Taking Off the "Voice of Judgment" For a Fresh Learning

Recently, I have run two theater sessions focused on Team trust building to a group of students. Normally, I prefer during the debriefs opening a free flow of discussion on what sorts of learning that attendants could gain are. There are some reasons for doing this.

One of the reasons is the belief in the participants’ learning potentials. It is always interesting to notice an amazing learning capacity in each individuals. And I can see it when hearing from different learning out of an exercise. It is very true that in one game, people have different learning views on it. I may have my own understanding of the exercise. And I feel lots of joys to see a new learning coming out that I may not be able see. “That’s lovely to see!”. That’s the moment when I could feel the spirit and energy of collective learning of a group. Step by step, together we can deepen our learning. For this reason, we can learn to open our minds and see something beyond self.

My challenge as a facilitator is not to impose personal thoughts onto discussions. This doesn’t mean that I won’t have my own sticks. However, holding the sticks may lead to limits to our learning space in which either this or the other ways the learning would emerge as we can learn to let go of our mental frames.

In the book of "Presence", co-written by Peter Senge, Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski and Betty Sue, there is one part about “Seeing our Seeing. It says “Seeing freshly starts with stopping our habitual ways of thinking and perceiving”. That is the capacity of suspension – “hanging our assumptions in front of us”. By doing so, we begin notice our thoughts and mental models as the workings of our own mind that may get us detached from a fresh learning. And as we become aware of our thoughts, they begin to have less influence on what we see.

In this book, it also mentions Michael Ray saying about “Voice of Judgment” that is chattering of mind. “In practice, suspension requires patience and a willingness not to impose pre-established frameworks or mental models on what we are seeing. If we can simply observe without forming conclusions as to what our observations mean and allow ourselves to sit with all seemingly unrelated bits and pieces of information we see, fresh ways to understand a situation can eventually emerge”. By taking off that Voice of Judgment, we can notice and see something new alive.

What’s noticed is many of us living out by [past experiences]. That may work in some cases as they can help us do better in the following times. In the other ways, we need to watch out if we hold these experiences for the next times and for a different group of people as they are all changing and varying over time and situations.

One thing I can do is taking a deep breath and being aware of my thoughts and let them go. By letting go of my own thoughts covered by past experience or judgments, I slowly give a new space for new learning that may emerge and seeing things appearing freshly. Take a deep breathe and saying to myself “something is living around!”. And that’s a joy with learning.

Love to hear from your comments/ feedback!