Saying the Unsaid

METAPHORS FOR GROUP, PART II

Sarah + Vanessa Season 1 Episode 13

Vanessa + Sarah review some of the ways Saying the Unsaid group participants finished the sentence, "Group is like _____________."  (Part two of two.)

Saying the unsaid. A conversation between a psychologist and a spiritual director who have been friends for over 30 years about process groups, the anticipated discomfort and the surprise intimacy. The inevitability of replication and the possibilities of doing something new. We're guaranteed to get some stuff right and some stuff wrong, but we're doing it anyway. Thanks for listening.

Sarah:

I had no idea that we had so many of these evaluations with their descriptions of what the group process was like. Yeah. So we just did the first half of the list mm-hmm. And now we're gonna do the second half yeah. Um, the first one is the best parts of doing a group project.

Vanessa (3):

My first association is high school because we had some really fun group projects together that to this day are some of the funnest experiences of my life. Like the videos we made together. Truly.

Sarah:

Making music video projects. Yes. In high school with you. Was my mountaintop experience. Oh my gosh. So fun. So fun. My first association of group project is how much I hate it, so thank you for

reminding me

Sarah:

that I also love it depending on the task. and I guess depending on who's doing it.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah:

My first association was being like, dear God, please do not assign a group project because I'm gonna end up doing all the work for everybody. And that makes me so mad. Yes. So I'm glad it highlighted the best parts because the best parts is making. Spanish music videos. Yeah.

Vanessa (3):

And I like the bad association with it.'cause I don't like group projects at first either. And that is something different about group. It's like we're all implicated in this, like, you actually do pay to come So in terms of who's carrying the weight, who's invested? Mm-hmm. There is an investment that you don't get in group projects at school or at work in the same way.

Sarah:

That's true. Because it doesn't advantage you to let someone carry the project. Yeah. Because you're paying and in high school it might you get to just sit there and do nothing and let someone else do it for you and you still get the grade, but here there is no grade. Mm-hmm. So it's like going to grad school for a topic you're actually interested in. A group project that you pay to do. Mm-hmm. And the best parts I think are when people bring their different. Skills. Yeah. I remember when I was in the math Super Bowl in like fourth or fifth grade, it was me and three boys and we had to build the longest bridge using straws and a cup. Mm-hmm. That just tapped into zero of my skill sets. Zero. Like I'm not a strong cup engineer. I just sat there and let them build it. So everyone's bringing what they're good at. Some people in our groups are. Really gifted at their imagination with other people. Mm-hmm. And intuition about who they are in their real life. And other people are really good at asking incisive questions. Some people are really good at conflict, it does feel like people are bringing different skills to the table.

Vanessa (3):

Yeah. And laughter is a part of a group project that you don't get if you do your paper alone. Like you don't laugh in the same way. So when this person wrote the best parts of a group, I think it's the laughter Yes. When we laugh, genuinely it's, it is like a Sunday. It's too good to be true. Definitely.

Sarah:

And the laughter is often around mistakes.

Vanessa (3):

Yeah.

Sarah:

Um, like when we did a Spanish video and somehow both of us ended up in two hospital beds talking to each other in Spanish. Our outtakes were actually the best part of our Spanish videos and we did keep them. Yeah.

Vanessa (3):

And I love outtakes now that you say it, group is a space where the outtakes kind of happen in real time. Yes. It's really vulnerable and intimate. It truly is,

Sarah:

so good. Okay. The next person described group as a reality TV show where certain people are trying too hard and others don't know how they wound up here. I wanna know who wrote this and I also wanna know who they thought was trying too hard. Yeah.

Vanessa (3):

Yeah. And what trying too hard looks like. Yeah. But I do appreciate a reality TV association because I think a lot about. Love is blind or bachelor, bachelorette in group because there is a lot of like, am I attracted to you or not happening in that space that I just don't consciously walk around doing in all my other meetings.

