Two weeks ago, I offered a session for Sandy Burg’s Learning Community on Different Kinds of Reflections, using processes mentioned in my March 27th blogpost:

1)      Presentation -15 minutes about reflections in Focusing in general and on listening for three qualities that are less traditionally reflected in Focusing:

A-Reflecting back qualities of aliveness

B-Reflecting back qualities of spaciousness or holding

C-Reflecting back qualities of luminosity or ‘greatness’

2)      Listening and Reflecting back.

We had two people volunteer to share for 3-5 minutes about either a challenge or a triumph of theirs - something that happened to them, not taking a formal Focusing turn.

 The rest of the group was assigned to listen for either A, B, or C.

After hearing the Speaker’s share, the Listeners went into breakout rooms with others listening for the same qualities to share and explore their perceptions with each other.

Everyone then came together to share with the whole group and the Speaker.

We did this twice, with the Listeners having a different assignment (A became B, B became C, and C became A) for the second Speaker, so that everyone could listen for a different quality.

[If we had time, we would have rotated a third time, to give everyone the experience of each of the three…]

As I had hoped, the participants learned from each other about these expanded ways of reflecting, similar to what I described in my Accelerated Group Learning blog post.

What surprised me was how moving it was for each speaker to receive reflections from the entire group in this way.

The words “symphony of reflections” came to me – as if one group was “playing the string instruments”, another “playing the woodwinds”, and another “playing the horns”. It was quite lovely and touching, deepening more and more as the reflectors continued to ‘light up’ more and more aspects of the speaker’s sharing.

“Everyone here should have this experience” is what one of the speakers said after hearing themselves reflected back in this multi-perspectival way. Many of us felt an expanded appreciation of the situation that the speaker shared about, and for the speakers themselves.

I encourage any of you who facilitate groups to try this in addition to the more traditional round-robin or breaking up into dyads or triads.  

Asking everyone in a group to reflect one speaker in a standard way can sometimes feels like a practice drill rather than resonant attunement and tends to lower the energy in a group.

On the other hand, each person or small group reflects back particular qualities allows a kind of differentiation that is coherent and expansive for the entire group. It is as if the scene expands more and more for all present.

Whether or not the Speaker is Focusing, or knows Focusing, as the Listeners are sensing into qualities of what the Speaker is sharing, they are, in a way, Focusing ‘with’ the Speaker. At the same time, this generates an  ‘amplified field’ that is focused towards one person, but involves the entire group – like one organism with different ‘sense organs.’

If you feel moved to experiment with this way to offer attuned attention to each other and access group synergy and learning at the same time, please let us know of your experiences!