Are You Nervous?

The Nervous System Is in the Room: Facilitation That Moves With the Body

Written By Kirsten Harris-Talley and Teddy McGlynn-Wright of In The Works, Edited by Sylvia G. Hadnot of Has Everything & Co.

As facilitators, we’re taught to track energy, emotions, and body language. But, what if we zoomed out and recognized that underneath it all, we are tracking nervous system states?

Our nervous systems are our body’s first responder. Their job is not to think critically or assess nuance—it’s to scan for threat and keep us alive. That means it’s constantly assessing the room, the tone of voice, the seating chart, the stories being told, the people who speak first and loudest. It’s taking notes. Whether we are consciously aware of it or not.

In facilitation, we cannot afford to ignore this. The nervous system is not just present—it is active, intelligent, and shaping the experience for every participant. As individuals and the group as a whole.

Nervous Systems Are Predictable, Yet (Un)Logical 

Our nervous systems don’t wait for cognitive clarity to give us needed information. Our bodies are finely attuned antennas - perceiving, processing, and responding in real-time. No thinking necessary, because it moves faster than thought.  We predict based on past experience and present cues. That’s why we can feel triggered in a space that seems “objectively” calm—because their body has detected a familiar pattern of harm. We don’t decide to feel unsafe. 

As facilitators, it is essential we have to understand the nervous system and intersections at three levels simultaneously - our own systems as facilitators, the experience of individuals in the group, and the experience of the group as a whole as the energy is shared. Our body tells us and we have a choice as to what is next from the experience our nervous system communicates. Our feelings and emotions are present and show up whether we’re ready for them or not. We can either ignore them and lose access to key data or group dynamics… or we can move with them and unlock deeper possibilities and connection.

Ease Is Not the Same As Comfort, Comfort is Not the same as Safety

To “facilitate” means to make easier—but not necessarily to make easy. Nervous system-forward  facilitation is about creating the conditions for people to stay present with discomfort, while staying safe in the process. Learning happens when we are introduced to new things that open up possibilities. And that newness can be uncomfortable. But safety can be present, even when we are uncomfortable. So the balance of that is necessary for a nervous system-forward space building. That might look like naming tension in the room, pausing a planned activity to check in, or shifting physical space to reduce unspoken threat (yes, even the artwork in a room can matter).

In this approach, ease means creating enough nervous-system-regulation in the space that people can feel, think, and relate to each other—even when the material is activating, as change so often is.  Remember, nervous systems prefer predictability to novelty, so change itself is an activating nervous system experience. New strategies create new sensations (feelings), emotions, and neural pathways, and change is rarely, if ever linear.::

“We change in a back and forth—doing the new thing, then the old thing again, then the new thing more—until a new habit forms.”

— Kirsten, In The Works

Our nervous systems interpret change through sensation before we ever assign a story to it. The conditions and contexts that we grow up within shape our experiences, which shape what our nervous systems come to expect. The sensations that come with change — rising heartbeat, butterflies in the stomach, hollowness, — need space, validation, and interpretation not pressure to resolve quickly. When we allow groups to move at “the speed of trust,” we’re not just haphazardly slowing things down—we’re building sustainable, accessible, and lasting change together.

Foundations of Nervous System-Forward Space Design

1. Safety – This space is not a threat to folks’ being or identity.

2. Agency – Participants have choice and voice.

3. Dignity – Those in attendance will be respected in their full humanity.

4. Belonging – We are not alone here. We are recognized.

When all of these are present together, it creates a space that allows people to take risks, make mistakes, and share ideas without fear of rejection or punishment. It’s not just an emotional state—it’s a nervous system cue that says: you can show up fully and belong here. Check out our previous post titled Wholeness & Wellness for a refresh on safety, agency, dignity and belonging. 

