{"id":2697,"date":"2018-02-05T23:22:36","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T23:22:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bkpicof.smainternational.org\/?p=2697"},"modified":"2018-02-05T23:22:36","modified_gmt":"2018-02-05T23:22:36","slug":"appreciative-discernment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icofprogram.org\/fr\/appreciative-discernment\/","title":{"rendered":"APPRECIATIVE DISCERNMENT"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Our journey towards radical aliveness which was anchored on Theory U now took us to another module titled Integral Growth. The facilitator for this module was Fr. James Shimbala, sma. In presenting this, he said, another word for this is Reaching Deep. However, inorder to achieving reaching deep in our persons, we need to identify first areas of renewal and development in our journey of life. These identified areas for renewal and development are our experiences of pain which now serve as obstacles on our journey to greatness. This process of Integral Renewal helps us to revisit these pains but with a positive orientation, as areas of growth that yearn for renewal and development.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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The word \u201cIntegral\u201d refers to \u201cComplete\u201d, \u201cWhole\u201d or having no fraction. Integral development process has 8 components. (see diagram). Each component is important and is to be maintained inorder to avoid imbalance in growth which may be describe as \u2018injury\u2019. What matters in this process is not the percentage of each component but the Appreciative Discernment of each component and each role in building integral human development. Integral development means \u201cchoosing my thoughts and actions based on values and not personal gains\u201d. However, for us to appreciate this process of integral development, we need to be aware of 4 conditions<\/span><\/p>\n

1- Inevitability of death. Knowing that death of the physical body is not the end of our journey will encourage us to live here and now.<\/span><\/p>\n

2- Freedom and Responsibility. Awareness of capacity to make our choices in life will encourage us to reach our highest potentials.<\/span><\/p>\n

3- Aloneliness. Awareness of being unique and living out this uniqueness.<\/span><\/p>\n

4- Meaninglessness. This is to be aware that my presence has a purpose in the world. With this awareness of purpose, one strives for the highest potentials in life.<\/span><\/p>\n

The meaninglessness of life reveals that we are created and thus meant to be connected to this source to enable growth in us. This connectivity to our source took us through, in the course of the presentation, to Level of Maturity in Apostleship. (see diagram)<\/span><\/p>\n

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At the base of life of connectivity to source is \u201cEvil\u201d. At this level, whatever action manifested here is usually contrary to goodness. I. e. Satanism. For a positive attachment to the source, we need to make the experience of each of levels of apostleship as shown in diagram above. In making this journey of experience of the different levels for the purpose of a positive achievements, we need the tool of Appreciative Discernment. (see image). According to the facilitator, Appreciative Discernment helps us, not only to remove obstacles in our journey of life but to encourage in us, growing in values with the goal to reach our highest potentials. The exercise used to highlight this was (River of life) . This was followed by group work exercise.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Appreciative Discernment led us to Self Care. In the content of Self Care, we have: Resilience and Stress Management.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Resilience is the capacity to rebound, thrive, flourish, keep going etc. This has to do with experiencing of stress. Stress is \u201cnormal bodily response to feeling overwhelmed, frightened or anxious.\u201d It is part of flight, fight, fright response to events in life. Stress manifests when challenges outweigh skills and strengths.(see causes of Stress).<\/span><\/p>\n

Continuing with the presentation, the facilitator mentioned that stresses can be transformed to growing values for the purpose of reaching highest potentials. (see questionnaire). Using the Appreciative Discernment tool, we are able to identify our negative strengths. In this regard, the Self \u2013 Test exercise was used. The various results showed that each individual has his\/her own pattern of managing stress \u2018traditionally’. The major ones identified in the course of this program were: Passive, Aggressive, Passive Aggressive and Assertive attitudes. However, it has been observed that a good majority is coping with stress adopt attitudes 1-3. Let us not forget that our goal of integral development is to reach highest potential and in this case Assertive Attitude. Assertive attitude requires that we process our communication. (see skills for positive communication).<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"\"<\/a>We were also made to be aware that communication is not done in isolation. It involves two or more persons. At this point, the awareness and importance of Cojourneying was highlighted. Cojourneying according to the facilitator is \u201c moment by moment awareness of one\u2019s inner experiencing for the purpose of a healing and growth\u201d. With this in view, Community Building Attitudes was introduced. Inorder to help us in this journey of Community Building Attitudes, the work of Scott Peck. DD, \u201cDifferent Drums\u201d was adopted as a guide by the facilitator.<\/span><\/p>\n

The author of \u201cDifferent Drums\u201d likened Community Building process to different sounds of a drum .i. e. War, Feasting, Mourning, Peace etc. He wrote that Community building may come in these forms:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Pseudo Community \u2013 This is a Community in the making. Members pretend to be true. A community as this cannot meet our expectations.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Chaos Community \u2013 This community emphasizes more of the differences that are among members. (Gal. 2:11-16; Acts. 6:1-2)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Emptyness (Opening) Community \u2013 Here members appreciate the differences that are and working in harmonising them for use in building the community. (Acts. 11:4-8)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 True Community- members live and work well because of their differences. (Acts. 15:22-29).<\/span><\/p>\n

The desire of the human person is to reach his\/her highest potentials and this case of Community building, it is to move from Chaos to True Community which is termed \u201chealthy passage\u201d. In this movement, what is needed is Assertive Communication. (see 3 Communs diagram). An exercise was introduced for assertive communication. The achievements of this communication are, to inform others of:<\/span><\/p>\n