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gracious space as sacred space

5/30/2014

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I came to Gracious Space through the Leadership Montana class of 2007. Gracious Space was introduced on the first day of class. We had heard about the special relationships forming at Leadership Montana and we quickly took on Gracious Space and started using it with one another. Even now, two years later, it’s very common for us to claim Gracious Space with one another.

Gracious Space is most important when we are disagreeing, and the biggest difference I saw with this group is that we still had some very passionate exchanges, but there wasn’t the anger that sometimes accompanies the passion.

Personally, the learning in public was one of my greatest challenges. As often as I have failed, those are not generally situations I like to discuss. But I found that over time it was easier to share what I had most recently failed at. This had a huge impact for me. It was a freeing experience to be able to say I failed at something and see that it doesn’t diminish the work I’m doing and who I am. Knowing that I can fail and continue to work allows me to continue to fail until I get it right!

For example, a year ago I ran for state office and lost. My friends offered condolences and I felt, sure I wanted to win, but the next day I felt perfectly fine. We had worked hard, we ran a good campaign. But the courage to take a public risk and lose in such a public way was a huge change for me, and I’ll probably be able to do it again.

I’ve also used Gracious Space in my work life. The Empowering Youth Project provides training to non-profits in leadership and organizational development, with the goal of creating collaboratives that function well in addressing situations across the county. From the beginning of the project, all grant partners received Gracious Space as assigned reading material. These people work hard every day, giving to others with no time to fill up for themselves. We use Gracious Space as the basis for communication and how to prevent working in silos and getting burned out.

We also need to give ourselves breaks while doing the hard work, so we took the grant partners on a mini retreat a little ways out of Billings to what we call Gracious Space Sacred Space. There is a tipi on the property and snow covered it that day, making it so peaceful. Using Gracious Space along with some Native American practices did a lot to bring the group together. It was like stepping into another world. Even though we only had a couple of hours, it felt like time had stretched and we’d been there all day.

We’re in an era of mergers and acquisitions of non-profits. We need to examine what we’re doing, keep the organizations alive and fulfill the needs. Gracious Space allows us to ask one another those hard questions without feeling like someone is taking our turf. The more we engage in Gracious Space the more it allows us to attend to ourselves and the people we care about.
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    Mary Hernandez

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