I'm a recovering academic who uses her insights from behavioural economics to develop methods that facilitate collaboration. In my weekly newsletter, I share the summary of my latest interview on the "workshops work" podcast along with an application of facilitation as a life and leadership skill.
In Silence || 🎙️ Episode 351 on The Fierce Compassion of Facilitation with Shireen Naqvi
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Dear Reader, By the time you read this, I’ll be sitting in silence. Today will be day six out of ten. Ten hours of meditation a day. No phone, no notebook, no book, no calendar. Just me, my breath, and whatever Goenka has to say about observing sensations without reacting to them. It’s my sixth Vipassana (listen to my insights after the last), which means I should know by now that the first two days feel excruciating. My mind throws a tantrum like a toddler whose iPad has been taken away. Everything suddenly feels urgent. Every thought insists it must be solved right now. But that urgency is always the same thing in disguise: backlog. Unprocessed thoughts that piled up because I was too busy consuming more content, searching for more insights, asking ChatGPT more questions, filling every quiet moment with someone else’s voice instead of my own. Around day three, the system starts to reboot. Once the noise settles, the mind remembers what to do when it isn’t constantly interrupted. Ideas begin to bubble up from a deeper place. Connections appear that were there all along but buried under input. And because there’s no way to write anything down or look anything up, something surprising happens: the body stops gripping so tightly. It trusts that what matters will stay. It always does. Somewhere in that simplicity lies one of the most fundamental truths of facilitation: our cups are already full. We rarely need more information. What we need is space. Space for the sediment to settle. Space to hear the thought beneath the thought. Space to realise that clarity often arrives once we stop trying to chase it. So while I’m sitting in silence, maybe you can steal a small moment of your own. A minute. An exhale. A pause long enough for a buried thought to surface. I’ll tell you what I found when I’m back. 🎙 Meanwhile, on the podcast…From a childhood imaginary classroom, to the moments before a traffic light turns green, Shireen Naqvi has been viewing the world as a beautiful facilitation opportunity her whole life. Guided by the divine belief that humans are the best creatures in the universe, Shireen has made it her mission to help others realise the power that lies within them. She joins me this week to share stories from her life in Pakistan, her strategies for enabling self-empowerment in others, and why anger is the perfect ammunition for change. A wise and inspiring conversation rich with Shireen’s passion, as we explore professionalism, injustice, the female experience, cultural nuances, and everything in between! Find out about:
🎧 Click here to listen to the interview📥 Check out my 1-page summary 👀 Watch the unedited interview on Youtube 🎧 Join the next podcast club gatheringWhile counting down the final episodes of workshops work until it's retirement on December 31st, I am inviting you to join me on Substack where I am creating a Podcast Club: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/ In January, we will gather around the theme of Polarisation in Facilitation. Click here to sign up for free. That’s it from my side! I hope you enjoy the content and find inspiration in the stories and podcast. Wishing you a week filled with reflection, connection, and growth—see you next week! Myriam
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How can we facilitate collaboration?
I'm a recovering academic who uses her insights from behavioural economics to develop methods that facilitate collaboration. In my weekly newsletter, I share the summary of my latest interview on the "workshops work" podcast along with an application of facilitation as a life and leadership skill.
Dear Reader, I came back from ten days of silence on Sunday. No phone. No writing. No reading. No podcasts. Just long hours of sitting, scanning sensations, and noticing how quickly the mind wants things to be different. Less pain. More comfort. A way out. Vipassana calls the practice equanimity. The capacity to stay with sensation as it is, without craving when it’s pleasant and without aversion when it’s unpleasant. Not suppressing. Not indulging. Simply noticing. When we stop feeding our...
Dear Reader, I said yes. Too quickly. Again. And here I am, looking at the pile of broken glass, wondering what I could have done differently. Isn't it ironic that I'm a facilitator who literally teaches people how to work together. And still, I fell into the oldest trap in the book. Someone invited me to collaborate on something exciting. I felt flattered. My gut told me to slow down, to have a real conversation about how we'd work together. But I didn't want to be the difficult one....
Dear Reader, How do you know whether the group you're speaking to is engaged or not? Last week I was facilitating a workshop on the basics of facilitation for a new community. I asked a question. Silence. Everyone stayed on mute. I tried another prompt. More silence. But people had their cameras on and smiled—they were clearly engaged, just not speaking. I've written about the sound of silence in facilitation, and this week Yuko shares the Japanese perspective on it in the podcast. But last...