What My Angels Do For Me

What do you need from the group this moment?

It's been several weeks since I helped a friend facilitate his workshop entitled "Race And Rage"; my processing of what transpired over those three days continues to deepen. For the opening activity of day three, I asked the seventeen participants to reflect on the work we'd done to that point and try to describe what they were feeling that morning. There was a lot of rawness in that room. Some folks struggled trying to articulate their feelings while others remained silent for the entire activity.

When strong emotions surfaced, I employed a technique I'd watched my gifted colleague use the day before under similar circumstances. I suggested we all pause and allow the moment to happen before the next person spoke. When one person had difficulty regaining composure after unpacking some deep rage, I sensed the group was waiting for what came next. Though I myself was unsure what that would be, the question opening this post suddenly came out of my mouth. And the answer that finally came was heartbreaking - "I don't know; nobody has ever asked me that before."

Who in your life gives you what you need emotionally? I learned many important things over those three days. Foremost, I re-learned how fortunate I am to have a few people in my life that give me what I need emotionally. In my moments, my angels do the same kind of things for me that all the other participants and the facilitators did for that person in that room on that morning - they remain connected, they don't fill in the space with words, they don't try to "fix" me.