The Facilitator’s Life
Is each day a whirlwind? Do countless competing demands rule your calendar? It wouldn’t be surprising to hear you put groups, colleagues, friends and family first. Rendering you last…
Yet, “to facilitate” means “to make easy or less difficult or more easily achieved” (Oxford English Reference Dictionary). Begging the question – what are we as facilitators doing to smooth our own lives?
Are You Alive or Lively?
Those inspired by a mission or cause tend to assume multi-tasking enables us to endlessly juggle myriad responsibilities without consequence.
Not true! We must instead practice extreme self-care. Does this sound self-indulgent? If so, remember the airline adage to don your oxygen mask during crisis. In this case, the “emergency” is your sustained ability to perform your important contributions.
Bringing us to a key distinction… “Liveliness” refers to vigorous and energetic. “Aliveness” in turn encompasses “living, not dead”.
Do you choose to be merely alive – or full of life?
The Opportunity
If you want lively, step off your “crazy busy” treadmill and reflect on what’s really important. Now! As Rainer Maria Rilke’s proposes: “There is only one journey; going inside.”
Here – some encouragements I offer at wellness conferences, team-building retreats and personal growth workshops:
Examine your thoughts. We’re said to have 60,000 thoughts per day. Be watchful. You literally create your reality.
Name what blocks you. Is fear or doubt a familiar companion? Get beneath how you sabotage success and heal your wounded recesses.
Identify daily energizers. Brainstorm enhancing activities in two, five, fifteen and half-hour increments. Pinpoint tolerations (energy drains in your environment, work, relationships, finances, etc). Vow to eliminate them.
Further, notice how your inner wisdom responds to these invitations to summon connection to your deeper calling:
1. I am most myself when __________________________________.
2. My mission needs the quality of ______________________________ from me.
3. I would like to change in the world __________________________________.
The Call to Action
You know, up to three years ago, I was seriously joy-challenged. The last person who should teach “let go and lighten up” J
As such, Buckminster Fuller’s term, “precession”, makes perfect sense. It denotes a series of small steps leading to an astonishing, unforeseen conclusion.
Though many would love to imagine otherwise, uncovering your liveliness isn’t an overnight phenomenon. Across 52 years so far, expansion has been measured by my courageous willingness to uproot beliefs and attitudes which no longer support my higher purpose. Such “scouring” isn’t necessarily easy but always worthwhile.
In closing, let me ask: Why do you continue your work? Without knowing you (yet), I gather facilitation expresses part of Who You Really Are. You’re undoubtedly a “guiding light” who invokes transformation through personal example.
To support your passionate bravery, William Barkley writes: “There are two great days in a person’s life – when we are born and we discover why.” Joseph Campbell adds: “When you follow your bliss, doors will open where you would not have thought there were doors.”
The world awaits you.
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