In the Dark Times, Will There Also Be Gathering?
Yes, there will be gathering about the dark times
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Bringing people together is an act of bravery. Potluck, protest, meeting, class, birthday party – I don’t care! It’s all brave! I am hooked on that feeling. I feel like one of the best versions of myself when I’m hosting.
But there is always one moment as the best version of myself where I am also the most cowardly version of myself, and it is when a gathering I planned is happening at the exact same time as a disaster.
This disaster could be national or global. Fires, genocides, legislative rollbacks, a new development, something breaking, the news sitting in the pit of our chests. “Disaster” can also be so localized: interpersonal conflict, layoffs, a break-in, losing someone who died, losing someone who left, losing someone who was asked to leave. What timing! What luck! Why me? Why us? Anyone want to do a creative warmup now? Etc.
I find myself thinking: it would be wrong to come together at a time like this. I triage:
Should we postpone?
Shorten?
Cancel?
Acknowledge?
Should we skip the part where everyone was going to pass a dance move around the circle?
Should we disband completely, because suddenly the total pointlessness of this book club, this collective, this recurring call is completely and totally clear to me now?
The loudest question of all is: should we address this or not?
Maybe you are of heartier stock than me, but even articulating this question zaps fear into my heart. I notice an escalation of worst-case scenario assumptions:
The acknowledgement of the Bad Thing Happening won’t be done correctly
But it will bum everybody out more than it would if we just pretended as if nothing was happening
Once we are in the space made to acknowledge/mourn/process, we will never be able to stop
We might not ever get to the thing we were gathering to do
And I’m not sure I can hold everything that comes out. I’m not a therapist. I’m not a genius. And I am feeling pain too.
The power of groupfeel
Emotions, when given the chance to exhale on a group scale, create their own gravity. They validate and deepen a sense of belonging. Others feel the same way I do. They enhance and stoke. I didn’t think about that before, but now I feel even more worried/excited/inspired/sad. They vibrate when they oppose each other. I couldn’t agree less, and now on top of feeling awful I know others here don’t even feel what I feel.
And while they’re doing all of these things, they’re also doing something else gigantic: they architect a shared reality for a group of people to now operate in together. When we know how others feel in a group, when we all name the thing we are all thinking about (or should be), we co-create the very landscape around us. Suddenly we are all in the same room together, realitywise.
Gathering in the dark times, and creating space to acknowledge the dark times, is important for the emotional health of a group for a few reasons. It:
Brings us into presence. Rather than wonder if anyone will bring up the thing or have it burning in the back of your mind, it becomes part of the named context for the gathering. It doesn’t hurt any less, but at least it’s here out in the front – not nagging you from the back.
Offers catharsis. Maybe there hasn’t been anywhere else you’ve gotten to express your feeling yet; I’ve experienced the power of this in resource groups after layoffs, bike rides after the election, meetings to process tension amongst volunteers.
Identifies others who you could connect with. Someone else feels the same way as you! The thing they said is exactly how you feel! Maybe you bump elbows with them after and keep chatting over a warm bev.
…or tension and opposite opinion in the room. While deeply uncomfortable and probably disappointing to know others feel differently than you, this is a key feature of the Realitymaking. It hurts, not helps, when a group doesn’t have a true picture of themselves.
Develops a shared sense of bounds. What we are and aren’t here to process today.
Elicits group capacity. If others are sharing their deep sadness and exhaustion, or deep invigoration and motivation, it does the groundwork for what might happen next. Maybe you do shorten the work part, or shift responsibilities between people, or give over the rest of the gathering to processing.
Gives us a break from being alone, or nonstop spiraling, or being alone while nonstop spiraling. While most of this piece explores engaging with difficult feelings together, there’s also an undeniable healing force in simply not being alone. Or not addressing the thing at all! One of my favorite memories after a friend died was driving to Philly with two cars of his close friends for a show, getting stomach aches after eating too much fried vegan food, and maybe not talking about him at all. Reprieve! Quiet healing! Sometimes we need it!
As facilitators and hosts, we have the power to choose what reality we allow a group of people to reside in together. I don’t like to assign more power to facilitators than we deserve, but this one feels pretty true! We’ve all experienced the room that has that feeling of unreality (usually it is also an office; more on this next) because a huge, leering elephant is not being acknowledged. It can feel terrible and disorienting to be in rooms like those; like we have to leave entire parts of ourselves outside.
