Nurturing hope - A facilitator's essential job in dark times
- Jan 9
- 6 min read
Introduction
With our planet in trouble and our lives under stress from many sides, finding balance and equilibrium can be a challenge.
Sometimes we lose the energy to “kick at the darkness ‘til it bleeds daylight”, as Canadian musician Bruce Cockburn sang.
When that energy flags, I’ve learned to seek sources of thoughtful reflection and good news that reset my perspective. These help me peek above doom and gloom, like a meerkat. As a facilitator, this regularly regained perspective is more than a personal wellness measure — it’s a professional necessity. The practice calibrates my role as a process steward, guiding a group’s energy away from unproductive negativity and toward constructive exchanges and action for change.
This post shares sources I turn to for light, hope and new understanding: resources I actively tap to inform my facilitation.
Photo by Daniel Pelaez Duque on Unsplash
The Marginalian: A deep library of wisdom connecting art, science and the human spirit
Maria Popova has been publishing The Marginalian as a “labour of love” and search for meaning for almost 20 years. She draws on creativity, art, nature and culture for insightful regular posts. Her digital library has a wonderful collection of profiles of artists and their art, thoughtful pieces on meaning, and themed articles on human experience. She links many related articles so reading one leads to a totally enjoyable exploration of something uniquely different. I celebrate her!
Reasons to be Cheerful: A weekly “smart, bright” newsletter that uplifts with diverse realities
The newsletter’s range of good news stories is impressive, focusing on positive solutions that can scale up. Every issue contains something to catch interest. Articles cover nearly everything humans are engaged in these days: climate and environment, health, culture, cities and towns, and examples of the “spark” that catalyzes positive change. A great antidote to fake news!
The Upside. Your weekly good news round-up
If your inbox is hungry for more weekly positive coverage, consider subscribing to The Upside and Reasons to be Cheerful. Upside is described by its publisher as “Your elevator ride to the top of the startup world” and “journalism that focuses on our capacity to act together to make positive change.” Short anecdotes on diverse uplifting stories help counter the downside of mainstream news. You can subscribe or explore the archive of currently 68 issues and counting at the website. Explore!
https://www.upside.org/ (The Upside is part of The Guardian newspaper’s website.)
For a more foundational text on this mindset, I find myself returning to a book, as well as refreshing with the above regular newsletters.
Hope in the Dark. Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities
Rebecca Solnit originally wrote this book in 2003 and updated it in 2015. “Problems are our work. ... To face them can be an act of hope. Only if you remember they are not all there is. Hope is not a door, but the sense there might be a door ...” “Hope is in love with success, not with failure.”
These are crucial insights for facilitators who work with groups striving for change. Our task is to help people tell different stories within the stories, stories that recognize problems but are framed around possibility, solutions and actionable steps.
Seek the positive because the negative is destructive
Important reasons for making deliberate choices to seek good news and look for a silver lining in bad news come from brain science and psychology. We may think we feel better when we vent, but the opposite is true. Not only do we not feel better, complaining also increases the likelihood that we will complain in the future and spreads like a virus through a group, making others feel worse.
What does this have to do with facilitation?
For a facilitator, this is a call for evidence-based, strategic stewardship of group energy. It is neither Pollyannaish optimism nor pop psychology. Rather, it is the application of proven psychology and group dynamics to build positive group experiences, direction and momentum.
The point is not to ignore need for change. Nor is it to ignore negative experience or inputs for a false positive. The point is to design and manage processes in ways that contribute to clarity on what needs to change and action plans to achieve a change.
Complaining affects the moods of people listening to us, as well as ourselves, and not positively. Complaining is bad for your health, bad for your brain, and bad for the people you complain to. Effective facilitation requires moderation of negative analysis and complaints, and the capacity to focus group energy on examples of good practice, illustrations of what works, and problem-solving progress on the cause of resentment and unhappiness.
The brain science is clear
Complaining shrinks the area of the brain responsible for memory and problem-solving — the hippocampus. More than 30 minutes of complaining yourself or listening to someone else complain can cause measurable harm to brain structure and function.