Designing for these doesn’t require fancy tools, handouts, or materials. It requires attention and intention. As well as a willingness to change our facilitation approach is the group needs something new to come back to safety. Consider how names are used, how conflict is handled, how decision-making is built into the room. These are all cues to the nervous system. And when the nervous system feels held, the people in the room can show up more fully.

Co-Regulation is Essential for Co-Leadership

Co-leadership shows up in co-facilitation and requires connection and reflection between the facilitators. That vulnerability helps us build the give and take we will need to respond to the nervous system of the groups when one or more facilitators find ourselves dysregulated.  Facilitation isn’t just about task-sharing, it is also about supporting our whole selves and the emotions we feel as we hold the group. Our nervous systems support us as we support the group - and we have to tend to ourselves as well.  It’s about shared regulation, shared presence, and the ability to respond to what’s unfolding in the room—together.

When facilitators are attuned to nervous system dynamics, they can adapt with more wisdom, more ease, and more care. And in turn, they create spaces where groups can adapt, too. And they as facilitators can meet the group whole, centered, and clear.

In a world that often demands speed, performance, and certainty, this kind of practice is radical. It says: We are human. Our bodies are here. And they know something important about what’s needed. 

Inspiration for Implementation: Nervous System Awareness in Your Facilitation Practice

✅ Start Today

• Scan the Room with the Nervous System in Mind
  Before your next session or meeting, take a few quiet minutes to notice the environment. What might feel safe or unsafe to someone walking in for the first time? What visual, auditory, or spatial cues could you shift? How can you create a space / place for rest when folks need to recenter?

• Ask Yourself: “What are the conditions for ease?”
  Before introducing content or pushing for productivity, check: does this group have enough safety, agency, dignity, and belonging to show up fully right now? What do they need to get there?

• Normalize Pause
  Pauses invite presence: Even building in a 10 second pause between speakers can give nervous systems time to digest what’s been offered. 

🌀 Build Over Time

• Integrate Embodied Language into Your Group Agreements
  Invite participants to co-create how they’d like to feel and act while together. Then they can create practices for how to handle dysregulation when it arrives.

• Track Your Group’s Somatic Patterns
  Begin noticing group-level cues: body posture, voice tone, collective energy shifts, engagement /non-engagement. These are clues to how the group’s nervous system is responding.

Practice What You Preach
Develop your own daily or weekly rituals. What helps you recognize when you are dysregulated and return to center? Remember: you can’t co-regulate a room if you’re disconnected from yourself.

Belonging: The Foundation for Meaningful Change

It is an understatement to say that there’s a lot going on in the world right now. It seems that not a day goes by without a parade of “ordinary horribles” coming into our awareness. Many of us are experiencing direct threats to our dignity or safety, while others are having their agency indirectly compromised/assaulted. All of these experiences, whether firsthand or witnessed, are dysregulating for our nervous systems. The times we’re living in call for connection, creativity, and collaboration—all of which are built by belonging.

On January 21st, we celebrated Martin Luther King Jr., a leader who presciently posed the question, "where do we go from here, Chaos or Community?" Laying out a clear choice for us as a country and a species. There are a few loud folks who are pushing hard for chaos, increasing the need for the majority of us to choose community. This work, our work is possible because of a shared sense of belonging—a knowing that each person has a place, a role, and a voice in the movement.

What Does Belonging Really Mean?

Belonging means more than fitting in. It’s knowing that your place is reserved for you, that your unique voice matters in decision-making, and that your contributions are both valued and impactful. Cultures and Politics of Belonging are the antidote to disposability politics. Like in an orchestra, any individual floutist, oboist, violinist, etc who doesn’t contribute impacts the whole. Belonging fuels connection, which is the foundation of our movements, organizations, and relationships. Belonging is necessary to foster trust, collaboration, and accountability. All of which we need now as we all move through this moment of change.

