Ruths Thoughts Day 9

Ruth Ben-Tovim
THOUGHTS AFTER 3 DAYS

I’ve decided to think about my own sensations as a measure of perhaps what I imagine might be going on in the group this week. Recent work I’ve been exploring – process work by Arnold Mindell talks about the fact that when we are in a group and feeling or sensing things we are often doing that for the group, that the I and the we is really not as separate as we imagine… so the idea that within me are all the same disparate voices/components as there are in a group of 10, or even 10,000.

So I’ve been feeling quite a lot of conflicting sensations this week… some of which I’ve been initially pushing under the carpet thinking they were just my ego playing up….feelings of where do I fit in this week, whats my contribution, what can I offer, which of my skills should I bring here, how much should I intervene, should I lead, how much should I lead, is that useful…

I’ve been in a bit of a fog for the first three days, a pleasurable fog, exciting, stimulating but at end of day three a fog that I feel the need to try and see my way through cos Im not sure that being in the fog is where I want to be for the last two days and I think that some simple framing of group process might allow me and the group to go further in its investigation…

To help me think through my sensations last night I decided to use the frame of the task that Jem set… the What if frame…

Yesterday in the What IF task that Jem set I spent my time exploring a what if around children/adult relationships in a durational task… so the What ifs were focusing on a creative exploration… I was struck by hearing about Leah’s what ifs on the way home that she had asked questions like what if I had 100 mums and dads or what If I was a monster… and my own what ifs had stayed within the frame of a creative task that could be explored this week…

So inspired by Leahs broader what ifs.. Last night my what ifs were focused around the overall wider group process..

What if we divided up the roles of being and making work together

What if those roles were a) Chair person… keeping time, keeping on task, being aware of the overall aims – day/week/task , making sure all contributions are heard/all voices, looking out for group dyhnamics .. reading the group, feeling/observing where the groups energy is and naming that b) Creative leading/directing… could be one person leading a task, could be that the group decides to let leadership evolve organically with individuals having permission to follow their own instincts. c) Documenting – being responsible for making decisions about how each session is going to be documented and doing some of it d) Dramaturgy – moving the conceptual frame along./working with the leader/ mirroring and framing the creative explorations


Perhaps this what if articulates for me some of what I’ve observed and been reacting to … that there was a stated intention at the beginning of the week to ‘share leading’ but the frame for this wasn’t articulated so its been a bit sink or swim in terms of people doing that or not… there has been a hesitancy around who’s leading all decisions from how do we make a group decision to start after lunch to making decisions about when to stop something like the book exercise a bluring of the making decisions about how to work/lead creatively and how to work/lead/function as a group of people in a space..

It seems that Charlotte is used to doing all of the above roles and that part of this research and development process is about which and how she might let go of some of them to allow others to experience leading…. I have observed that without a clearer articulation of roles then Charlotte has been diving in and out of doing most of the above but then self censoring and feeling that she’d been doing something wrong.. and I’ve been hovering around should I come in or not and maybe others have as well….

So after day three I feel that a laying bare of whats the process of leadership that needs to be explored here on the floor and also on the sofa..

As I write this Charlotte comes over.. and seems to share something of these sensations im trying to articulate… something about being caught between inhibition and action……..between inhibition/action and coersion……

My other What if refers to beginning each week afresh.. I’ve felt a bit under the shadow of last week… trying to get inside the experience, to be able to add to it I’ve felt the presence of Wendy or what people have been quoting Wendy as saying so I’ve also been trying to get inside wendys experience or ideas even though she’s not been here.. I’ve been aware of sometimes feeling that I missed out or missed something…..that its taken a while for this week to be present and last week to fade so…. mdirection….the existence of a collective experience that I’ve wanted to try and understand/ build on / contribute to