February 5, 2020, was the first official meeting of Formation Group. It was described as a weekly gathering of people in New York City who want to deepen their relationship with themselves and each other for an entire year.
Our initial Formation Group was in a lawyer’s office near Madison Square Park. I’ll never forget walking into that small room with the desk pushed to one side, chairs in a circle, and candles scattered around. The fact that this space was used for legal settlements during the day and prayerful community at night delighted me.
As I settled into my chair and looked around, I realized that I was going to deeply connect with these 11 semi-strangers. I wondered what the next year would bring us. Little did I know that a global pandemic would have us switching to virtual gatherings within a few weeks!
At first, I joined Formation Group because I wanted to practice consistency in my relationships. It felt like a challenge to show up for myself and others on a weekly basis. I also wanted to be around people who value community enough to make a significant commitment. This weekly anchor point would be one of the crucial things tying me (loosely) to sanity during 2020.
After meeting with this group every week for a year, here is what I learned:
1) Structure Allows For Creative Inspiration
One of my favorite parts of Formation Group is that we generally have the same structure every week. While different facilitators experiment to varying degrees, this is how we generally break the evening down:
7 to 7:05 PM: Enter
7:05 to 7:15 PM: Light our candles or “handles,” AKA flickering your fingers if you don’t have a candle around. Everyone gets 2 minutes to check in about how they’re feeling
7:15 to 7:20 PM: Listen to a song together
7:20 to 7:30 PM: Silent meditation
7:30 to 7:40 PM: Read a poem or excerpt out loud two times as a group. Journal individually on reflection questions
7:40 to 8:10 PM: Share in breakout groups of 2–4 people. Each person has 10 or more minutes to share.
8:10 to 8:25 PM: Whole group shares and/or governance. Governance is when we discuss new ideas and agreements for the group.
8:25 to 8:30 PM: Listen to a closing song and blow out our candles/handles
This structure does wonders for my creativity. The combination of sharing what’s on my heart, sitting in silence, and reading absolutely ignites my inner artist.
It feels like a force outside of myself is writing during our time for personal journaling. It always surprises me how it feels like a poem will arrive, fully-formed, within those 7 minutes.
I have a similar feeling during group shares. Something about the format of the evening shakes my protective shield off, and I’m often taken aback by the tears that will emerge. The safeness of ritual — as well as the familiarity of the people around me — allows me to drop into what’s actually alive.
2) Trust Takes Time
It feels counterintuitive to bare your soul to a room filled with strangers. Yet so many workshops and retreats depend on this approach to vulnerability! This method of sharing is deeply flawed because you haven’t developed trust with those people yet. You’re not sure if they’re capable of handling your tenderness with the care it deserves.
To be clear, I’m a sucker for spaces where I can share — and arguably overshare — all the messy parts of myself. I’ve gone to more shadow workshops and trauma healing retreats than almost anyone I know. Yet through that process, I’ve realized that it’s often not wise to share my deepest vulnerabilities with total strangers.
Formation Group felt healing for the “oversharer” part of me. We don’t dive into our darkest secrets in week one. In fact, we mostly focus on what is arising for us that week.
Yet whenever the time came for me to bring up a really sensitive topic in my life, I trust that I will be safe. I am not given advice, told I am overreacting, or any of the other garbage someone can hear when they share something raw. I am just met with trust and love.
3) Different Perspectives Lead To New Understandings
There was one week in Formation Group where I was arriving shortly after a really painful conversation. I was hurting and convinced that I was a garbage friend, and human overall. Dramatic, I know!
I was unsure if I wanted to discuss this fresh wound during our breakout groups. Luckily, my partner could sense how tender I was. He generously offered to give me the entire twenty minutes to process. When I had finished completely unraveling, he asked if I was open to hearing a story about a time when he had felt similarly. Then he shared a beautiful anecdote that helped me see my own weak points with a lot more compassion.
A similar moment happened a few weeks later when four of us were partnered together in a different breakout group. We were all struggling with a similar dating problem and felt totally unsure of what to do. Yet when we heard each other’s stories — and could see our own issue from a different angle — it became comically clear of how we should all proceed. It felt a little like the fates had ensured that we could all talk, in order to see how ridiculous we were being. Sometimes it just takes hearing someone else’s perspective!
4) Play Is A Powerful Way To Connect
Formation Group has its fair share of seriousness. We love reading beautiful poems, thinking about big ideas, and getting down and dirty with what’s bothering us. Yet only focusing on the serious can feel boring — and a little unbalanced. That’s why I appreciate how much play we incorporate into our gatherings.
The first Formation Group, our opening song was from Moana. Other weeks we will all sing karaoke together, or dance, or play a music video that brings us joy. (This one is my favorite.) These experiences help to weave different textures into the fabric of our connection.
One of my favorite weeks was when we played a virtual game of Askhole, which is a series of deeply uncomfortable and politically incorrect questions. It felt so freeing to talk about sex, dating, and our less than proud moments. It was like the virtual equivalent of a slumber party at 2 AM, with similar bonding effects.
5) We All Need Consistent Community
Obvious statement of the year: living through a pandemic is hard. Having a consistent space to return to, with the same people every time, felt so nourishing. In fact, the space meets the requirements of what I call a “healthy congregation” in my book, Un-Lonely Planet:
- They happen every week
- The same people show up consistently
- There is space for vulnerable conversation and deep reflection
- There is mentorship and spiritual guidance
- There is an easily accessible way for members to give back to the community
When we gather purposefully, we experience a sense of shared humanity. We feel less alone. And I’m here to tell you, just because you’re not gathering around a God doesn’t mean you can’t feel like you’re part of a sacred space. You deserve that feeling.
My friend, singer Tim Victor, once told me, “I don’t call myself a gospel singer. I’m a singer. Because church isn’t in the building. It’s in the people. It’s in the feeling of connection. That’s the sacredness.”
I want to thank my friends in Formation Group — AKA the FeeGees — for being that sacred space for me.
Further Resources
Our circle is inspired by Parker J. Palmer’s Circle Of Trust.
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This post was previously published on Medium.
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Photo credit: Beth Macdonald on Unsplash