In this article Emmi goes through a few “games” a group can play to access and address our deeper feelings, or feelz. These are fairly simple and all you need is a group who is comfortable building intimacy.
Starting with The Three P’s.
Then you go around the circle and each person speaks to the three P’s. The three P’s are Personal, Political, and Professional.
Norms about things like cross-talk and confidentiality should be collectively established either in the beginning or each person can just clarify if they specifically don’t want people discussing their shares inside or out of the circle.
Next is Council.
Council is an inherently anti-authoritarian process rooted in mutual-aid and mutual respect and in this way is very resonant with the values of anarchism.
Their are four basic rules to council and two additional ones. The rules are: Listen from the heart Speak from the heart Be lean of expression (be concise) Be spontaneous (listen, don’t plan your share) The two additional ones are an agreed upon method of confidentiality (usually what you hear here, leave here unless you’ve asked the person whose story it is.) And the last one is acknowledge ripples, which basically means acknowledging that the work we do in the circle benefits the outer world and our inner worlds because the outer world is there with us in the circle just as we are with it.
One very interesting one is to have one person remain silent and observing throughout the council who has a special ability for creating consensus or picking up on themes or observing carefully. That person can take notes or just watch carefully and then in the final meta round they are just given the floor for an extended period of time basically to channel the energy of the group itself.
The above practices is something Quakers call Sense of the meeting.
The final practice is called Clearness.
Clearness committees show a type of deep valuing of one another that challenges the logic of capitalism and hyper-individualism. It invites us into a more collaborative and social form of individualism and centers the agency and autonomy of the individual and their knowledge of self.
The committee should be only about 4 people usually. One seeker (focus person), two questioners, and one note-taker is a common size.
The full details are available in the article.
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