Sarah:

One reality TV element is, it's strangers, doing a pretend thing with our real selves, and somehow the gravity of it feels pretty. Significant. Like in all reality TV there's always previews of the 10 times people are crying. Mm-hmm. So obviously it comes to take a meaning, which I think reality TV has a ridiculous way of doing that. Mm-hmm. Of accelerating the emotional states typically with alcohol, I think. Yeah. But. Group has a different type of acceleration for some reason these people matter to me very quickly. I don't know why.

Vanessa (3):

Yeah. And the trying too hard and the wound up here, I like those parts too. Sometimes I've been self-conscious of taking up too much space

mm-hmm.

Vanessa (3):

In a way that might feel similar is beyond a reality TV show and being like, I'm here to win. And I'm not gonna be shy about that. And then I can think of members in groups like, how did I end up here? I did not know that this is what it was gonna be like. And they're just wide-eyed watching things unfold.

Sarah:

I who have done this many times still wonder, what am I doing here?

Vanessa (3):

Sometimes.

Sarah:

So it's not even just the first experience of wondering how did I end up here? I wonder how did I end up here? Why am I on this terrible show? Like, why did I take eight weeks off work to go to this island? It's terrible. Which brings us to the next one, which is group is a flying trapeze act. I think the person is articulating that. It feels precarious and fun.

Vanessa (3):

Oh my gosh. Dangerous. You're flying through midair, like there's those two swinging things with a bar in the middle and one person swinging on him and you let go and you hope something catches you another person or the net. Yes. And that you don't fall to your death. I have felt like that in groups.

Sarah:

Me too. So that's an apt description. The next one is group is like a weird fishbowl experience

Vanessa (3):

or experiment. Experiment. Yeah, it is. It has a meta quality to it, like we're talking. We're relating with each other, and then we're also talking about how we're relating to each other and what we see happening.

Sarah:

When I hear the word fishbowl, my initial thought is I wanna be outside looking in. Being in a group is being in and being watched by the group itself, but I think like in Grey's Anatomy, I prefer to be up there watching the surgery than maybe making a mistake in surgery. Oh my gosh. No thanks. I like to be center stage when I have a very well-planned act, not when I'm just a fish swimming around in a weird bull. Mm-hmm. Exposed and being watched. Mm-hmm. That isn't, um, mastered or something.

Vanessa (3):

Yeah. I just realized it's another water metaphor. We had a lot of water metaphors the last time we talked about this, and it also reminds me of that parable that became famous in the graduation speech. What's his name? David Foster Wallace. Two fish are swimming along and an older fish says to them, how's the water guys? And they like roll their eyes and swim past them and say, what the hell is water?

Mm-hmm.

Vanessa (3):

Like this is all the stuff we take for granted and in group we become aware of it. We start to know what the water is.

Sarah:

Yes. That's so good. I love

Vanessa (3):

it.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Vanessa (3):

One thing I want to go back to Sarah, about the acrobat or the trapeze. Mm-hmm. When you're flying in midair and you don't know if you're gonna die or not, when someone catches you that you didn't expect, like they put out their hands and catch you, it feels so amazing Yes. To have someone in the group that you. You didn't know, cared about you or saw you or understood what you did and reach out a hand for you? Mm-hmm. I have felt so moved a couple of times in group by being the person that was flying through the air and somebody I didn't expect, reached outta hand for me. I mean, I cried after group after that happened when it felt like somebody was kind to me in the most generous, unnecessary kind of way. And then as leaders, we see it happen and it surprises us. Like this person reached out a hand for that person. Mm-hmm. So connections are formed that in your first five minutes of being in a group, you would not think that this person might catch me when I'm flying through the air later on.

Sarah:

I totally relate to that in witnessing it. Mm-hmm. And I think about, I once went to a circus. Which I think has questionable ethics. Definitely. There were so many moments of gasping of like, oh my gosh, the moment of witnessing something, being caught. Mm-hmm.

