Facilitation: Holding the Heart of the Whole
What does a facilitator do?
In my long hunt for a job title that effectively captures my purpose and desire to serve, I eventually settled on two: facilitator and coach. In essence, these are the same skillset but spun for different audiences or different parts of the creative lifecycle. In this post, I’m going to specifically dig into facilitation: what it means (to me), how I came to it, my influences and training, and what the work actually looks like.
Photo from a backpacking trip in New Hampshire, July 2022
In simple terms, Facilitation is the practice of making things easy (or, easier).
Its Latin root word, facilis, means easy or simple. The function of a facilitator, then, is to simplify a process or experience for the benefit of the participants and stakeholders. There are many different models of facilitation, which is part leadership, part communication, part ritual, and part caretaker.
The models of facilitation I favor tend to emphasize gathering in circles, creating safe spaces to speak freely, and using specific rituals or symbols to ground our practices. This is the way we as humans have been gathering for generations, anytime we are trying to come together around a common purpose or figuring out how to share an intimate space or enclosed system. Sometimes those circles have a table in the middle, sometimes a campfire, sometimes an altar or a baptismal bath, sometimes a dance floor.
The paradox of a circle is that it is an equalizer and unifier: rather than a hierarchical or linear structure, everyone around the edge of the circle is holding that edge together equally and evenly. Subconsciously, this signals equal value and equal balance of power. And this is true!
At the same time, what makes the edges of a circle equal? Their distance from the center. The completeness of a circle, the perfection of that 360-degree shape, is held together by its edges and its center. Not hierarchically, but interdependently.
A communal gathering space at a farm I stayed at in North Carolina in 2021 (ironically, I was there solo)
The role of the facilitator in a group setting is to mind the center. To establish it at the beginning, tend to it for the duration, and bring it home safely at the end.
What this does is allow for the rest of the circle, everyone around that edge, to relax into those boundaries and trust that they are safely held. It mitigates the need for each member of the circle to continually monitor the process and monitor each other. If the circle trusts the facilitator to facilitate, they are then free to flow within it.
I say it mitigates the need for co-monitoring; however, it doesn’t eliminate it. Part of the skill of a facilitator is how they spread the load of facilitation around the circle by establishing the norms for how we behave toward each other in this space. This way the facilitator avoids centering themselves instead of the whole. It is that mutual accountability between the circle and the center that holds the whole together.
Who needs facilitators?
Typically, I use facilitation to describe what I do with groups, and coaching to describe what I do with individuals. That isn’t to say I couldn’t facilitate one person or coach a group, but facilitating one-on-one would not look exactly the same as coaching, and vice versa.
Facilitators come in handy for three common situations:
Mediation
Sometimes, a facilitator can be an outsider brought into an in-group that is experiencing some kind of internal disagreement or dissonance that they haven’t been able to work out themselves. Facilitators bring tools, exercises and models for communicating feelings, addressing conflict, and breaking out of old patterns. The majority of the heavy lifting is still done by the group itself, but the facilitator acts as a neutral or objective touchpoint and keeps things from veering off track while synthesizing the complexity.Transition
Transition and succession is part of the natural lifecycle of any living thing and any living system, and metamorphosis is not always pretty or clear-cut. In these situations, facilitators can act as navigators helping to scout and clear the path from Point A to Point Z. They can bring their experience helping others through similar transitions to give guidance and order where there might be questions and chaos. Simplifying includes the process of finding clarity through the murkiness of a transition.Hosting
Facilitation can also be about having fun! In some cases, a facilitator may act more like the emcee or host, providing hospitality and setting the stage for the participants to shine. A facilitator might help take the load off of organizing a gathering and seeing to logistics so that the main purpose of the gathering can be in focus. If you’ve ever experienced the feeling of not being able to enjoy a party you’ve thrown because you’re too busy trying to pull it all off, you can appreciate the value of a facilitator to keep things running smoothly and let you relax in your own environment.
How is facilitation done?
It’s an art, it’s a discipline, it’s a careful mindful practice, and it’s a dance. Some examples of the tools of facilitation include:
Agendas: For gatherings that have specific objectives attached, or that need to happen on a certain timeframe, agendas establish the flow of events and topics, as well as documentation of the discussion to reference later.