At In The Works, we’ve built our approach to facilitation around this principle. That’s why we call our contribution Belonging-Based Facilitation ™ —a methodology grounded in our principles of being Black-Liberative, anti-racist, and trauma-informed. This concept of belonging has been beautifully articulated by the brilliant john a. powell of the Othering and Belonging Institute and contains three core elements:

1. An individual’s felt sense of belonging—ensuring people feel seen, heard, and valued.

2. A relational imperative—inviting individuals and groups to move toward one another and others’ experiences, especially when it’s uncomfortable.

3. An institutional commitment — organizations responding meaningfully to the claims, needs, and challenges of their members/employees..

The urgent and complex challenges we face today demand bold, creative solutions. These solutions cannot be designed in isolation. They require the collective creativity and capacity that can only emerge within groups. And groups require belonging to work well.

Belonging in Practice

Every organization has the potential for transformative change. Often, what’s needed is a facilitator to help uncover hidden strengths and new ways of working. Through interaction, connection, and embodiment, we help “stuck” teams rediscover flow and collaboration. We focus on skills like improving communication, clarifying processes, and cultivating resilience for leaders and teams.

Here are some steps you can take to build belonging in your organization:

• Create intentional spaces for honest dialogue and active listening.

• Develop shared rituals that reinforce connection and purpose.

• Invest in conflict resolution practices that prioritize repair and trust.

• Center accountability in your processes and decision-making.

• Celebrate contributions, milestones, and shared successes.

Ready to Build Belonging?

Co-leadership, co-regulation, co-growing, co-building are more important than ever to sustain ourselves through what promises to be an incredibly challenging season in the USA and across the globe. This moment requires us to be present, resilient, and sustainable. We’re at a point in time in which  we need ourselves and each other more than ever AND many people are burning out. We want people to be able to lead sustainably, so that they will still be here in 4(0) years. The time we are in is built to overwhelm us wholly - our individual bodies, our communities, and our work for justice and social change. But we know, when we build belonging and connection, these moments are time for reflection and building resilience for new ways of being. 

For leaders ready to dive deeper into belonging-based practices, we invite you to consider Co-LED Camp, a week-long residential retreat at Westerbeke Ranch in Sonoma, CA. This retreat is designed for co-leaders and catalysts for social change across sectors, including non-profits, government, arts collectives, education, and philanthropy. We chose to do this retreat in person, specifically, because there is something special that happens when we physically take up space together - we are able to embody leadership in new ways when we experience this kind of growth together somatically.   

At Co-LED Camp ™ , we center our core principles of being Black-liberative, trauma-informed, and anti-racist. The facilitation team will guide participants through embodied practices, reflective exercises, dialogue, and play. You’ll leave with strengthened skills, deeper self-awareness, and actionable tools for leadership.

We’ll explore topics like:

• Your Personal “Why” for Co-Leadership

• Groups, Choice & Deciding Together

• Connection & Conflict Resolution

• Change, Transitions & Good Goodbyes

• So What, Now What? From Learning to Action

This immersive experience is designed to transform how you lead and collaborate, equipping you to address the challenges and opportunities unique to your context.

How Will You Build Belonging?

Whether you’re leading a team, building community, or navigating change, the work of belonging is foundational to meaningful lasting change. Let’s explore how we can create spaces where everyone feels seen, valued, and empowered to contribute. Part of building and holding belonging is having wholeness. Our Wholeness Model ™ centers wellness and includes our need for safety. 

We define safety as “The sense of being physically, psychologically and emotionally secure. What makes us able to take risks.” 

Take some time for reflection and an embodied safety practice (estimate 10 - 15MIN):

• Sit somewhere you feel safe and secure - it may be your bedroom, outside by a tree, in your kitchen with a mug of your favorite tea

• Sit and feel your body and the sensations you note - where is there ease? Where is there tightness? Is your heart beating quickly? Slowly? Is your breath deep? Shallow? Be present in the messages your body is giving you

• Slowly breathe in and out, taking particular time to bring ease and relaxation to the parts of your body that need attention

• Sit with the following question as you continue to breathe “Where are the places and who are the people with whom I feel safe right now?” “What risks can we take together, where we know that risk will bring us reward and clarity?

