Giving Soulfood #26

With great power comes great responsibility.

unknown

Hey guys,

Today’s quote is something that we all actually should be rather familiar with, but for me, it was only recently that I realised how true it actually is.

With this being the COVID-19 season, so many workshops and conversation series have gone online, and I’ve taken part in quite a number of them. I mean it’s all online and I no longer have to factor in travelling time so what better time than now to get into these conversations and talk to people right?

And one thing I’ve noticed emerged as a pattern is how much I enjoy a session very often depends on one single factor alone, and it’s not the content. It is the facilitator.

I think that very often, when we take part in these conversations, it often is a bringing together of complete strangers, yet creating that safe space to get them to share some rather intimate stories. And from what I see, whether the group eventually becomes tight enough for us to start sharing, depends on the facilitator.

The way I see it, in this context, the facil is the one with the power, because in a way, he is part of the organising team and hence the team leader in that sense. In that sense, the responsibility of building that safe space and engaging participants now falls on him and he now has an impact on how fulfilling the session can be.

I’m not discrediting facilitators, I really am not. Online engagement is difficult. I just haven’t got my thoughts on this issue all straightened out yet, but I just wanted to share what I have at the moment. And honestly, the only thing I was thinking about while I was preparing this was the irony that now, whenever I am going for an online conversation session, the question that occupies my mind is not about how much I can take away from the session content wise, it’s whether my facil will be good.

PS I just wanted to clarify. First of all, this quote is super well known. Second, for those who look at the credits, I put ‘unknown’ because I have no idea who actually said it first. It could be Spiderman, it could be the bible, I really don’t know so if you do, please do let me know and I’ll be more than happy to edit the picture.