Deborah
Thanks for sharing your story; it's inspired me to share one.
Last year--actually about 11 months ago--my organization, a national
non-profit, youth-serving org., had committed to a fundamental
transformation. We'd embraced a new mission, and had a series of day-long
workshops/trainings to learn together and get broad input into building a
shared vision of what we wanted to become.
The way we brought the element of "soul", "spirit" (or "going for the gut"
if you will) into our discussion in one such workshop was by collectively
rehearsing/ re-telling/remembering the (his)tory of what our journey had
been.
It was an incredible experience--the props the facilitator had brought in
to help tell the story--a backpack and a biking helmet--became,
unspokenly, our talking sticks, and as we passed them from person to
person, we reconstructed our journey, speaking from the heart. As a group
then, we mapped our current position as we charted the future.
As I write this, I realize that we have neglected these elements in recent
months--the story-telling, the deeper levels of dialogue, the honest
communication that we had in those meeting. And it shows.
Curious to hear more about stories and soul and taking those risks.
-- Warm regards too, Kathy Toner National 4-H Council toner%smtpgate@fourhcouncil.edu