Re: Refining concerns / needs/expressing feelings
From: Sharon Villines (sharonsharonvillines.com)
Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2003 10:45:02 -0600 (MDT)
On 7/20/03 10:52 AM, "Racheli Gai" <racheli [at] sonoracohousing.com> wrote:

> You have LOTS of members who object to showing/discussing feelings in
> meeting?!  This doesn't sound good.  We have some, but luckily not many...
> and I think that even some of these saw (to some extent, at least) the
> error of their ways after every process consultant we worked with told us
> that allowing feelings to show, and using it as a source of information is
> a crucial part of the decision-making process.   Ignoring people's
> emotions often seems to make progress on an issue virtually impossible.

We had Laird Schaub in for a weekend workshop and he zeroed in right away
that we don¹t do any "heavy lifting" -- we avoid the real issues which are
usually emotional. We did a long weekend of very heavy lifting but it was
very hard to maintain when he left (and we were exhausted and fractured).
While we have excellent meeting facilitators, none of them deal with
feelings. I find it very difficult but the solutions are not easy.

We are also a new community. Some of us just met less than 3 years ago and
many had no idea what they were getting into -- not just in terms of
community and people issues, but in terms of running what is now probably an
$8 million dollar real estate development.

We have a lot of members who had never owned a house or been responsible for
either real estate or a family. Some had never lived alone with full
responsibility for a household. Those concerns are uppermost until we had
physical functioning. Learning how to use and car for our ground-source heat
pumps that none of us knew anything about. Explaining sump pumps and why
they have to be monitored. Why alcohol should not be left in the fridge with
teens (ours and others) wandering in and out of the commonhouse. Why you
can't just park where ever you want in the parking lot. Why most things work
better in groups if you have a regular schedule, plan ahead, and
communicate. Why you cannot leave a box cutter hanging on a rope from the
lid of the cardboard recycling bin when children are around (or ever!).

Cohousing is much more complicated than core needs. Knowing whose core needs
are safety and whose are predictability sort of goes down the drain when all
the basements are flooded (again) and the sump pumps have burned out and it
is Sunday and the source is not open.

Despite all of that we have a good community and personal family needs are
responded to quickly and efficiently. If anyone has a new baby, a broken
rib, a death (people or pets), a broken rib, or any emergency, we have
excellent response systems. We know who is the best person to approach whom
with what concern privately.

Somehow the place works and no one is voluntarily moving out (well, maybe
one who never quite got connected in the first place and then married
someone who never wanted to be connected).

Sharon
-- 
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org

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