In January 2024, we completed a ten-day Awakened Living project at New Eden. It gave me a great deal to reflect on about the relationship between guided facilitation and everyday community life.
Brotherhood That Doesn't Come From Retreat
The project opened with separate men's and women's retreats. I held the men's space, and it was deep and nourishing, but it also surfaced something for me personally. My own experience of brotherhood tends to come only through the retreats I facilitate, and that isn't enough. I can't fully de-role during my own events, because people have paid for a curated experience and it wouldn't be right to drop that responsibility for my own needs. What I noticed instead is a longing for a resource of brotherhood in my own life that doesn't depend on me being in a facilitator role. Encouragingly, some of the men who've done years of this work together started talking about creating a regular gathering, not led from the front with deep processing, but simply a place for men to be replenished and to enjoy each other's company. That idea emerged from the group itself, which felt significant.
The women's retreat was facilitated separately, and while I can't speak to what happened inside it, the women who came through it were visibly slowed down, open and radiant.
Learning to Slow Down
After the retreats, a smaller group of us spent five days experimenting with bringing Heart iQ principles into daily life, with slowing down as the central theme. Slowing down isn't the same as switching off. It's possible to be fully alive while moving slowly, which is a useful state to practice for ordinary life. I found this phase genuinely challenging. I limited myself to sharing circles without the usual depth of mat work, and at times I felt bored and frustrated by my own restraint. But that slowness allowed things to surface that wouldn't normally show up in a more charged environment, including some old grief and anger of my own that I hadn't given space to feel.
Where Guidance Ends and Community Begins
One of the clearer lessons was that we over-guided the group in those five days, staying too long in a parental holding role instead of letting the community take ownership and find its own shape. This raised a real question for me about leadership. I don't want to be a dictator holding all the structure, but I also don't want to fully step back and just be one participant among many, because that isn't where my strengths sit either. The balance I'm looking for is something like being invited in for specific periods to bring a particular set of skills, and then stepping back out to be an ordinary part of the community rather than its constant leader.
Thriving in Tribe
The project closed with a weekend called Thriving in Tribe, where I could bring my full facilitation skills without holding back. It was some of the deepest work I've experienced in just two days, with thirty-four people in circle, a mix of newcomers and people who'd done years of this work. One moment stood out. During an edgy piece of shadow work, another participant said clearly that they couldn't stay present and needed to leave. Rather than continuing, we paused the process entirely. That decision brought visible relief to the whole group, not because everyone agreed with the choice, but because a minority voice had been heard and honoured. It's a reminder that in group facilitation my priority sits with the health of the whole field, not with any one person's process, even when that person's need is real and valid.
What This Points Toward
What became clear by the end of these ten days is that the most useful shape for community living might be a rhythm: a guided weekend to train and deepen, followed by days of community-led integration, then another guided weekend to go further, and more integration after that. It combines the expertise a facilitator brings with the responsibility a community has to find its own way of living together.
A rhythm for community living projects
- Guided training weekend with facilitator-led circle work
- Days of community-led integration and daily practice
- Return to a deeper guided weekend
- Further community-led integration
