Reflection: ULab Moray Hub and Coaching Circle, 29th September 2017

Three of us from the newly emerging U.Lab Hub met at Dunbarney House in Elgin on Friday evening to try out the U.Lab Coaching Circle process.  We then went on to have a wider deep conversation about several topics.

These are our notes and reflections.

The coaching circle tool:
“What struck me in the feedback was your (the coaches) ability to tap into things that you could not have known about me.  That is the bottom of the U – a wisdom that we cannot begin to fathom.”
We reflected that this process created space as well as a unique perspective on solutions to problems – “the world is so noisy and complex and we need space for our minds to breathe.”

Trialling one of the Sensing Journey tools with a peer support group:
One of the group had trialled a ‘sensing journey’ tool within a peer support group, where people who are working from a perspective that may define themselves by challenges and wish to work toward seeing strengths.
“It was amazing to see how much information that we all picked up – factual, emotional and kinetic information – that were all equally important in understanding each other. This is information that we are processing all the time, but this exercise gave them an opportunity to go deeper into listening and connection”.

Barriers to accessing ULab:   People often reflect that U.Lab is very interesting, but they don’t have time right not to be involved.  We are wondering “is the barrier for some a misunderstanding that being involved it is just another task, rather than something that feeds us?”
We had such a vibrant taster session that one of the discussion points touched on the fact that we were now down to a group of three. It was posed as a question that perhaps other potential people who might have joined, had gone to the top of the “U” and instead of seeing this as a resource, saw it as another task.
However, both last week and this week have disproved that perception.  For those of us who have been involved in the hub, we have all felt resourced and nourished.

We then reflected on the fact that the process was giving us much more than expected already. “It had a Narnia affect – we just entered into this new space”.
“Separating out the layers of information was really useful, and hearing feedback as the Case Giver about what you are doing or saying that you are unaware of. It’s a great tool to build self-awareness in a space that there is no wrong answer. We were able to embody curiosity, compassion and courage.”

Staying with the journey – having faith that U.Lab is accessible to everyone and we can play with it!
We spoke about the feeling initially when we first started to read about U.Lab that it felt like it was a rigid and set way of doing things, with a lot to learn and a difficult language to work with.  What we have found is that it actually feels much more liberating than this, and we are discovering that there is freedom to play with the tools. We are experimenting with some new approaches that are creating some juicy, deep and surprising learnings.

The question we posed ourselves were:

• How can we translate U.Lab so that everyone can join us on the journey?
• How to make U.Lab accessible from wherever people are right now and with their time resources?

We decided to run a coaching circle taster as we realised that it may be possible to approach the programme in a way that prevented it becoming another stressor in people’s lives and instead became a resource and place of connection and energy.