The Gist of My Argument

Although I have been working on this problem for a number of years have not been able to put it into words that found a large audience. I have never been able to reach a large number of people at one time. But I know that I have been helped by one person at a time over a long period of time. Imagine placing yourself in the double circle within the inner circle.  Now imagine having a person behind you to help you see what is going on in your circle and help you find your thoughts about the whole issue of being in group.  You can privately discuss with him or her what is happening to you.  You can focus on what you are feeling which is probably anxiety.  But you do not know for sure what is making you anxious.  Is it the strangeness of the group or is it the strangeness of your thoughts?   So you depend on this person to help you understand your world in the group.  You have placed your trust in this person because the format of the group is asking you to place a trust in the person  behind you.  Now you have gained additional strength of having more eyes and ears focused on the issues.  This is very simple but it can be very demanding and very doubt raising.  Everything flows from  how you begin to feel the presence of the person behind you and their support of you.   As a group goes on you will get your turn to reverse the experience and be in support of them.  This is a dramatic change in perspective and hopefully will help you move in and out being supported and then being able to be of support. 

But there is a further unfolding.  If your ego is in command and running your life  you will probably seek out the best supportive person rather than understanding that all the people there are available to support you; but it is not a contest.  So this is in no way a hierarchy but rather an experiment in learning to go deeper than your own ego and trust a process of accepting support simply on the basis of the sincerity of that support.   But you must trust your own willingness and openness to recognize sincerity.