Slovak Interview with Andrea Mikolášiková
Author: Veronika Zamkovská
Click here to read original article in Slovak.
“Christians tend to smile politely, even when they are dealing with difficult topics,” says Andrea Mikolášiková, a facilitator of Community Building seminars. We talked to her about why Christian communities sometimes fall apart or struggle in the shallows, even though they desire to go deep in relationships, and how to get out of it/how to pull themselves back into that depth.
We live in different communities and it is not always easy. Why is life in a community difficult?
There are probably different perspectives from which to look at this topic. If I choose the perspective from which the author of the community building methodology, American psychiatrist and psychotherapist Dr. Scott Peck, looked at the topic of relationships, the answer lies in the personal obstacles that every person has.
What can we imagine under personal obstacles?
Every person has different ones, but the basic ones are expectations and ideas about what others should be like, as well as prejudices, the need to control, and the need to convert, heal, or correct others.
How do these obstacles manifest themselves in relationships?
At their core is an unwillingness to accept the other as they are and “allow” them to remain that way. This, of course, does not exclude the necessary formative influences. However, we feel very well whether we are accepted at the core and invited to grow or whether we face pressure to change in order to be okay.
Is there a desire for community in every person?
Absolutely yes. Even people who think they don’t have it usually just have it suppressed due to the injuries they’ve experienced.
Let’s try to explain the concept of community.
In everyday life, we use the word community to refer to various groups of people – from neighborhood communities to various interest groups, such as a permaculture community, to communities of people who share their lives, such as a religious community. In the understanding of Community Building, community is an experience of deep connection, unusual safety and exceptional respect. This is also the experience that participants in our seminars often experience. Thanks to it, they are able to go through periodically difficult periods, phases of chaos, misunderstanding, but it gives hope that this difficult period is not final.
Is there a difference between fellowship and community?
I think etymologically it’s the same thing.
Can we consider the communities we live in as a community?
If the members experience exceptional respect, closeness and security in them, then yes. I am convinced that many communities – families, Christian lay or religious communities – are like that. At the same time, there are many communities that hover between a state of pseudo-community and chaos. I consider it necessary to say that each phase of community is important and has its own positive meaning. It becomes toxic when the community gets stuck in it and cannot move on. When a community is stuck in such a state for a long time, it can lead to its disintegration.
THE GIFT OF VULNERABILITY
What helps most in building community?
Interestingly, we often think that the most valuable thing we can offer is our advice or verbal encouragement. We see this a lot in our trainings. We have an exercise where participants are divided into pairs. One person’s job is to talk for 7 minutes about a challenge they are currently facing in their life. The other person’s job is to listen and just listen. No questions, no advice. Nothing. Just listening. Participants often describe this exercise as very powerful.
What feelings do participants have during this exercise?
They realize the healing power that lies in someone just listening to us, without their own agenda or advice. On the other hand, those who listen often say how difficult it is, how they would like to say something, ask a question. However, they themselves reflect that behind their question is sometimes – of course, not always – just curiosity, and behind their desire to advise is an attempt to alleviate their own pain – as if by encouraging the other, we are actually encouraging ourselves. However, this is not always useful for the other person.
However, there are certainly situations where questions, or even advice, are appropriate. How can we recognize them?
Yes, exactly. Deep, silent, and attentive listening is in order when we want to go deeper with a person in a relationship. For example, we don’t have to give advice automatically, but we can offer it, for example by saying: “I have a similar experience, can I give you some advice?” And we leave it up to the other person to say yes or no. Questions also have a place in everyday conversation.
So is silent listening what helps most in building community?
It’s one of the most important things. But if I had to say one thing, it would be the gift of vulnerability. Our own vulnerability is the most precious thing we can give to the community. Of course, it’s not easy and this gift is not always received with due respect. But so the answer to your question is – the gift of vulnerability.
The gift of vulnerability? What can we imagine under that?
It is a willingness to be seen as we really are. In the nakedness of our being. In our strength, and fragility. In joy, and pain. Usually in our relationships we protect ourselves from injury with various masks, in some relationships even with defensive ramparts. This is one of the missions of Community Building seminars – to be able to disarm ourselves, to go into vulnerability.
Is it safe?
Certainly not always and in every relationship. However, it is good to be aware of your defenses and have the skill to put them aside at least in those relationships where it is or could be safe – that is, in the family, in the religious community, in the Christian community… To be seen and accepted as we are at the core of our being – that is, after all, what we so desperately desire.
LEARNING TO LIVE IN COMMUNITY
Do we need any special skills to live in community? Can we learn these skills?
Yes and yes (smile). To live in a community we need certain social skills and we need to learn these. Some are lucky enough to learn them in their family. Those who are not so lucky can still learn them throughout their lives through normal interactions, observing other people, formation, but also through various trainings.
