Folks who experience my retreats, workshops and talks often ask me how I am able to create and lead events where participants feel so present, so vulnerable, so connected to me and each other, and so deeply transformed.
There’s a lot that goes into this, and one of the KEY things: in order to create deeper breakthroughs, seeds of transformation, and experiences that have participants wanting more, you must become a MASTER OF ENERGY.
Without mastering the energy in the room, your teaching falls flat, you become out of sync with your participants, and you miss an opportunity to create movement, breakthroughs, shifts and results for your clients.
So what does this all mean?
Well, first of all – whether you’re “woo” or not, it’s important to understand that energy is real.
If someone brings sadness to a room, that energy is palpable.
If someone brings joy to a room, that energy is palpable.
If someone brings confusion to a room, that energy is palpable.
And groups of people in a room together “entrain” – this means they share energy & circulate energy. And the strongest & sturdiest energy will often co-opt every other energy in the room.
For example, if the individual who brings grief to the room is the strongest, much of the room will feel or have a response/reaction to the grief. If the individual who brings disconnection to the room is the strongest, much of the room will feel or have a response/reaction to the disconnection.
So, your job as a group leader is to be aware that energy is real and always showing up, and to be able to sense and tap into the energy of the room….to feel that this person in the back has disconnected or this woman to the right is in grief or that woman to the left has just had an opening.
The more you can sense into the energy of the room, then the more you can leverage it for learning & breakthroughs – i.e., make coaching & facilitation decisions that help you support your participants in learning from, moving through or harnessing the energy they are experiencing. (And yes, there are specific skills you can learn for this!).
But you want to go even beyond sensing and responding to the energy – in order to truly master energy as the facilitator, you want to be able to step into the room grounded in whatever energy YOU choose to bring in and use for transformation.
For example, sometimes I purposefully bring grief into a room so that my participants can have a meaningful release. Other times I purposefully bring lightheartedness into the room so participants can put down their armor and defenses, or simply experience the energy of fun alongside the topic we are learning. And yet, other times for example, I bring the energy of sacredness into the room so that participants can connect deeply to the most sacred parts of themselves and take more seriously the wisdom that is coming through them.
Mastering the energy in the room also helps you to mitigate unrealized Shadow energy that could inadvertently get sparked and entrained from one person in the room who has come up on an important trigger.
You can start practicing mastering the energy in a room before you facilitate your next event:
Next time you’re in a room with a group of people, begin to tap into the energy. See if you can sense where each person in the room is at. Then notice how one person’s energy can affect others in the room. And begin to ground down into your Leadership energy to see if your energy can impact the group.
As I always like to say – Energy follows energy!
