What I love to do is to connect with others and share what scares us or what excites us or what makes us dissolve with sorrow or collapse with laughter. To me this is the heart of being human and serves to cement relationships and deepen friendships. Sometimes, some of this does happen kind of accidentally when I have to attend a gathering but often it really doesn't really happen at all and I feel so disappointed by that.
The Art of Gathering
I recently read master facilitator, Priya Parker's book, The Art of Gathering and then, today, I listened to the fabulous Brené Brown interviewing Priya Parker on her podcast. It was so timely and lovely to hear.
Their discussion absolutely nailed my feelings and thoughts about a thing that I tend to avoid: attending gatherings that lack purpose and are basically just people doing something together in one place, hoping, perhaps, to connect with each other but with no real plan on how to make that happen. Also. there may be people there who believe the purpose is something else, something I am not signed up to, like getting really drunk or gathering material for a good gossip later on.
In those situations I yearn for a structure and some rules about how to behave and what to do and so I rattle about having conversations about random things, often 'safe' topics like curtains or holidays, or creating awkwardness in others by trying to talk about something that actually matter to me or them and feeling all the while as if I am breaking some unwritten rule of engagement
We need to have an agreed purpose for the gathering
Priya suggests that we should be explicit about what we are gathering for - about the purpose for the gathering. If people understand and are signed up to that purpose only then can they become a group rather than a collection of individuals with different agendas. The people in the group don't need to be similar to each other in the first place - they cohere as a group through their commitment to shared purpose.
We need structure and rules for a gathering that support the purpose
Priya also puts forward a very convincing argument for having some rules and structure for how a gathering is going to proceed. If we know what the rules are , what's going to happen when and we understand how they support our common purpose then we will follow them.
Creating an experience that aims to help people connect
Priya shares an example of a woman whose father had died and she returned after being with her family in her home town back to her own neighbourhood and found that she was feeling really isolated from her various friends and colleagues.
So she invited them to come to her home, she explained that she would be sharing some stories about her father with them so that they would understand her better. They had a choice whether to accept her invitation or not to but they knew what the purpose was before they came. She told her stories and then invited them to tell theirs about their parents. Then they ate supper together enriched by their deeper understanding of each other.
This might sound like a self-centred act on her part. However, it actually took a willingness on her part to show her vulnerability and a real generosity in seeking to share her personal relationship with her Dad and offering this space for connection to her friends.
The importance of structure to support the purpose
In my experience, when we connect we all benefit. In psychotherapy training our shared purpose in many of our gatherings is to understand ourselves and our fellow trainees better. This entailed us being willing to show our vulnerability to each other in the group in order that this would deepen our understanding of ourselves and each-other. We were given a structure and some rules to support this process so that we could do this safely and access support if we became overwhelmed in the process, which did happen.
Interestingly a small group of us went away for a weekend to stay somewhere together without the forethought to plan how the structures would hold our group purpose, or even to discuss and agree that purpose and as a consequence there was conflict and uncertainty and a few fallings out with each other. We floundered rather without our tutors providing the structure and rules for our gathering and omitted to do that ourselves.
Establishing a shared purpose for our community gathering at After the Storm.
So I started to think about how this might apply to us as bereaved parents at After the Storm
Firstly - bereaved parents are not a homogenous group but a collection of people with all kinds of values, beliefs and life experiences. We do share one experience in common and our reactions and responses to the death of our son or daughter are also very individual.
So how might it benefit us to gather together in a networked community such as After the Storm? To know this we need to know what the purpose is for the community itself and then, within that, to know what each group and meeting that we create within the community is aiming to achieve.
Once we know the purpose, structures and rules can be created with an aim of supporting and protecting that purpose and giving clarity to the group members on how to engage in the community and its meetings and groups.
So what do I want us to be able to achieve for ourselves in After the Storm?
To feel more connected to friends and family.
To have a sense of purpose in our lives.
To be able to put down the masks that we wear.
To make changes in our lives to reconnect with joy and meaning.
To understand and communicate our own needs.
To stay connected through our relationship with our child.
This is quite a list. These six aims are interconnected aspects of learning to live better with profound loss through connection after the death of a child. If I can communicate that purpose to others than they can decide if they support that purpose and want to participate in the community.
Learning to live better with profound loss through connection
So, if learning to live better with profound loss through connection is our purpose then I will use my power as the host to protect and fulfil this purpose in order to serve the group. I will set up structures and create the initial guiding rules for the gatherings in our meeting spaces.
The activities we participate in whether talking, creating, planning or learning will all be inspired by our shared purpose and each will focus on making progress with one or more of the six aims. So the gatherings where these activities take place within the community whether in chat areas, posting forums, Zoom meetings or (later) in person meetings will all be about community in action learning to live better with the profound and traumatic loss of a precious son or daughter through our connection with each other.