each other.