Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: improving group dynamics?

[Saoirse (ccharis]

Elaine --

It sounds like you were discouraged by the response to the term "group
thinking."

I wonder if it is at all helpful to frame this as a possible "voice of
experience" and not something personal to you. I have lived through the
years of using phrases in innocence and having them cause a "reaction."
Possible responses: be more aware of phrases, stop talking altogether, say
what I want and ignore the reaction, etc.

I'd say I've done all of that, probably more than I realize. I get tired
sometimes of being careful, but I also get tired of fielding the reactions.
So I try to think about possible reactions, change my wording when I can,
and always, always try to remember that it doesn't work very well for me
when I take things personally.

Do keep the questions going. You know the quote by Rainer Marie Rilke?

"Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the
questions themselves ... Don't search for the answers, which could not be
given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point
it, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps, then, someday far
in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way
into the answer."

So I work at embracing the questions, most particularly in cohousing. I see
them all as possibilities ...

Saoirse
Harmony Village
Golden, Colorado




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