Ritual Practices: Lighting a candle, sounding a bell, doing breathwork, or simply taking attendance and checking in with small talk — ritual practices signal that we are in a specific time and place, with specific rules that we’ve agreed to be mindful of.
Shared Symbols: For example, using a tangible item like a stone to denote whose turn it is to speak, or having items in the center of the circle to represent certain topics or concepts with the intention of holding them in focus. A shared symbol could also be a mantra, phrase or song used as a common refrain to bring a group into harmony.
Timekeeping: This is a BIG one! As annoying as it is, time is a finite resource for most of us. Creative time, or imagined time, and clock time don’t always align. Monitoring the flow of a particular gathering, discussion, or event, and how that lines up against actual clock time, is a powerful piece of facilitation magic. Good timekeeping can help make an event or process feel complete.
Vibes-watching: Similar to monitoring the clock, a facilitator monitors the emotional pulse of the circle and takes note of any dissonance, skipped beats, or energies that aren’t harmonizing, so they might be brought back into alignment. A facilitator also becomes a trusted person that any individual in the group can come to with private grievances or concerns.
Giving & Receiving Feedback: Facilitators model best practices for speaking both the good and the bad, and for receiving it. While a facilitator does hold the center of a circle, they are also responsive to the circle and its needs. Being able to give and receive feedback is key to that.
My Facilitation Training and Experience
I’ve been through a few different models of organizational leadership, going back as far as my high school years when I was in Jr. ROTC and studying the structure of the U.S. military (which, if you’re curious, I never followed through and joined), then on to student organizations in college, to corporate committees in the workplace, and most recently, serving on non-profit boards. My most formal training in facilitation came via Women Writing for (a) Change, a Cincinnati-based writing organization founded by Mary Pierce Brosmer, and their Conscious Feminine Leadership Academy program.
Throwback to when I was a baby facilitator in 2015, working on my practicum for my certification
I crossed paths with WWf(a)C at a time when the organization itself was going through a leadership transition, with Mary stepping back and new leaders stepping in to determine what the future of the school would look like. This would turn out to be a pattern in my life and is part of why I feel karmically “matched with” facilitation as a role and niche. I seem to stumble right into metamorphoses-in-progress and feel called to find a way to help them along. It’s not for personal glory or reward, but for the sense of serving a greater good: the continuity of whatever magic or growth is happening here, the safe passage through this transformation, the sustainability of the underlying system.
I did my Conscious Feminine Leadership Academy training in 2015 and continued facilitating creative writing circles with that organization for several years following that, not only with women but co-ed groups too. While I eventually moved on to other challenges and opportunities, and let my official certification lapse, the influence of that training is deeply embedded in how I go about my work. It is especially influential to how I consciously create space for both the Light and the Shadow of an experience, so as not to let shadows slowly gain power the more they’re kept in the dark.
I do sometimes still facilitate writing, specifically, and use the conscious feminine practices the way they were originally intended, but I also like to hybridize them with other practices and topics and bring them into new environments to see how they flow. Which brings me to…
Taking a leap is less scary when someone else goes with you. Navitat Canopy Adventures, North Carolina, 2021
The Magic of Co-Facilitation
I had a pretty extended “lone wolf” phase in my mid-to-late twenties, around the same time I was actively facilitating writing circles, while also working one-on-one as a writing coach. I felt like I had to prove that I knew what I was doing, and accepting or inviting help would be like admitting I was bluffing. I was also protecting myself from the pain of potentially letting someone else down - if I failed, I failed alone.
These days, my favorite thing in the world is co-facilitating an experience with one or more partners and getting invested in something together.
It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did, just how much an intention can be amplified by bringing others’ energies, wisdom, talents and enthusiasm into the mix. A success for one is a success for all.
And that attitude itself is a much better starting position for success than “Well, if I fail, at least I only failed myself.”
One of my explicit intentions with Futures by Felix is to connect with other people who want to host, or gather, or create, or otherwise manifest some kind of vision and just need a matching energy to carry that forward. Whether that’s something I facilitate with you myself, or I facilitate connecting you with someone who can, it brings me joy when I can help get you just that little bit further toward your horizon.
If this speaks to you, make sure you make your way over to that Contact page and drop me a message. I’d love to hear what you’re working on and where you’re stuck, and see if I can facilitate it. I look forward to continuing to grow as a facilitator through the magic of collaboration.
