Detach, not deny, our inheritance, with generosity

My experience of The Group Relations Consulting training, part 1 which took place from 29 to 31 January 2021, led by Kathleen Pogue White, Simon Western, and Evangeline Sarda, online.

My reflection after the three-day event, on the morning after:

The anger was felt, and aggression expressed by the youth, blaming older generations for what they inherited, dismissing older people, not wanting to learn anything from them. In the process, many other defining values were being diminished. The accusation of the young people heightened the guilt that ‘we fucked it up’ and the devaluation of the accused.

No, they didn’t ‘fuck it up’. They tried the best they could at the time, like generations had before them, and will after. But individual and minor voices were not enough to drive the course of history – they were the forces that stayed silent, not by desire but by defeat. There were stronger forces that spoke louder and took up the arena. Society then, was driven by the same mix of complex dynamics present at the Conference today.

We felt the heaviness of the burden left by ancestry, through intergenerational trauma, but also the glory in narrated stories. We arrived at lightness when we could find ourselves free to see with our own eyes, to make our own choice, to pursue our own meaning of service.

In detachment, we can appreciate the past and select the values we want to inherit. With generosity, we can see beauty and find peace. Being independent, we can choose the relationships that are beneficial to us, and we to them.

Part 2 of the event is to take place on 5-6 February 2021.