Donna Frost

Chapter 7 226 experiencing and articulating different ways of knowing, being and understanding, and facilitating active use of holistic understanding to gain new insights into self and practice. An important insight reached within the NP inquiry was the limitation of ‘explaining’ about different ways of knowing, about invisible aspects of practice being made visible and the use of creativity in this process. My attempts, both in the RN and NP inquiry, to explain the usefulness of such approaches, had limited impact, certainly in the first instance. Amuch more helpful strategy, and one built into the lemniscate process, was supporting CCCI members to experience practice, or a reflection on practice, or even on being, in a way which engaged all their senses, and then to facilitate examination and articulation of the experience. The articulated experience enabled a shift, however small, in understanding, which meant a later explanation had something to ‘connect’ to in the mind and body of the inquirer. So although the facilitation strategies which enabled movement towards the second milestone are discussed in a particular order here, and pulled apart from each other, in our experience they were bound together and formed a dynamic whole. The essence of the strategies for reaching this second milestone are the creation of a safe, supportive and sufficiently structure space within which the ‘experience’ could be had, deconstructed and reconstructed, and a trusting relationship with a facilitator who was able to guide these processes. As a novice inquirer into professional artistry it was necessary to be able to try things out, experience creative approaches, engage one’s senses and learn how to trust one’s body. Trust between the person or people involved and in the intentions of the facilitator was essential. Further, as facilitator I had to be aware of the conscious or unconscious barriers people had to working in creative ways. Drawing or painting, for example, often made people feel very vulnerable in the beginning. It could be helpful to be matter of fact about the experience and what people could expect and to mention that experiencing a degree of anxiety was not out of the ordinary. Other helpful approaches included working gently together, explicitly asking people to try something new and to open themselves to the experience, explaining the importance of any key parts of the activity, such as silence in certain stages, role modelling during the activity, reflecting on it afterwards and paying attention to the yield and new insights that had arisen. As well, it was helpful to ask people to identify what the creativity had added, however unexpectedly, to the exercise.