Running our first three-day intensive program with adults.
This January, we ran the first new intensive version of the traditional TMS program with adults. We met at the Kilton Library in West Lebanon over a period of 3 days. The group was composed of 11 people from diverse backgrounds but with similar educational experiences.
Our first session was full of smooth and fun moments. There were many fast decisions on my part to cut activities from the original list of “what to do” for the day as I was, and still am, designing the intensive version of the program.
This three-day version of the TMS program is intense and demanding to say the least, yet it better responds to the social availability people have from their working reality. I did miss the time to process and to sit with the experiences as we moved forward with the experience. Like any beginning, there is much space for improvement and important changes as we keep developing.
I am extremely proud and profoundly moved by the presence of every participant as I saw how we grew in confidence, trust, self-agency in the expression of the personal and group voice. This session brought people together with fun and accessible activities that energized the space and developed confidence and curiosity in one another. People were willing to dare and were present in mind and action throughout the session. The sharing of personal stories was generous, courageous, and intentional; it felt like people were there to make something happen. It was a time of lots of wondrous questions about what was happening as I tried to make the point that the focus of the experience was in the process of being with others and not in a predetermined agenda. The idea is always to write the agenda together as we go. Participants laughed, got lost, expressed curiosity for one another in a responsible way, and were energized and motivated by one another with care and delicacy. But most importantly, people gave the time and space to listen to one another while withholding judgment, which I believe opened doors for everybody to take the leaps of faith we need to build trust. I was in awe and profoundly moved to witness such a process.
And we also had challenges as we listened and adapted to the needs of one another. Social fear is sad to witness and experience, and it is also important to acknowledge and respect it. From years of social isolation we have been experiencing, to trauma, to painful personal stories, to excitement for being in that space together we found ways to be with one another in acceptance, pain and joy. With that open and flexible attitude, people felt welcomed and accepted by one another, a very powerful and important achievement.
During the second session participants went deeper into the sharing and the practice of listening. The gentleness and powerful presence of everyone was so clear that trust and easiness kept strengthening the sharing even when in difficult moments and when in pain. We were able to take care of one another and to slow down when needed. In this way people were able to feel the space belonged to them- that they were not trying to fit but to belong.
I am profoundly moved by people’s ability and willingness to take a leap of faith and work as hard as they did dealing with the complexities of the themes we were addressing. These sessions confirmed to me the hunger we all feel to create spaces for our practice of humanism to grow. We are hungry for something different so we keep trying to create possibilities to nurture our hope and humanity.
The last day of work was a full day. We were together for 10+ hours as we continued to dig deeper into the sharing. We worked on making sense of the individual and group voices. The group wrote a manifesto and created a Talking Wall, which is a graffiti wall made out of cardboard boxes that is used as the backdrop to the final presentation. Also, every participant had prepared ahead of time a testimonial to share with their peers and to the audience. This moment has become profoundly special and powerful as, literally, everybody in the room is in the same boat: nobody has heard anyone else’s testimonial.
People brainstormed and wrote the manifesto while they were making the Talking Walls. They organized themselves and made decisions about how they wanted to deliver their texts. And they found the need to take breaks from sitting down, thinking and writing, to move and shake the body so they could keep going in this intense and demanding challenge. And I saw them dancing, moving and smiling- a wonderful and refreshing moment.
TMS has a structure for the final presentation that includes the main aspects of the process: an individual testimonial that each participant reads out loud, and a manifesto, which is read by all participants. And there is a proposed sequence to it. So we worked hard to organize the group to make it happen. And it did happen, but there were difficult, confusing and unbalanced moments that now need attention. And there are certainly many changes that need to happen to improve this version of the program.
I believe that we learn through doing, but I want to express my profound gratitude for the presence and courage of all the participants as they took a leap of faith with this new version of the program. They help me get to the place I am now where I can look at the necessary changes with excitement and hope.
The final presentation was moving and powerful. We had an attentive and supportive audience that was very motivated to engage in the after talk. Questions, reflections, and comments between the audience and participants created a reflective and wondrous space. My gratitude has no words to express it. Onward together to learn and to change!