During the 2002 Focusing International Conference, I attended Ellen Kirschner’s presentation on “Focusing and Architecture”. This was not an area that I knew anything about, but I figured that I would try something way out of my usual interests. As it turned out, I learned a great deal more than 'sensing architecture' - I learned a process for accelerated group learning!

The format was quite simple – Ellen spoke a bit, and then pointed to part of the room, and asked our group of about 15 people to get a felt sense of the room that we were in, and then to share, as a group, as something came for them.

When anyone shared, we would take that in and checked how it landed for us.

Nothing came for me, except perhaps the word ‘stupid’ – I definitely felt ignorant and blank…

After several minutes, as I continued to try sensing into the space and taking in the experiences and perceptions of others, I began to feel qualities of space.  “Wow, that feels a bit tight there”   Then checking “What might this need?” in a Focusing way, what came was “That chair needs to move a bit to the left”….

Perhaps you could say that the whole group was Focusing, we each would try on what someone said the same way that one would check a reflection that someone had given us..

We walked around the facility, continuing this process of sensing, reporting, checking – as a group.

By the end of the 90 minutes, I was surprised at how much felt sensitivity had developed in me around spatial orientation in rooms and structures.

The greatest learning for me was not the architectural sensitivity that I had gained, but an awareness of how this way of co-sensing can vastly accelerate learning something new for the entire group. Everyone was encouraged to share what they were sensing, all of us focused on the same general theme – that amplified the felt sense impressions. We acted as a large sensing and resonating body. Everyone learned from everyone; we picked up nuances that one person sensed, and began to make them our own.

For those of you who teach to groups or classrooms, here is another example - how my friend Beth Tener teaches Sarah Peyton’s Resonant Language listening work to people in organizations.

After describing some of the kinds of resonant language, 

 she will invite one person to tell the group a 3-5 minute story of something meaningful or challenging that happened to them.

Before that person speaks, others in the class are assigned to small groups, with task-related instructions:

“I want you three to listen for body sensations”

“And you three to listen for feelings and needs”

“And you three to listen for fresh metaphors”

“And you three to listen for Acknowledging What Is”

After the speaker is done, the small groups break up by theme and share with each other for a few minutes .

This allows the people in each small group to learn from each other in their group about the specific aspect they were listening for. There is no grading or evaluation, just learning! Nobody is put on the spot….

The small groups then come back together and offer what they heard to the speaker.

In this way, the speaker gets a quadraphonic series of reflections, while the entire group learns about all four of these types of Resonant Language with multiple examples and having practiced in a safe setting.

I hope that these two examples can help you design ways to help others to develop their capacity to learn new things - individually and collectively - in a remarkably rapid and connected manner.

Coming Attractions:

For those in Sandy’s Learning Community, on Monday April 21^st at 7 pm EST, I shall offer this shared co-sensing process as we explore dimensions of reflections that can deepen someone’s process (including Reflecting Aliveness, Reflecting Qualities of the space, and Reflecting Luminosity)