Facilitation – Study of Man – Biography – Oasis Game

Johanna Bachmann (Germany) has written about her experiences at four YIP courses in 2009.

Johanna Bachmann (Germany), YIP 2009–2010.

By: Johanna Bachmann, Germany, YIP 2009–2010

Facilitation with Jay Roberts

I am nervous and distracted by the attention when I speak in front of a group. I really wanted to take advantage of this course and develop skills in speaking to a group. I wanted to learn how to hold and host a group. And I was excited.

What I got most out of the week is more awareness of the wisdom of questioning. I love the quote of R. M. Rilke that Jay read to us:

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves [...] Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

My personal interest in facilitation is about how to ask the right questions to facilitate people: Not to make them answer, but to help them find new questions, because the answer is already inside them. It moves them forward.

You need to be an authentic facilitator. I don’t have to be the entertainer or the game director (which would anyway be really difficult for me personally). I got the confidence that even though I will never be an entertainer I could become a good facilitator. “Where the attention goes the energy flows”, said Jay.

Study of Man with Marcel de Leuw

I really enjoyed it to study the Man. It is very important for me to shape my opinion about human life because it is influencing and guiding every day. I think even more that life is hard work and that this work is fun when I love it. I got a lot out of the course: tools to put reflections and ideas into words, and I found support for some of my own observations and I got very inspired!

Biography Work with Annie Meijer

For me biography work is about taking myself seriously and to laugh about myself at the same time. Taking care of myself and be truthful – sometimes circuitously.

Biography work is putting a reality into thoughts, and then into words, and later – maybe years later – make up my new reality out of it. A human life is the most beautiful creation, revealing miracles and embracing shadows. It is the magical work we are doing all the time. Finding words for miracles is not possible.

Meeting in the small groups was really special!

Shaping experiences into a few sentences was hard, and I knew that it was not my experiences themselves that were buzzing around in the room when I spoke them, so I could enjoy telling my stories, and listen to the other stories being told. Everyone wrote a story based on a another’s.

I am keeping a strong image in me: The sun is meeting the rain in the sky and there is the most beautiful rainbow.

Oasis Game and COP15 with Edgard Gouveia Júnior

COP15 was a serious issue for me to be aware of and to be active in, thanks to YIP.

Knowing Edgard and his work I am very passioned about the Oasis Game and I believe in it’s value. When I heard he was going to do an Oasis Game in Copenhagen during COP15 and during Philip’s week (where we would talk about getting into action) I had to decide where to go. 

But there was no real decision for me. I had made it weeks beforem, in September, feeling the energy that was emerging in the group and in me during the week with Edgard. 

I don’t believe in politics, but I believe in and trust people. If I can do it instead, I don’t want to just talk about action anymore! I believe in the Oasis Game idea. It is one a very important answer to the question of a better world. 

Arriving in the Thomas P. Hejle Klubben (a Youth Club) I was really excited. It was my first time leaving the YIP’s surroundings. It had slightly changed something inside me.

I was inside a big building for two days. Outside in the city there were demonstrations going on and snow was falling. I didn’t see any of the demonstrations, and after two days I finally went out to enjoy the snow: I didn’t feel like I had missed anything! I was exactly where I felt was right, doing the right thing.

We spent two days of creativity and together. We didn’t do anything exceptional but it was ‘Espectaculaarrr’. It was all about co-creation, action, conversation, connection, love and fun. It was all about everyone’s potential and trust.

And I believe in all this!

The answer may be the echo that comes from the question…