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Gound Rules


6th September 2004
 
 Ground rules
1.1   In Moving On there is never a requirement to recount stories of experiences. Confidentiality and privacy are always going to be big issues; as a result, personal examples from the past are to be avoided; even hearing and using the words bully / bullying is profoundly upsetting for some. If you need to tell your story, please find a councillor or friend who will listen. Be mindful that the peer group could find your story too toxic for them to endure. We do not want to get stuck in the past, stuck in victim mode; we seek to move on. We do honour the need to tell the story, but this is not the place.
 
1.2   Be mindful that vulnerable and hyper-vigilant peers may experience your words (body language or tone of voice) as criticism– we are seeking to become sensitive to how we might come across to others. Each of us is healing from wounds that have been picked open too many times.
 
1.3   Be aware that one can ‘hop’ on a peer in a reaction to what seems to have taken place. In Moving On we are seeking to develop listening skills so that we can interact  in place of reacting. Perhaps, when you notice your need to speak, it might be possible to take a breath and check in, see if you are acting or reacting; breathe into the feelings that you find... and see if it is possible to accept, maybe even embrace the reactions within you. Then, interact.
 
1.4   Be mindful that we are all still in, or are recovering from (periods of) hyper-vigilance and may tend to over-analyse or take things too personally both in the group session and afterwards. Once you notice this type of behaviour arising see if you can breathe into the feelings... and get a grip on the emotions, gently slide back into perspective and normal breathing.
 
1.5   Notice the desire to advise peers. When this arises it is possible that the person who most needs that precise advice, is your self. Make a note of the advice and consider it afterwards. We do not seek to advise peers. We seek to learn from them what has helped them, to move on, so that their experience can be of assistance to us. We listen.
 
1.6   We seek to respect what peers have experienced in their lives. Things happen; all experiences are unique; very many are deeply confusing; no one can ever fully understand any experience since the viewpoint is always too narrow and restricted. We seek to listen and accept a peer to the fullest we can at the moment. Each one of us is learing and on a steep learning curve at that.
 
1.7   We have all been in a place of trauma in the past, perhaps many times; that is in the past. In the present moment we choose to ‘face it, and let it go’. That may need to happen in many sequences of ‘present moments’! In this moment I choose to move on; without necessarily defining the problem satisfactorily, without necessarily resolving it at all; in this moment I choose not to be stuck in victim mode. In this moment I choose to be free.
 
1.8   Listen. Listen deeply. Listen with compassion.  

 

 contact us; - info@seraph.ie
Adrienne Crowe on behalf of ‘Moving On’,
Seraph.ie,
15 Heytesbury Street,
Dublin 8.
Tel; -+ 353 (01)-453 9971
 
 

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