From the

Sarah:

audience. And I have had that experience in our groups of witnessing those moments have kept that I didn't anticipate. It's so moving and so beautiful.

Vanessa (3):

Yeah.

Sarah:

Okay. The next one I feel like is outside of my vocabulary,

Vanessa (3):

Hyperbaric

Sarah:

Chamber of Caring Authenticity. Okay.

Vanessa (3):

Hyperbaric chamber, I think is one of those places with pure oxygen, so it's meant to accelerate healing and ward off bacteria infection. So it's like pure air that you go into for healing.

Sarah:

That is amazing.

Vanessa (3):

Yeah,

Sarah:

Is a great endorsement for group.

Vanessa (3):

Great. Authenticity for sure. It doesn't always feel caring in the moment, but I have come to trust that clarity is kindness and that truth is love.

Mm-hmm.

Vanessa (3):

So this metaphor goes along with some of our other ones just about hard or accelerated or intensified things that are ultimately good for us, like pure oxygen.

Sarah:

I think the atmosphere of a group I do have a longing for, and it actually has impacted my individual therapy relationships. I think that I have increased my capacity for authenticity as the therapist in an individual setting, because I'm flexing the muscle of authenticity in these process groups.

Vanessa (3):

Yes.

Sarah:

I think it's impacted relationships in my life as well.

Vanessa (3):

Mm-hmm. The

Sarah:

bar is higher for what I

Vanessa (3):

want.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah:

Okay. The next few. Group is Talking to strangers group is a lot of fun. Group is wild and group is children Baking. Mm. Associations to those. Mm

Vanessa (3):

Talking to strangers. I do love new people. Like if we're, going out for dinner and someone's like, oh, I'm bringing someone new. My first thought usually isn't oh, that's too bad. It's Ooh, how interesting. So I have a good association of strangers

mm-hmm.

Vanessa (3):

That I don't know who's gonna show up on this zoom call, and I'm very intrigued.

Sarah:

I think I have a negative association to strangers. Just to welcome people who are excited by strangers and not excited, I think oh no, I have to start from scratch. I have to figure out what this person wants to be able to mold their needs. Mm-hmm. So, mm-hmm. I love familiarity. There's a risk to being in a new room of new people wondering, mm-hmm is this gonna be good or is this gonna be bad? I'd rather just do what I already know. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, I think that element could be a draw or a part of the cold water uncomfortable plunge.

Vanessa (3):

Definitely we've had people join ongoing groups. Mm-hmm. And the former group that had gelled will say I liked it better before you joined. Like, I prefer what we had. It's like a family and then a new baby comes along and we don't want a baby in our family. We don't wanna vie for attention. Mm-hmm. And our relationships.

Sarah:

That reminds me of when I had my second child.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah:

We co-slept. The baby slept in my bed.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah:

Until he was like 18 months old or something.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah:

An irresponsible parent. Um, and early on, my older child, who is four and a half years older, snuck into our room and put a photo of her on my bedside table. Oh, it was such an amazing moment of her little four and a half year old self saying, keep me in mind too. Like I know you have a thing going on here with a new baby. That's incredible. Full time. Please hold me in mind too. So good. Oh, Sarah, I love that. Yes, love it too. So I think there can be a longing for. That the recognition still held, still important even as groups. Mm-hmm.

Change. Mm-hmm.

Sarah:

Um, children baking.

Vanessa (3):

I love this one. Like it's so messy. Mm-hmm. And there's definitely no way the measurements are gonna be right.

Sarah:

Yeah, that's true.

Vanessa (3):

So that feels really in line with our anti perfectionism goals for leading. Like we're guaranteed to get some stuff right? We will probably have sugar and salt ultimately in the whole mix, but we're definitely gonna get some stuff wrong, like the proportion. But I love desserts and baked goods. It's still worth. Making something and learning how to make it. Mm-hmm. But so many of us parents don't want our children to bake because of how messy

mm-hmm.

