Advice for Your Younger Facilitator Self

What advice might you give to your younger, facilitator Self? My facilitation community of practice explored this question recently.

I invited us to be time travellers, back to a version of our younger selves.

Think back to a time when you were an emerging facilitator – could be any place, any age – when you felt a great responsibility, energy, or the newness of your leadership. What guidance would you give that younger you?

I harvested our thoughts as a galaxy. A galaxy, to connect to the unknowable and the infinite wisdom that’s bigger than us. And to bring it down to earth, we had the Integral Facilitation convo in WhatsApp (yes you can build community anywhere!).

My reflection was about the being more okay with not-knowing. To stay in the uncertainty. What would the voice of the Self say to the not-knowing? These days, being more okay with the uncertainty is serving my work facilitating in complexity. I’ve facilitating a wide range of meetings these days, ranging from a non-profit working on sexual health and reproductive rights, to an upcoming community-university partnership on precarity. Being adaptive in uncertainty is more powerful than planning our way out of it.

What would you say to your younger, facilitator self?