Us and Them: Seeing Each Other, Seeing Ourselves
Our latest program, “Us and Them: Seeing Each Other, Seeing Ourselves,” brought Telling My Story into a whole new domain, and challenged us to grow as we collaborated with CATV, the local public television station of the Upper Valley. The program was run during the months of February, March, April, and May with a final presentation at the beginning of June. We met every Tuesday and Thursday at the Briggs Opera House and shared a dinner at the end of the sessions. Once again, we were generously supported by the Boloco restaurant. They would deliver our dinners to the Briggs Opera House. There are no words to thank their ongoing support of the work.
During the program, I had the privilege of working with 10 participants: 3 from CATV, and 6 community members from the UV, including 2 participants that came from vulnerable realities. The effort to bring unlike community members together was very present in the outreach from CATV and TMS. We were a rich group with very diverse backgrounds, ages and personal experiences.
We ran the TMS program in parallel to a series of workshops teaching us how to use filming equipment so people could make their own short recordings and documentaries from their daily lives. Every Tuesday was the space for TMS and every Thursday was the time to get immersed into filming. Together we prepared a final public presentation at the White River Junction Briggs Opera House where a solid audience heard the voices of the participants individually and as a community.
The process itself was surrounded by the challenge of me being sick throughout the time, however, the incredible support, flexibility and generous attitude produced an incredible community effort to come together despite adversity.
TMS had never had this kind of collaboration where the final presentation was directed and guided by others. I can’t say it was easy for me to let go and give over control. It was a real exercise in some of the core philosophies of Telling My Story: letting go of expectations, letting the process guide the result, and embracing collaboration and the voices of others. It is not easy to keep that discipline but necessary to find common grounds for self- empowerment and trust. It corroborates my belief that every time TMS collaborates with another organization, the process and program in general is significantly better because we are all willing to go beyond our comfort zone, an experience that is full of surprises and that teaches me, gives me hope, informs me, and expands my vision.
“we could create a place where we all felt we belonged.”
A moment that sticks out to me is when people didn’t understand why I was asking them to work in small groups with something not necessarily personal but something that certainly started with the self. People were motivated to think about it, but were not so excited about collaborating with others in a group. Still, everybody agreed to work in groups, and there was an incredible turning around of events when that room started to bubble with engaging conversations and sharing of personal experience in relationship with the world. At the end people couldn’t stop and their smiles – and the energy was high and contagious. This was the moment people understood why I was pushing to have a personal process being gently shared with others so, together, we could create a place where we all felt we belonged. We found the meaning and power of taking a leap of faith with and for others.
During the first month of the program, due to my unforeseen health issues, I was not able to participate in the workshops of CATV and was profoundly moved by the way Samantha, the leader of CATV, was always trying to connect the two experiences. Participants had the opportunity to take cameras to their homes to film moments, events, sights that were interesting to them. And we had a great showing of those short films that became an open door to each person- quite a powerful sharing.
Eventually people got divided into groups where they did recordings of their individual testimonials. It was a wonderful small group collaboration that motivated individuals to give directions to others in the group to convey the vision for the delivery of their testimonial. And we all saw the power of filming and the importance of speaking our own truth; of daring to speak up even when difficulties and miscommunications happen. The value of being willing to keep trying to take a leap of faith for and with others became the engine to move us forward as a group.
And TMS kept running its workshops as it always has, focusing on the themes of Seeing Each Other’s, Seeing Ourselves, we went deep into the sharing and listening. Going back and forth between the two workshop’s platforms was a delicate line to walk. Connecting them to make sense of the collaboration was a fascinating challenge. I have always said that TMS is an imperfect experience, meaning, we have always been able to build strong spaces for intimate and powerful sharing, and we build community. As with many collaborations, the challenges offered us a powerful opportunity to grow into something we never would have been able to otherwise.
As usual, going our own ways at the end of the workshops is not easy because the larger community, society, the world, is not in connection with what we have created. And we feel we are alone in relationship with the rest of the world. This is not easy to process, but we always conclude that even though it is difficult to face that reality, it is worthwhile going through the process as it takes us individually and as a group to places where we want to be. It is up to us individually to keep strengthening our inner voice and beliefs. That is the ultimate action for self-empower.
With all of this, collaborating with CATV took TMS to a new space. During the final presentation, we had a combination of filmed materials from all the participants; and we had live performances interwoven with those short films. The most memorable moment was at the very end when people of the audience were invited to participate in one of the main activities of the TMS practice. The audience didn’t hesitate to participate and the space became one for all people present: performers and audience listening and speaking, listening and speaking….
The pride people had when they first were assigned to create a skit in small groups, the
pride when people first improvised a testimonial to be recorded. The power of voice!
Saludos, health and much peace, Pati