Laceweb - Micro-experiences for Sharing Healing Ways

Posted Nov 1998. Last Updated April 2014.

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Self Help Action Rebuilding Wellbeing - A Micro-Project

CONTEXT

This document is expressed in very tentative terms because nothing contained in this document could happen unless the local Bougainville people want it.

EXPERIENTIAL SHARING OF MICRO-EXPERIENCES IN GROUP CONTEXTS

The following process may be used and imbedded firstly within the wider exploring of issues, themes, and priorities outlined in the Plans and Micro-projects contained in the above links, secondly, in sharing healing ways, and thirdly in evolving processes for creating trauma support networks throughout the SE Asia Oceania Australasia Region.

The model that may be used may be experienced as a collection of 'micro-experiences'.

Each micro-experience may:

have no 'cultural baggage', or what little there is, may be discarded
be simple to use,
get results
be easily passed on to others
be spontaneously merged with other micro-experiences and local healing ways
be spontaneously merged for holistic healing

Action research may be used - 'We try something and review the outcome'. We locals may evaluate outcomes and modify process if deemed appropriate

MATRIX ORGANISATION

Matrix - from the Greek word meaning place of nurturing, the womb - a multidimensional network.

Some features:

Voluntary Action by nurturers
No one is 'in charge', although everyone has a say
Shared accountability for unfolding action
Global multidirectional communicating
Multi-skilling and multi-tasking
Enacts local wisdoms about 'what works'
What 'fits' is repeated and consensually validated
Resonant with traditional indigenous ways
Organic - the survival of the fitting
Knowing includes the ever tentative unfolding
Organic roles - orchestrating, enabling
Locals may pass their new skills on to each other.
Most of the skills may be received via other locals. In this way skills may be 'filtered' through locals to ensure cultural appropriateness.
Skills may be passed on by locals to other locals
Enablers may take a role in linking groups of nurturers together.
Nurturing groups may soon begin sharing healing ways with other nurturing groups in the healing network.
In this way, evaluation by us locals may be built into every aspect of the Gathering
The total group of locals may separate into a number of small groups
Locals may select the micro-experiences we want to explore from the large range available through the enablers
Different groups may explore different micro-experience(s)
Locals may begin using/experiencing the micro-experience(s) after a 90 second briefing (a 'standard' we understand that is used by the enablers)
Locals may experience using the micro-experience(s) on themselves or others
Enablers may be a resource, if confirmation of a process is needed
Feedback may be given while a person is using a micro-experience or immediately afterwards
Feedback may be given at anytime by anyone present at the Gathering
We may explore our experience and the outcomes of giving and receiving a micro-experience, and make any changes we deem necessary
The 'receiving' local(s) may swap roles with the 'healing' local(s)
Each small group of locals may then become 'enablers' in passing on 'their set of micro-experiences' to each of the other groups.
After a time there may be a random shifting of locals between the small groups and shifting of the enabler working with a small group. By the end of the gathering, everyone may have worked with every local and enabler with whom they may want to work and who may want to work with them.
The experiential group process creates a context where enablers pass different skills to the different members of the various groups. Members of these groups then pass on the different skills to other members of the group. Then the skills are passed between the various groups. Note that patterns of transfer may vary between the groups.
After a time in this process, and if and when we are ready for it (which may vary within individuals and groups), locals may begin combining micro-experiences to evolve spontaneously appropriate healing ways. For example, if 'hands-on' processes are being used, other verbal and non-verbal rapport-building micro-experiences may be used simultaneously, in order to enrich the process.
Given the above processes are under way, any local person or small group may be involved in some one or more aspects of the above process. It is not a 'lock-synch' linear process. It tends to become eclectic. Our local needs and interests may guide content and timing.
We locals may acquire skills and pass them on while nurturing, supporting and healing ourselves and each other. Issues may be resolved during skills acquisition.
Laceweb experience has shown that all of the above processes may apply to young children as well. They too may very quickly acquire skills and pass them on to adults and other children. They may use them effectively within minutes. Whole families may work together as a unit to heal themselves.
The process may provide scope for those locals who may want to, to take on an enabler role within the local and other Bougainville communities.