Complaining rewires the brain for more negativity because the human brain wires itself for efficiency. Negative thoughts lead to ready and more rapid triggering of repeated, continuing or related negative thoughts. Happily, the same is true for positivity.
Complaining releases cortisol, a key hormone that regulates stress, among other critical functions. Consistently high levels of cortisol can lead to high blood pressure and a weakened immune system, as can chronic stress. The body of a chronic complainer pays a high price. On average, optimists have a significantly lower risk of death than pessimists.
As facilitators, we have the unique opportunity to make choices not just for ourselves, but for the groups we facilitate. We have a dual responsibility: to curate our own inputs for balanced resilience, and to manage group spaces and processes that channel energy towards daylight, action and results.
Tips for Facilitators
Design sessions with purpose, beyond venting. Curate briefings on evidence-based solutions and good practice, as well as support participants to reflect on and share the full range of their experiences and views.
Involve decision-makers who have power to make change that addresses criticisms and complaints in timely active roles in a group process.
Structure interactive processes in ways that channel inputs towards positive results and balance negative and positive perspectives. Select methods and techniques that support a balanced as well as accurate and comprehensive picture. For example, a force-field analysis is a systematic way for a group to identify and cluster forces and factors influencing a situation or goal. The analysis effectively puts individual complaints and criticisms into context.
Include process norms of reinforcing points but not repeating them and building on each other’s points as key in an interactive, collective process. When a negative point has been made and noted, if people begin to repeat or belabour it, respectfully draw attention to the norms.
Actively listen for group tendencies to pile on the negative. Be prepared to respectfully interject with a counter-framing question or evidence-based positive refocus. Invite others in the group who you know have different views to share them. Prepare to influence a group towards evidence-based positivity. These tips highlight where a facilitator’s role strategically bridges process and substance.
A personal experience: A co-facilitator and I were debriefing the highs and lows of a first day in an important event. I was annoyed at how some people had acted and shared that irritation in a mild rant. The colleague listened, and asked me this question: What do you think this could tell us — if you weren’t so angry about it? It was like a wave of clear, fresh air. Negative emotions about negative interactions can get in the way of effective facilitation. The question has become part of my facilitation tool-kit, as I monitor my own human tendency to be swayed by negativity: What might this tell me if I wasn’t so annoyed about it?
Brief lead organizers on the importance of realistic positivity for results of an event or process, and support them in integrating it into their contributions.
Keep track of contributions and manage them. If some participants consistently bring a grey cloud into the proceedings, perhaps disguised as “just being the devil’s advocate here”, consider having an informal private word with them. Observe that they seem to be feeling negative about the process and invite them to share some experiences that have influenced them. They may have tried to influence change, unsuccessfully, and feel jaded and disempowered as a result. Treat such inputs as important intelligence for a way forward, without letting them dominate the conversation.
Welcome complaints that surface important issues and insights, noting them as part of solutions. Distinguish these from whining and whinging. If these are distorting a process, revisit process norms and provide some evidence-based background on suggestions to avoid whining. Consider “banning the word ‘but’” which is almost always followed by a negative point that contributes to disagreement. Reinforce use of “and”, so inputs can logically build on each other.
Sources on the Brain Science and Psychology of Complaining
Complaining is Bad for your Brain! Tara Pisano, M1 Psychology
https://m1psychology.com/complaining-is-bad-for-your-brain/).
How Complaining Rewires Your Brain for Negativity. Travis Bradberry, TalentSmart EQ. https://www.talentsmarteq.com/how-complaining-rewires-your-brain-for-negativity/
Stop complaining – it’s making you dumber. Here’s what successful people do instead. Gary Burnison, CNBC make it.
Cortisol. Cleveland Clinic.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/22187-cortisol
Is Complaining Really All That Bad for You? The short answer is “yes”. Christine Louise Hohibaum, The Power of Slow. Psychology Today.
Note: Sources 1 and 3 reference a key 1996 Stanford University study.