• Be present with the thoughts, emotions, and feelings in your body as the answers come to you

We’ll see you online and, hopefully, in person at Co-LED Camp. Together, we can build the belonging-based future we all need.

Warm Welcomes Build Belonging

This is the time of year where many of us gather with family and friends. We find ourselves in groups in different forms and in diverse stages. Many of us are moving through the stages of groups at speeds that can feel jarring and overwhelming. When groups change rapidly, we even sometimes go through the stages concurrently - and yet each stage still deserves some intention. To review the stages of groups, check out our posts from October and November!

This month, we’re honing in on the anatomy of a warm welcome: invitation, recognition, and preparation. 

Invitation

Any of us who have seen a movie about secret societies (or a wizarding school that shall not be named) have seen what it looks like when someone receives an invitation. The gold filigree, the careful scripting, scented paper, even the delivery-how it arrives and who delivers it-is part of the invitation. In reality, not every invitation will - or needs to be - hand penned and elaborate, yet all good invitations are intentionally crafted. 

Who are you inviting specifically? Why are you inviting them? What qualities do they possess that you are recognizing? How will you make sure they know they are important and welcome?

Recognition 

How do you recognize the quality in those who are being invited? In professional settings it can be easy to lose this; in the formality of a job offer, for example. But this is precisely the time to offer a warm welcome. Teddy was once hired onto a job in a different part of the country that he had no prior relationship with, he asked those who made the final decision what set him apart. Their answer was instructive: you were the one who most talked about community. The clarity of that invitation both affirmed a quality that he had and communicated a hope of what he would bring to the team. We also had a tequila toast and indoor second line at the end of our first training institute - New Orleans really does know how to welcome a body!

J. Ruth Gendler’s The Book of Qualities offers playful wisdom for recognizing qualities in. I recommend it to all my facilitation trainees, as it was recommended to me by a trainer. Part of the loveliness of the book is that it personifies a variety of characteristics as characters: ”Beauty doesn’t anger easily, but she was annoyed with the journalist who kept asking her about her favorites–as if she could have one favorite color or one favorite flower.” (Gendler, page #) It is my favorite combination of  whimsy and rigor.  Expanding our vocabulary of qualities, enables us to craft that intentional moment of recognition that so characterizes a a warm welcome. 

Preparation

So we’ve invited, we’ve recognized, and now we prepare the space for our folks. Preparing the space is how we do our best to make sure what is built will meet their needs and encourage their growth. It’s when we ask ourselves, “Based on what we know about 1) the possibilities and limitations of the space we are creating and 2) the folks we are inviting into it, what do we need to do to make it as welcoming as possible?” 

For example, at a recent retreat for a transformative justice collective, we made preparation with intention:

• Crafted an upbeat playlist with some crowd favorites to play for the first 30 minutes of the gathering (when people would arrive).

• Always had someone at or near the door to welcome folks in with as much or as little contact as they would like. (We considered a soul-train danceline, but not all the introverts want that kind of fanfare when they arrive).

• We kept scents to a minimum in the main room. 

• Once everyone was seated (in Circle) we thanked everyone for coming, shared a bit about our purpose in coming together for the day and offered a grounding meditation that brought us all into the room and into relationship with each other. 

Warm Welcomes Build Belonging

One of the stories I often share about what it is to feel belonging is also a story about a warm welcome. I was running late for a Buddhist retreat with my Sangha and as I stood at the door contemplating whether to attend at all because I didn’t want to be “that guy” I walked into the meditation hall and as I moved up the stairs, folks were singing, snacks were out, I was unobtrusively directed where to put my coat and without breaking song/stride I was shown to my cushion with the song sheet in front of it. Settling into my seat I joined the song. Not every warm welcome is about changing up everything, it isn’t about a record scratch and turning of attention, sometimes it is the subtle invitation of your seat having been prepared and the recognition that you deserve attention and care. 

