“What’s the difference between floundering and flourishing? Not much, when you think about it. To flourish, you have to think carefully about what is important to you and imagine what you hope to accomplish. To flounder, you have to imagine all the ways you can fail and all the disasters you are averting by remaining completely inactive and undecided about Everything. So both require a good imagination. That means if you are good at floundering, you can be good at flourishing too! I think the first step is allowing yourself to think clearly about what you want to do and what you think you can do.
The next thing is to be very, very patient, because good things take time!”
Susan M. Brackney
The Not-So-Lost Soul Companion
“More Hope, Strength, and Strategies
For Artists and Artists-at-Heart”
Last night I taught the second class of The Sunday Night Writing Group. It was wonderful, the women in the class are absolutely lovely. Brave, open-hearted, writing and sharing in communion with each other. Everything I could have hoped for and more. But two classes in I have already run into a problem and I could hardly go to sleep last night worrying about it.
The way that I teach, that I have always taught, have been smaller, more intimate groups of a dozen or so. In a group this size there is plenty of time, in 2 hours, to write and share together, for everyone who wants to be able to read to read. In the first two weeks already I have offered to stay an extra half hour to accommodate people being able to read and it has been wonderful but it is not sustainable. The way that I used to teach, small, personal, in person, is not the same as offering a class, one night a week, ongoing, to whomever might come. I carefully screen people, no one can just randomly come in, but in the first couple of weeks with no advertising other than what I have written on this blog and a few places on social media there were 26 people signed up. The max for the platform I am using is 100 and the idea of that many people makes my head spin. We have already outgrown the container of time we have and people in the group fear the group getting larger and losing the intimacy we have. This morning it felt like floundering.
Awhile ago I read the above quote. I stopped and read it again a few times. The part that struck me was, “To flourish, you have to think carefully about what is important to you and imagine what you hope to accomplish.” What is important to me? What do I hope to accomplish?
Right there I realized that I have been trying to take an old model for my classes, a lovely model, one that worked for decades, and make it fit a new paradigm for the internet. It is not possible. Not in the way I have been trying to do it. If I were teaching a small private class as I have done in the past that would be one thing. That class can be run in a very different way than the kind of class I am trying to run. And I guess the thing is I wasn’t clear enough, with myself, about just exactly what I was trying to do.
What is important to me? What do I hope to accomplish?
To create a space for people to come together to write on Sunday nights. To lead them into writing exercises that will open their hearts, help them look at things they might not otherwise see, make discoveries that might facilitate healing and a greater sense of peace and ease in their lives, give them, through the writing exercises, tools that they can use going forward.
The writing. It’s a writing group. It’s all about the writing.
And there is plenty of time for people to do a significant amount of writing.
The thing is that in the past people reading what they wrote was as important, writing and reading were two sides of the coin, it is cleansing, cathartic, heart-opening, and healing for people to read aloud what they’ve written, and for people to hear what other people share is inspiring and builds trust and a sense of community. But in two hours, as the numbers grow, while we could do the same amount of writing we have less and less time for reading and we lose something.
I cannot do it all in 2 hours, so what do I do? When I try to make the old way fit the new paradigm I am floundering.
IN THIS MOMENT A BOLT OF LIGHTNING CAME OUT OF THE SKY AND HIT ME BETWEEN THE EYES….
I am not here to teach the masses.
I am here to teach what I have always taught the way I have always taught it.
I am going to freeze registration and take a waiting list.
I am not going to try to set the world on fire.
The people who are currently in this class are my people and I will serve them.
Okay I am so excited about this I am going to stop this blog post right here and go talk to my people in the room.
Stay tuned, more here tomorrow.
The Experiment ~A 365 Day Search For Truth, Beauty &
Happiness: Day 1 ~ Introduction To The Project
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
Yoda
If you would like to be put on the waiting list for our group please send me an email to: TheSundayNightWritingGroup@gmail.com. Tell me why you would like to join the group. For more information about The Sunday Night Writing Group click on the link herein.
