Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: blocking consensus

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

In a healthy community process, we  each speak our truths and we care enough
to listen to others with compassion. If a decision is overly hurtful to an
individual, as a group we care about that, and do our best to make it less
so. And when this happens trust is built that my groupmates care about me
and would not knowingly do something to hurt me. From this place of trust I
can share my concerns freely.

But this is sometimes an unrealized idealism. And sometimes people don't
really care about  each other, just  getting what they want. And people can
act in ways which inhibit the sharing of personal concerns and even
participation at all.

If telling your groupmates how much this decision is going to hurt you does
not bring up changes  and they move on past you  regularly, then your
relationship to the group is not well. It is easy to blame others for this,
but it may be that you own part of the cause of this as well. Self
examination and group examination of the relationship can help  mend it. But
be advised, this is painful work and requires a level of personal growth
commitment which may be tremendous.

Also, there are bottom line agendas which drive things sometimes. In
development  mode, the bottom line is getting it built, and frankly, most
groups needlessly stumble into painful  places trying to consensus on issues
that should be punted to professionals.

Also, once you move in, most decisions made can be changed later. One of the
key elements most people miss about consensus is that it is based in
humility. I can disagree, but I am not always right, in so by letting the
group know my thoughts, and letting them move ahead, even when I disagree,
there is learning. A year later, it could be that my disagreement issue is
well understood now, and the decision is changed. Or maybe, just maybe, I
was wrong, and what I thought or feared  might happen did not.

Most serious  blocks I have encountered were based in fear, usually of an
unknown or possible consequence. And of course, I have seen lots of blocks
used for personal advantage, to thwart a group from going a particular way
that an individual did not like.

After ten years of living in cohousing I guess in general my expectations
are that groups will make mistakes, and sometimes only by making the mistake
can the next level of learning  take place. I can give my perspective based
on what I know, and if the groups moves to do something I disagree with, I
pretty much just shrug it off and move into watchful evaluation to see what
the next should be once we have some experience.

Living in community is not for everybody, and so you need to recognize that
maybe you can't really ever be happy giving up control over some things and
that community is not the right place to be. The nice thing about most
cohousing is that the money investment is usually recoverable, and the
learning experience usually has some value.

Rob Sandelin


_______________________________________________
Cohousing-L mailing list
Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org  Unsubscribe  and other info:
http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l