Mana Shah - Facilitator

I used to believe that being in balance within your body, mind, spirit and emotions is what sets you up to have amazing experiences in life and work. 2021 was a good reminder that sometimes it can be the other way round. As we were just getting used to living with Covid, the second wave hit our family and we lost our Dad in May. He was a beacon of health and good living and it just swept him away in 3 weeks. I cannot begin to reflect on the year without feeling this lump in my throat of the biggest loss of my life.  Life changed for all of us in many ways and I just felt so scattered with bits of me being pulled in all directions - but my Dad's consistently lived values and habits helped me navigate the chaos.   For my Dad, work was worship. All work was important. He genuinely loved getting up and ready for work and would come back looking so content - as if he had given his 150% every day. He would not shy away from doing anything - my Mom fondly remembers how he would...

  I finally got my driving license renewed! Yay! The freedom that comes with being in control of your own path is exhilarating even if it is only to the neighbourhood market:)  Given this long gap, I noticed today that when I shifted gears I felt a bit of a jerk. When I drive and when it is the right time for the gear to change, it just shifts so smoothly as if it was calling you out to change!  I remember when I was learning driving, my brother in law made me really sense what was happening with the gears.....so if I stayed in a lower gear longer than needed, the car made a weird screeching sound. If I changed to a higher gear before it was needed, I felt a jerk. He told me (this was 19 years ago and I still remember!)...."Mana, listen carefully.....what is the car telling you..."  Today as I was driving, I realised how deeply this is connected to facilitation. One of the skills we have is to sense what is the the next right move. We may come up with a very detailed...

As the year was winding down and I began to visualise what I wanted to see in my facilitation practice, one realisation came was that I wanted to invest in my own learning. I have been following some groups for a while and I decided to spend a certain percentage of my annual income on learning experiences that appealed to me.  Two weeks down, 6 online sessions, a board full of stickies, a stack of learning notes (mostly drawings!) and 23+ global connections later I am so happy I chose to sign up for the online  "expedition" on game storming.   Why GS for me? I wanted to get more comfortable with a more complicated visual platform that offers a bigger canvas for collaborative working.   I wanted to get better at convergence.  I wanted to integrate more "methods"/ "games" more consciously into my process to offer a diverse set of ways for participants to explore, innovate, discuss, decide together in an engaging way.  I wanted to experience what it feel...

  My son's learning space (https://aarambhwaldorf.in/) has thankfully not had any online classes the whole year. He is 9 in grade 3. Teachers worked with parents and we learnt (sometimes happily and sometimes annoyingly) to take the curriculum to kids in a joyful, purposeful way. One great thing about this was that we got a inside experience of the curriculum itself and how it is brought to the children.  The "work" starts with a verse. Always. In fact even in a community meeting, parent meeting, class group meeting, training etc at Aarambh we always start by reading a verse. (above is a verse Ayan and I read at home before we get to "work").  Why read a verse before starting? I will talk about what it does it us first. When we look at the verse, it makes us pause, it gives us a minute to realise that we ended what we were doing before and are now starting something else. As we read the verse together, the words slowly sink in (in Aarambh, Ayan says the children...

  (this is a version of the Medicine Wheel Tool created by Birgitt and Ward Williams that is adapted from the Medicine Wheel created by the  indigenous peoples around the world from the beginning of recorded time) It was April 2013, with curiousity and openness I walked into  Vibha 's training. The seats were arranged in a circle, there were stones in a bowl in the centre, there was posters on the wall, there was natural light streaming through the big glass windows...the whole space had such a warm, calming and inviting feeling you would have thought you have walked into a spa:) Yet this was a three day training on " whole person process facilitation ". One of the first worksheets we had to reflect on was - how do you as a facilitator take care of yourself physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually?  This question got me thinking for the first time about my " whole being".  I was fascinated that this was at the core of effective and authentic facilitati...

For the first time, we are living somewhere else besides Delhi - Mashobra and Shimla have been our home since the past five weeks. The dense forest, the freshness of the air, the colours of the fall/ winter, the variety of long tailed birds, the meandering paths, the different sun sets, the changing shapes of the clouds, the starry sky.......all have added a certain stillness in me which I have not experienced in a long time. A stillness that is giving me fresh perspectives, motivation to do things I would not have wanted or felt I had time for, feeling gratitude for so much life has to offer, deeper love and connection with family and friends..... And once in while something I experience gives me a AHA moment for my facilitation practice.  One day we were were hiking around the hills near our cottage. I saw a path that was dense, coated with dry leaves and pine cones and leading down an interesting trail. I felt so drawn to it but my son wanted to take another path. We chose that ...

I have always drawn immense energy every time I connect with young people around facilitation - the way their bodies shift from a state of formality to ease, the way their questions and sharing deepens with every activity, the way the silence holds the space for their feelings and thoughts to take shape, the way their eyes open wide with wonder at what all is possible when a space is held in a life nurturing way …..This began with the course I taught in Jamia Milia’s Development Communications Department and in the past couple of years the energetic bunch at India Fellows has been a wonderful community to work with. India Fellows go on a 13-month long journey of discovering their own leadership potential. It includes training, mentor-ship, reflections and hands-on work experience with a grassroots organisation working on social issues.   Every year, a few people write back, some immediately, some after a few months (and even years) at how deeply they experienced the space and were...