For example, our marriage was greatly helped by my husband taking various communication training courses as part of his job. What he learned came naturally to the communication in our relationship, and I learned a lot from him. Today, I am learning a lot through Community Building and I am still not there (laughs).
You are a facilitator at Community Building seminars where these skills are acquired. How did you get to your first seminar?
He was recommended to me by my confessor, who also conducts these seminars.
What appealed to you most about the Seminar?
I went to my first seminar with the desire to dissolve the attitude I had lived with until then, which told me that I had to be strong, that I had to handle my negative emotions on my own. To my great surprise, this topic was alive in me from the opening moments of the seminar, and during it I really experienced a powerful healing moment when I was able to express my sadness in the group, I was able to cry and let myself be hugged and supported in this state. I really experienced that this block of mine collapsed there, like a wall collapsing. I still have the attitude of being strong, but there are relationships in which I can now also express my weakness. It is very liberating for me.
Did the seminar change your view of yourself?
Every seminar I attend, whether as a participant or as a facilitator, leads me to deeper self-knowledge.
Did the seminar help you in your marriage? In parenting?
Yes, the first place where Community Building helps me is my own family.
In what way?
The first moment was the realization, right after reading Scott Peck’s book In Another Rhythm , that in our 15-year marriage we had already gone through all four stages of community that Dr. Peck describes. They are pseudo-community, chaos, emptiness, and real community. In retrospect, I realized what was the phase of chaos in our marriage, what was the phase of “emptying,” that is, letting go of obstacles that stood in our way… and finally, moments of deep unity and connection.
The second important moment for me is the awareness that true community is not “final”. It is not a place we arrive at and stay there. In fact, in our relationships, we spiral back into chaos, we need to go through a phase of emptiness again in order to meet in true community. But in all this, a skill can be acquired that helps us dig ourselves out of chaos faster. So that we do not remain stuck in it.
Can these skills also be used in specific situations within the family?
They will. When faced with various conflicts, I first ask myself what it is that I need to let go of, to empty… so that we can be close again. Whether with my husband or children. I also try to speak more consistently in I-statements and not pressure others…
The seminar is about community building – how can it be useful for Christian communities, parishes or religious communities?
Oh, in many ways. For example, in that it helps to understand the dynamics that every community goes through. Our Christian communities often remain stuck in a phase of pseudo-community or chaos. It often happens that communities cannot move forward. People in them try to be polite to each other and smile until they are speechless, although difficult topics, differences, old wounds, injustices are roaring under the surface… Community creation seminars teach us not to be afraid to uncover these difficult topics and face them.
Community building seminars also create a space for learning about your own obstacles to community building and also a space for naming and letting go of them.
Plus such very practical things – we learn to speak in the first person, to listen and only listen – that skill I talked about in the introduction, we learn to recognize what it means to be moved to speak, to “hold a person” who is sharing something profound…
What should I do when I long for my family, my community… to become a true community?
Scott Peck facilitated hundreds of workshops and noticed that when a group followed certain guidelines, they were more likely to achieve community status. So he formulated 12 guidelines that we teach participants in our workshops. When they take them home with them, they are more likely to experience greater closeness and connection in their relationships.
The most important clues are speaking in the first person, being able to “just listen” at certain moments when the other person is speaking – without thinking about what we want to say. Then there is the ability to speak on impulse, the willingness to sometimes take risks and say things that are uncomfortable for us. And I could go on… but these are probably the most important ones. It is one thing to read about it and another to experience it, but at least that is the theory. But as Scott Peck says: “There are ways in which people can come back together, and old wounds can heal.”
How does the process of turning a community into a true community actually work? Is some external impetus needed, or is the effort of one or more members sufficient?
In the context of Community Building, these are truly skills that can be learned. Even one person can start to bring change to a community. When multiple community members go through the process, change can be faster and more tangible.
Do you work with specific communities in Slovakia?
The focus of our work so far is seminars for the public. From these seminars we gradually receive invitations to various communities. We cooperate with several educational non-profit organizations, we have already been in several religious communities. That is also our vision. To bring the principles of community creation to real communities.
How can a community be created?
Scott Peck considered community a gift that we can only dispose of. We can empty ourselves, so to speak, in order to be filled. That is actually a piece of Christian mysticism. God comes where there is a place made for him. He flows best where it doesn’t “rub”…
ThLic. ANDREA MIKOLÁŠIKOVÁ (39) studied Catholic theology. She is a facilitator of Community Building seminars, a lecturer, and is behind the Women’s Catholic Conference. She is a wife and mother of five children.
Photo: Barbara Reháková