The weight of creating the space we wish existed
Because so many of our institutions like school or work famously wallpaper over reality – business as usual, this is fine meme, please revise your work while also switching between tabs about war and natural disaster and political collapse – I notice in any alternative space an almost frenetic commitment to group catharsis. We create the space we wish existed. I love this commitment, prickle with the charge of it myself, and also resent the impossible weight this places on any organizer trying to give a hoot about people’s feelings in a world that mostly doesn’t.
When I squint at my initial reaction to gathering in dark times (cancel? switch up the entire plan? disband, run into night?), the weight of this expectation sits at the heart of it for me. To carve out a capacious enough space for all this grief, all this feeling, when nobody else is, and to do it right. What a lonely and high stakes thing.
Something key here, at least for me, resides in the spectrum of ways we can hold the dark times while also gathering.
I’ll often hear organizers say something like: “If I were to make space to process what’s going on, we’d be doing it every week. There’s always something going on! There’s never not a need to express how we are feeling about it!”
So maybe one antidote is more space, and more types of space, held by more of us, more often. Not less, not more selective or right place/right time, but generous, creative, flexible, squishy, ready-to-go space.
Here are some variations and ideas I’m exploring:
Gather early or stay late for anyone wanting to process together. Adding bumpers to either side of the gathering allows people to come together organically and get ready to be present.
Be clear about what facilitators can support. I’ve appreciated trainings where facilitators share something like “If something comes up for you that makes it difficult to be present during this experience, we invite you to step away and take care of your needs. We won’t have capacity to address this during the training, but will have a Q&A at the end for any questions that come up.” Some facilitators offer to stay late or make themselves available for 1:1 support. This feels like such a responsible, dignified way for everyone to take responsibility for their experience during a gathering.
Create standalone times dedicated wholly to processing. Today we’re going to still be focusing on X, but have created time on Friday for folks to come together and talk about what’s on their hearts.
Express feelings through writing. Put up post-its with a word you’re feeling. Add what’s on your mind to a shared digital workspace. Promp folks to write by themselves in a journal, and share what they wrote with someone else. Shifting the medium like this can be a transformative (and refreshing) push to help people articulate what they’re feeling.
Make The Processing an onramp into the core activity. After a massive leadership transition at the co–op, we invited people to share as many fears and worst case scenarios they could think up. This became essential fodder for what came next: building scenarios that mitigated these fears.
Call in other support. No shame in calling in another facilitator, therapist, friend, or leader for backup.
Permanently embed feelings into how you gather. If you’re always beginning with an opportunity for folks to share how they’re feeling (what’s your weather like today? A friend also just shared the framework of: rate the state of your mind/body/heart out of 10), it will feel less forced to make space for processing. It is just always happening. It is always part of how you come into being together.
Redirect processing to other sources. That feeling of not wanting to do this alone, or not feeling qualified enough? Lean into that! You don’t have to do this alone or be everything to everyone. Look to the sources that might be solely dedicated to offering support; often this might be healthcare or mental health related orgs. Put some love and thought into how you share these resources; we’ve all seen the half-hearted “If you’re feeling overwhelmed, download BetterHelp in the Apple store right now :)” type offers.
Mobilize feeling towards an action. Make your event a fundraiser or start to a giving circle or chance for others to volunteer (i.e. everyone bring something to build warming kits together, cardwriting to incarcerated folks near you or a loving card to send to your local Pride Center). Hopefully, probably, the thing itself you’re gathering for is in service of building a better world – so maybe you don’t have to look too far for this.
Remove power from the host role and divert it to others. File under “it is lonely to hold space for others all by yourself”. Especially if you don’t hold a particular specialty in mental health or facilitation! There is great wisdom and power in the group. Pair people up, create small groups, invite folks to raise their hands if they want to dive in deeper together outside of the gathering.
Play with the scope of how processing happens. It doesn’t just need to be one big discussion circle. It could look like a movement exercise, a meditative reflection, coming off mute to yelp and cry or laugh.
How to use all of this: Run through all of it throughout a year and see what you like and/or hate. Mix and match them for a gathering of your choice. Consider it a checklist before hosting; move over these options ouija-board like and see what’s drawing you in.
Most importantly: add these possibilities to that list of questions that begin with “Cancel? Postpone?” Let them expand how we might express feelings in group spaces together, and most of all: let them be compelling alternatives to cancelling in the dark times.
p.s. let me know what you would add to this list!
p.p.s. This piece’s title is a riff on the poem Motto by Bertolt Brecht
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Loving the idea of posting a one-word or one-phrase feeling on a post-it or in a zoom chat. Gonna look for opportunity to incorporate that into a meeting this year.
This is really lovely and also the part about the folded poster made me laugh