Giving Ourselves Permission To Fall Behind

​I led a three-day learning experience this week. Yesterday, at the end of the three days, I asked the group to present the core curriculum they'd learned in our time together.

Each participant was assigned 2-3 slides. Over the years of leading this experience, it has typically taken a group an hour to do the presentation. But this group, it took them 2 hours and 20 minutes - 80 minutes longer than I'd allowed for on the agenda.

At first I felt anxious. I had a plan. An agenda. The longer they went the further we'd get behind.

When groups stick to the script for the presentation things flow much quicker. And though the group was technically sticking to the script - they were going way off script.

They were leading the group in songs. Activities. They were teaching each other to breathe. To identify people in their lives who'd made a difference to them. Made them resilient.

They were off script, but they were not off purpose. In many ways, I was sitting in the most purposeful presentation of this material I'd ever sat in.

They'd taken over the presentation. It was if I was invisible.

It is hard to allow yourself to become invisible when you are trying to lead. It is hard to throw your agenda out the window and embrace what is being created without the pressure of one. But in my invisible corner in the back of the room, I couldn't help but discover the group was not abandoning the material, they were living it.

The material had become a part of them.

Could a leader ask for anything more?

I don't think we give each other enough room sometimes to share our humanity. To share our creativity and our thoughts and our hearts. I don't think we do that in trainings or in conversations or relationships.

We rush each other.

We edit each other.

We move each other along.

But human connection - and most certainly healing - it often requires space and time we didn't plan for.

We went over on our agenda by 80 minutes yesterday. And what at first felt like a problem, became a gift. The most beautiful part of the training - of my entire week - was 80 minutes that was never supposed to happen.

It wasn't on the agenda...

Sometimes we pressure ourselves into believing we are falling way behind in life. We feel pressured to keep it moving. Well, I learned yesterday - sometimes falling behind is exactly where I'm supposed to be.

Sometimes the best plan is to leave the plan behind.