How will you build belonging with warm welcomes this season?

Anatomy of a Welcome

Belonging Based Facilitation leads with its values, one of which is anti-racism. As such, one of our core commitments is to not be ahistorical. This value shows up in our practice when we are warming up a group - we help usher them into and ultimately through the Warm Welcome Stage by letting them know what preceded their iteration of a group. As Priya Parker discusses in her book on The Art of Gathering when we come together in the warming stage, we can quickly share who we are and what brings us all together. 

As facilitators, we often introduce ourselves to a new group by describing how we came to be part of that group or how long we have worked with a subset of the group to prepare for our time together. When doing circle-work (e.g. transformative justice, community accountability, or other sacred circle work) we often begin with a grounding and/or check-in. Grounding or checking in allows the group to arrive, to become present with the moment. This act of becoming present is important for all groups embarking on a particular project or task together, and it can be easy for groups that have been together a long time to  overlook the warming stage,  It’s important to remember that every time someone joins or leaves a group or whenever a group comes together to engage in something new, it’s time to warmly welcome folks into the group, answering the questions: who are we now? and why are we now together?

You’re The New Sheila vs. Individuated Invitation

As Belonging-Based facilitators, we want to let people know that they belong from the moment that they arrive. So often our warm welcomes are about how we set the space ahead of time: materials are shared a week before, anything we need that day is printed out, name tags are available with a variety of colors, nourishment is on hand, there is relatively comfortable seating for everyone and when we finally get around to doing introductions, we invite folks to share their names, pronouns, access needs, and something that they need from the group to feel belonging [we actually tend to ask this ahead of time]. 

When folks are new to groups, they often practice in this way. But as we are with organizations longer, we can begin to skip over this step. How many of us have been on a job where someone leaves and when the new hire for that position comes on, we say “oh, you’re the new Sheila!” and proceed to introduce Kenya as “the new Sheila.”? This can be even more complicated when race, gender, and other identities are involved, but it is also a lie. This person is not the new Sheila, they are their own person with unique talents, gifts, and experience. They may be coming in to join the team and perform a specific function, but they will do it a different way and if we hold them to the same expectations of Sheila, we will miss their new and unique contribution. We are signaling that they don’t belong, but that SHeila does. Or that they can belong conditionally to the extent that they are a carbon copy of Sheila. “Sheila always used to bring the donuts to our meetings,” Sheila was never late with her reports, Sheila always knew how to reset the servers, the list goes on. We say “any time a group changes composition it’s a new group,” so that the group can adjust to and incorporate this new being into belonging to the organization. At the Othering and Belonging institute, there is this lovely image that describes it in the context of exclusion and inclusion.

From the Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkely.

So how do you do it?

Invitation, recognition, and connection.

All Groups Are Unique

All groups are unique.

They're unique in makeup. They're unique in why they come together as a group. They're unique in what they are trying to move forward or toward as a group. And yet, because humans are herd animals and because herds are a very particular type of group, there are stages and ways all groups move even in their uniqueness.

Recognizing what stage we are in and what can surface in that stage, is helpful for setting expectations. It can help with anticipating when conflicts might surface or subside and generally provide context to what we are individually experiencing within a group. In Belonging Based Facilitation, we use a group formation model first published by Bruce Tuckman in 1965. It has since been iterated, developed, revised and contested by various practitioners and facilitators. Like any other tool, it has its limitations, and we still find it incredibly useful. Tuckman’s tool reinforces our claim that anytime a group changes composition - whenever someone joins or leaves a group - it is a new group. From inception to conclusion, through disruption and change, groups move through these different stages and the expectations that come with them. Tuckman’s framework helps to make sense of the behaviors we see in groups as they travel through different stages. Using the framework is like having a forecast - the forecast doesn’t perfectly represent or create the weather, but it certainly helps you prepare. 

