Put the Person First
I might have chosen not to stay in RC, due to restimulations, if I hadn’t been one of the few pioneers in spreading RC in China. Now I have learned to see being restimulated as a chance to find my hidden hurts and patterns and to grow.
Not all people have been as fortunate as I. Quite a few RCers, even RC teachers and leaders, have left RC because of different kinds of restimulations, some of which might have come from me! Some of them have just disappeared, and some have given excuses that sounded reasonable.
Gradually I have started to pay attention to my patterns in leadership. That began after an active RCer told me frankly that he was very frustrated and unhappy after giving some suggestions for the Community’s growth and getting my prompt response, “No. It is not practical. We tried that before, and it did not work.”
I have sensed that using our judgment is only part of our job as Community leaders and that the most important part may be supporting the re-emergence of others. This means that we need to create a place where people can really feel respected, accepted, warm, welcomed, and powerful. I need to remind myself to carefully check if I should keep quiet and forget any advice or “correction” so as to be less restimulating to someone who is trying his or her best.
Put the person first, not the job. Then the person may be able to stay and face the restimulations. Then a good job will be done.
Chen Pingjun
Regional Reference Person for the Chinese Mainland
Beijing, China
Thanks, Chen Pingjun. I like what you say about the need for leaders to support the re-emergence of others and to think about what bit of restimulation could lead people to leave RC.
Here in the United States, and in Europe, many (most) Communities have struggled with bringing people of the global majority into RC and keeping them there. People of the global majority come into RC in significant enough numbers, but many (most) get restimulated and leave.
Leaders in the Communities have recognized that we “need to create a place where people can really feel respected, accepted, warm, welcomed, and powerful,” as you say. I hope this discussion can encourage Communities to put more attention on the reasons that people of the global majority leave and to work, both as a Community and as individual leaders, to clean up the patterns that are so restimulating to people of the global majority and make it hard for them to stay.
It would be great to hear from people who have tackled this and about what successes they have had.
Love and liberation,
Amherst, Massachusetts, USA
(Present Time 184, July 2016)