Implications of the above experiential model

Assuming the Gathering divides up into say five small groups, locals may receive micro-experiences on a 4:1 ratio from other locals.

That is, we may have received one set of micro-experiences from an enabler within our small group. We may then receive another four sets of micro-experiences from local members of the other four groups. Four fifths of anything being received may be coming from other locals. Given that in our own groups we may be experiencing giving to and receiving from other locals, most of what we may 'absorb' may be coming from our peers. In so doing we are filtering the healing processes through our own cultural ways. So while the enablers may be the original source of the micro-experience, more than 80% of the sharing may be being received from other locals. The enablers may be a resource. But they are not the resource.

By the end of the Gathering we locals may:

know a number of micro-experiences
be able to use these skills effectively and may pass them on to others who, in turn, may use them effectively
We understand that the above process and the enablers 'way of being' tends to stop the enablers taking on a 'font of all wisdom' role. All things being equal, and if there is a desire for it, typically, we local participants may both experience and know that:

'Micro-experiences are easy to use.'
Members of our family and our local community, through our enabling action, may now be richer resources to each other
We may get more of what we want from the enablers when we want it and pass it on to each other.
The prospect is that we locals may be using the skills effectively within about 90 seconds of first hearing, feeling and seeing them. We understand that there is no 'grand theory' to learn, or be daunted by.
We may, we understand, be passing on our new skills literally within minutes of receiving them.
We may get instant feedback of results and may make any small changes that may further refine our skill.
These aspects of the process may be self-reinforcing.

Enabling rather than training

It may be noted that all of the above process differs from mainstream notions of 'training'.

The Gathering is not a 'training course'.

Enablers are not 'trainers.

We locals are not 'trainees'.

There is no set 'curriculum', though there is massive resources available

There is no 'syllabus'.

There is no 'fixed' agenda.

Rather, it may be an experiential gathering where:

We locals control content.
We may be learners, experience acquirers and experience sharers.
We may actually heal and nurturer ourselves in the process of acquiring and passing on experiences.
There may be an open agenda with the theme 'Healing Support for Bougainville Torture and Trauma Survivors.'
The specifics of content and process of the open agenda may evolve from the our local operative needs during the Gathering and from what may be appropriate within the varying contexts and energies that emerge during our time together.
The enablers may be resource people for the above process.
Enablers have a very large number of micro-experiences and healing ways that they may make available for us to select from.
It may well be that skills may be transferred into the wider Bougainville community using experiential processes similar to the above.
The healing network may start to enable self healing among the local community.
It may be that more and more people discover that they can change their wellbeing

LOCAL AND LATERALLY LINKED WELLBEING ACTION

Local Action may be linked to other Self Help Action in nearby Villages. The organisation of the informal networks may be 'flat' with local and lateral links to other actions. Refer Sociograms - Figures Depicting the Evolving of Indigenous/Small Minority Healing Networks in SE Asia Australia Pacific.

CONTEXTUAL MATERIAL

The Chairperson of the Bougainville Development Foundation is engaged in PhD research. His topic is 'Participatory Self Help Action Models and Their Development and Use Among Aboriginal and Islander People in Australia'. Another Laceweb enabler is also a Ph.D. student. He is tracing the history of the evolving within the Region of self help participatory 'healing wellbeing' models over the past 55 years through the 'Laceweb'.

WIDER APPLICATION OF THE MODEL

With people of all political persuasions advocating 'smaller government' it may well be that the model involved in the associated Plans and the Micro-proposal may have relevance in fostering contexts where communities and groups within the Region may take a greater role in caring for themselves rather than asking Governments to do things for them. Perhaps governments at all levels who are seeking to shift from a focus on 'service delivery' to 'participatory self helping' could use the Bougainville experience in building policy and programs based on the participatory self help model as a complement to service delivery. Refer the paper Governments and the Facilitation of Community Grassroots Wellbeing Action.

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