Vanessa (3):

So it's kind of uncomfortable to me this metaphor that it's like children baking, it's like, ugh, it's gonna be a lot of cleanup.

Mm-hmm.

Vanessa (3):

A lot of resisting my like, oh, don't do that. Let me do it for you. And that feels like group.

Yes.

Vanessa (3):

Especially the leading side, I guess.

Yeah.

Vanessa (3):

Love it. Okay. You said wild and I just wanted to say there is something very not tame. About this, and I love that. Mm-hmm. It's one of the only spaces in my life where you don't have to say the polite comebacks that you're supposed to say in every other setting and that feels like we are in a different environment. Mm-hmm. We are in a wild territory here.

Mm-hmm.

Vanessa (3):

Where you might not ever apologize even if someone's hurt, because if someone's hurt by something you said, you say, I'm sorry. In normal life, but you might not say it here and that feels wild. Mm-hmm. To like resist that.

Sarah:

Yeah. I'm glad you brought us back to the weird wild, I think of myself as pretty tamed and so the invitation to being untamed or wild is really both hard and. Mm-hmm. And I think that sometimes when we're first talking about these groups or inviting people to them, it seems wild, as in people are gonna be like a wild animal that is just destroying the flesh of another wild animal, which I guess does happen in wild, but if you are on a safari and you see one animal eating another animal. That would be an incredible once in a lifetime experience.

Vanessa (3):

Yeah.

Sarah:

That is amazing. Yeah. Not what you're beholding the whole time, right. You're beholding all these beautiful creatures, moving in different patterns, the grass moving all of wild is not flesh eating. No, it's. Playful and beautiful and running and mm-hmm. Synchron and diversion. There's a lot of things happening.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah:

And when I think of the invitation to be wild, I think about making space for all parts of myself.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah:

Which includes Anger and rage, but i'm not just a bastion of rage in the wild, you know? Also a lot of things. Yeah, the wild

Vanessa (3):

It's very beautiful, gorgeous. Uh, unpredictable.

Sarah:

Mm-hmm.

Vanessa (3):

In a way that Disneyland isn't, okay. We should try to finish our last two quickly

Sarah:

being on a stage of a musical, sweaty and nerve wracking.

Vanessa (3):

Mm-hmm.

Sarah:

And the last one is group is like survivor. We're no one. Gets voted off.

Vanessa (3):

Mm-hmm.

Sarah:

So

Vanessa (3):

good. Surviving group is my goal. Sometimes it's as little as that. Like I just wanna be able to survive this experience.

Mm-hmm.

Vanessa (3):

And it feels like a big deal. So it is like survivor? And you don't get voted off

Sarah:

my association to survivor? Is that the bad news is that you probably will fail at some of the, I don't know, some of the exercises they do like you won't cross the river.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah:

The good news is you get to stay. It's okay if you fail the next task. You get to remain and keep doing it. Yeah. And I think that's really great. I think most people vote themselves off the island. If anything that's like, that is the only, only thing, but it'd be nice if you allow themselves to stay. If you're the fastest and scariest and everyone's intimidated by you, you get to stay. Yeah. Or if you're the weakest link, you get to stay. And then the musical one. It is sweaty. I am so sweaty in groups. Oh my. Like

Vanessa (3):

literally sweat. I sweat a lot. Yeah.

Sarah:

I sweat more leading process groups on Zoom or being in process groups on Zoom than I do at the gym. I'm not joking.

Vanessa (3):

Me too. I wanna look up what's going on there because that physiological response is so interesting.

Sarah:

So intense. So intense. I actually do take a shower after group sometimes too much. It's too much. Also musicals. I personally, as a child, thought it would be so fun to be in a musical.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah:

Um, never done it. But there's something about the fun part of the group project making mistakes, laughing behind stage. All right. That was very fun

thank you so much for listening. If there's something you'd like us to talk about or you're interested in trying one of our groups, please email us at saying the unsaid group@gmail.com.