Forming

We sometimes call this the warming stage. Think about stretching before a run, vocal warmups before a concert, or warming up a cast iron pan before cooking on it. In this stage we bring our most acceptable self. This is when people are at their most polite and can be called the ‘honeymoon’ period because it can have all that new relationship energy. The central question in this stage is what are we doing here? As Belonging-based facilitators we focus on each component of this: who is the we? What is the thing this group is doing? where is here? And how did we all get here?

Storming

There are so many different ways to storm! Some groups storm loudly and with lots of energy, other groups move through this stage like a fog or persistent drizzle. However we enter this stage or move through it the central element of this stage is that it is where conflict enters the chat. Sometimes, there will be disagreement, and other times, there may be trauma present, but all the times, these ruptures take place in the body of the group, not just in the bodies of individuals.

Central to this stage is the question: who do I get to be in this group? OR How authentic can I be in this group? As facilitators, we look at how the group tends to the conflicts that emerge in this stage: do they move at them directly? Or does the group avoid or ignore the conflicts and tensions arising? However the group does or does not deal with the conflicts during this phase sets the stage for how the group will work together moving forward. 

Groups that engage actively and generatively in conflicts find greater authenticity and flexibility at the next stage, whereas groups that avoid or suppress conflict find a kind of ungrounded comfort. This is when it is crucial to be trauma-informed. In groups with a rich trauma history, people may experience conflict as an existential threat, triggering threat responses (like fight or flight). Our role then is to help the group turn toward the conflict (or threat) with clarity, compassion and creativity. 

Norming

Whatever we practice, we make permanent. This stage follows the storming phase specifically because it is the cementing of how the group moves together. Norms are the implicit ways that a group behaves. These implicit, cultural behaviors are most obvious when moving from one (group) culture to another. For instance, when my family relocated from the Pacific Northwest to the South, we had to teach our children to address adult Black people as Ms. Mr. or Mx., not by their first name! 😬 

In the norming stage, individuals, grapple with how to behave together on this journey. As a group, folks are noticing what kinds of leadership emerge in the group and how they distribute the crucial work of the group: specifically how does the group take care of safety, agency, dignity, and belonging? As facilitators we may posit this directly or indirectly. Noticing how a group makes decisions, for instance, gives us great insights into the individual and collective agency of the group. 

Performing

This is the sweet spot for groups when the norms that have been established in the prior stage really work for the group. Decision-making and distribution of labor is equitable and meaningful; conflict is met with curiosity and creativity; and the group may begin to have a sense of its own ‘mortality,’ recognizing that it may not continue forever in this iteration even if it wants to. This is the stage where the individual authenticity of each group member gets to shine- when each individual fits together like a puzzle. Or an orchestra in which there may be a strings section with several violins, but none is any less important than the other and anyone that doesn’t play (or doesn’t play their best) makes the sound/music the less well off for it. 

Adjourning / Changing

That’s a wrap! Adjourning is when a group comes to the end, and folks must accept that “this group as it is composed, will never exist again.” Similar to the storming stage, if the group has accumulated untended trauma, the end of the group can feel more like a threat than a natural part of all living systems. 

Individuals tend to want to know: what happens next? Who am I without this group? Sometimes we say that how a group ends meetings is how it meets endings. Is there a pause, gratitude, and time to shift? Or is it a rush off to the next thing? Individually we describe some people as lingerers (staying until and often past the ‘end’) and others as absconders (leaving before the ending can really arrive). We bring intention to this part of the process by asking groups we facilitate: what is a good goodbye? There are some similarities and idiosyncrasies for different groups and individuals, but are gratitude, a recognition that the end is here, and some tender words or touch come up consistently. 

Reflection

In the next few weeks, reflect on the groups you’re a part of - whether that be family, friends or colleagues. How do you notice the stages of groups showing up?