Guidelines for Cultivating Community Resonance
Written by Lauren Elizabeth Clare, with collaboration from Jung Starrett of SoulCo and Marina Seghetti of ParamitaLab
These guidelines for cultivating community resonance have been cultivated to support facilitators in sharing a warm welcome and warm expectations from the heart and building community as ethical and aesthetic space.
The grounding guidelines have been shared throughout the Presencing Institute hub host community for cultivating community resonance. They were developed by Jung Starrett and Charles Starrett at SoulCo, when they formed the Leadership for Business Transformation Hub of the Presencing Institute with Rafaela Rolim. They co-hosted weekly Hub meetings which opened with these guidelines to co-create a safe and respectful third space for cultivating collective leadership.
Marina Seghetti of ParamitaLab further developed the work of cultivating community resonance with ‘Grounds of Human Potential’ for the activities offered by ParamitaLab. ParamitaLab designs training programs and projects aimed at tangible and intangible human development, in the educational, organizational, and community fields and for building community as ethical and aesthetic space.
As facilitators practicing ethical and aesthetic space, we can sense/notice the beauty in the complexity and find meaning through the whole, as well as cultivate the value of each unique expression and making space so that all voices can be welcomed and heard. How might you adapt these guidelines to your context and invite participants to share from the heart?
Establishing Ground Rules from the heart
1 — Confidentiality: You can keep your own experience, but leave what other people have shared in the room.
2 — No expectations: Share if you feel there is something you want to say, but there is no expectation or obligation to speak. Your participation with your presence is already a gift.
3 — Presence: Participation here means being present and listening with your whole self; with an open mind (curiosity), an open heart (compassion) and an open will (courage).
4 — Sharing: We are not here to “correct” or give advice. Please speak as “I” (first person) — as you have the wisdom to see, hear and feel what wants to be shared in our space. Use statements like “I see…”, “I hear…”, or “I perceive”.
5 — Silence: Silence is part of conversation. Anyone can request “a pause” for the group to take a moment of silence at any time.
Deepen the ground rules through time
Theses six ‘Grounds of Human Potential’ are one of three ParlamitaLab principles. These are far-reaching attitudes or ‘transcendental actions’ performed in a eco-centric way, non-egocentric. Transcendental does not refer to an external reality, but to how we live and perceive the world.
Grounds of Giving
To learn that there is no work which does not involve giving. The quality of giving is truly an act of satisfaction that awakens well-being in oneself and in the receiver.
- Aimed at discovering what each one has, perhaps unrecognized, that is valuable for the other.
Ground of discipline
To establish the methods, procedures and rules that make it possible to deploy the principles that regulate quality in human relationships. Deepen the strongholds that are ordered in the right direction and with the right principles.
- Aimed at finding together the legalities that allow the respect and harmony of a group.
Ground of yielding
To accept and nurture differences. Develop the ability to tolerate with serenity the opinions or views of others and to take advantage of diversity to establish a possible alternative creative approach towards problems and projects.
- Aimed at deepening the perception of oneself and of the unacknowledged aspects of oneself; from this point on, acceptance is not only of the other, but starts with oneself.
Ground of perseverance
All insights/breakthroughs/discoveries must be able to develop and remain evolutionary. The point of arrival is always a plan to start a journey. This new crossing requires a motivation in which the open will is brought into play, in order not to interrupt or refuse in the face of obstacles.
- Aimed at strengthening the will and always finding new motivations, which involve unconsidered details.
Ground of presence
Concentration as a pivot against the vortexes and turbulences of the environment. Changes are necessary and beneficial. However, it can become a risk if anxiety and distress exceed tolerated levels.
- Aimed at fostering the development of inner forces, in the search for a stable point, in turn a fulcrum.
Ground of wisdom
Discernment between right and wrong in reference to what is good for the whole group and the extended community. This phase allows one to look at things in the long term and with a broader perspective. This is not just knowledge, but an awareness of order that allows a global view of problems.
- Aimed at achieving the ability to recognize the specific realization and resonance that allows for concrete, effective and long-lasting change over time.
These guidelines for cultivating community resonance are to support facilitators in sharing a warm welcome and warm expectations from the heart and building community as ethical and aesthetic space. At ParamitaLab they speak in terms of Ethical and Aesthetic space as «practice». Ethics and aesthetics go hand in hand, and they are one and the same.
On one hand, aesthetics is the perception of harmony and balance we have of our relationships, while ethics is our ability to perform actions that maintain that balanced and harmonious relationship. Aesthetics is the feeling of harmony, grace and peace with the other, ethics is the active feeling of respect for it. On the other hand, aesthetics is the ability to sense/notice the beauty in complexity. It is the capacity to find meaning through the whole.
In psychoanalysis it is assumed that there is always something beyond what is said. The discourse, etymologically, “com-plica”*. That is, it introduces folds. It is, in the Renaissance sense, a “complicatio”*. This complexity, more than scientific, is an aesthetic complexity: such as the complexity of a rose, or of a melody. It is not possible to understand a rose or a melody by analyzing it, by dissecting it. Its meaning lies precisely in its complexity, and not in the characteristics of the individual petal or note. Also in collective spaces, in order to sense the meaning, it is necessary to look at the beauty of the whole.
This means situating the technical-practical dimensions on the borderline between awareness practices and modes of existence, between styles of expression and lifestyles. From this understanding, the aesthetic, ethical, political, social and functional components are intertwined, acquiring meaning in the whole, and in relation to time, space, field, people and context.
Ethical space is a practice of valuing each unique expression and making space so that all voices can be welcomed and heard. Ethical space is founded on inquiry and active listening with discernment, and is maintained by group constructed aims and grounding guidelines that help in understanding why we come together and in understanding who benefits from participation in a community experience. Read more about this in ‘Cultivating Generative Communities’ HERE.
*from Latin complicatus “folded together; confused, intricate,” past participle of complicare “to involve,” literally “to fold together,” from com “with, together” (see com-) + plicare “to fold, weave” (from PIE root *plek- “to plait”).
