As part of Facilitators Network Singapore’s (FNS) 20th Anniversary Celebration this year, FNS organised a series of Community of Practice (CoP) sessions conducted by it’s community of associates.
On 1 June 2024 CoP, participants gathered at FNS Learning Centre for a Health and Wellness Masterclass, led by Jack Huang, Mey Sam, and Janice Lua. Missed it?
Here is a summary of what happened.
As a facilitator, you have probably had those times when you are at the side, listening to the lead facilitator share the instructions for the discussion and suddenly it hits you.
You feel tired. You feel the tiredness slowly ebbing through you.
When it is your turn to stand in front of the group and the group looks expectantly at you.
You pause, ready to guide the group, trying to muster every bit of your energy.
But somehow, things feel a bit off. Participants sound a little more muted. Your energy does not seem to flow. Your lack of energy has somehow affected the group you are facilitating. Read on to find out how you can keep yourself healthy and energised.
Huh, health?
As facilitators, we often hear a lot about tools and methods. What we may not realise is that as a facilitator, you are the biggest tool. Therapists call it the use of self.
But how often do we prepare and take care of the self, which we use to facilitate conversations?
Wherever you are, you can always exercise
Saturday’s COP started with Jack Huang, who led the participants through an interactive workshop encompassing exercise, nutrition and skincare.
Jack sprung a surprise on everybody, by getting participants to go through a series of 4 exercises such as the plank, pushups, and even something as difficult as the burpee!
With huffs and puffs, each group of participants gamely conducted live demonstrations of their assigned exercises. Everyone cheered for one other as they celebrated each other’s enthusiasm.
But what was the point?
Often, when we think about exercise, the immediate barrier that comes to everyone’s mind is time. How many times have we said something like this?
- I have no time.
- I have no energy.
- I am not sure if what I am doing is effective.
Jack wanted to show how anyone could exercise exercise anywhere and anytime. What mattered more than the intensity of the exercise was the personal commitment and follow through.
We might wait for the motivation to start exercising, without realising that motivation often begins after we start exercising.
He urged those who were just starting their fitness journey to do so with a trained professional, and also shared the fallacy of how most people would engage personal trainers based on appearance and musculature rather than knowledge, experience and attitude. The trainee might end up trying to follow someone who was not really attentive or committed to addressing their personal needs e.g. texting away while the trainee is struggling with the exercise, instead of closely supervising their form.
Jack joked,
Sometimes when I go to the gym and I see trainees with their trainers, I do not know whether it is a training session or a dating session!
The class laughed, as they remembered their own experiences seeing such incidents in the gym.
Training one’s fitness was more about finding someone who was realistic about what they could achieve for you.
Each of us has a unique body, with a different metabolism and mechanism. Our individual bodies, with all their complexities, may not map to an easy and surefire recipe for ‘weight loss’. Spot reduction of body fat is also another common misperception. That’s why you might often find yourself struggling despite following that online method to the T.
Inevitably, you might be setting yourself up for failure, because no body is alike.
What works for others, may not work for you
You might read this and think,
but I do not have fitness trainers. How do I apply this?
It applies in any situation where you are attempting to change your body shape. This might be that famed banana smoothie recipe which you heard helped people shed many kilograms, the new workout you have heard friends rave about (spin, anyone?) or even the sleep habit you are trying to cultivate.
Whatever you find, find something that works for you and you can sustain it.
Not something that worked for others, but something that works for you. If you have heard a new fitness hack, it might be better understanding the science behind it rather than buying the latest equipment to try the latest fitness fad.
Mey, who later shared about her Supermum journey, echoed this.
As a high-flying executive with 3 kids, she shared how she found herself 15kg above her ideal weight after her pregnancy. She felt lethargic, tired, and frustrated. Whatever she tried did not seem to work.
Along the way, she heard about the idea of intermittent fasting. This was where people were not necessarily eating less, but eating over a shorter period of time.
To improve your health, maybe you should fast
According to the research by the likes of John Hopkins neuroscientist Mark Mattson, he says that after hours with no food, the body exhausts its sugar stores and starts to burn fat. He refers to this as metabolic switching.
It also helps us to rejuvenate our health. Janice Lua, who studied the science behind intermittent fasting, shared about how she found the adoption of intermittent fasting improves her health.
Janice did not start intermittent fasting to lose weight. It was only after reading Lifespan by David Sinclair and The Intermittent Fasting Revolution by Mark P. Mattson that she realised that there are a wide range of health benefits from intermittent fasting. Her weight-loss was a welcomed bonus.
During the CoP, Janice led the group of 20 in a facilitated ambassador sharing. She shared the key messages from the books, and then got participants to share what they have learnt with each other.
One member summarised her learning beautifully.
Indeed, research from the Baylor College of Medicine Study has shown that anti-cancer proteomes are produced when the body enters intermittent fasting.
For closing reflection, Janice shared a poster that spoke to her deeply and asked participants to reflect on the question given in the poster “Which life are you designing?”And at closing circle, participants shared ONE THING each of them will STOP, CHANGE or START to extend their health span.
You can hear the strong commitment from their sharing.
How we can hold onto personal, and organisational health
As process facilitators and Organisation Development (OD) consultants , many of us work tirelessly to ensure the organisational health. And there are times we forget our own health, in the pursuit of organisational health. You are constantly encountering resistance to changes in the system, as you guide the group from chaos, into better order.
Often, we may end up stuffing ourselves with food to distract ourselves from the pain that we vicariously hold for organisations. It is why food is the first thing we look for after a long facilitation session.
During the session, participants in the different groups also shared their love-hate relationship with food. Whilst they knew that food was something they needed, they also shared about the times when they might abuse it to give themselves a good sugar rush after a hard day.
After all, the sugar rush was a predictable high after a difficult session.
The search for a sugar rush can also be a good analogy for organisations. You might have encountered many organisations who go searching for solutions, whether it be the latest profiling test, team bonding event, or keynote speaker.
Some of these organisations might sense that something is amiss, and try to distract themselves from the pain by getting the latest, shiny object.
As process facilitators and OD consultants, what can we do when we see organisations that are going through a difficult time, and seem to be doing many things, but never seemingly progressing?
During those times, perhaps it might help to take a leaf from intermittent fasting. To realise that sometimes, all we need to do is to pause what we are doing, allow our body to recover and rejuvenate itself before taking the next steps forward.
Bio
John runs content agency Media Lede and is the author of Becoming Better, a book for helping professionals to manage work and their emotions better.
Curious about facilitation and FNS’ next CoP event?
Check out www.fns.sg or email admin@fns.sg for more information.
CoP: Community of Practice
