Showing Up, Letting Go: The Freedom of Unscripted Spaces
6 prompts to tap into the magic of spaces of belonging
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In our tightly scheduled, hyper-scripted lives, authentic moments of connection often feel rare. We come to the table—whether in classrooms, meetings, or collaborations—with our agendas, talking points, and pre-planned conclusions.
Yet, the richest learning and the most transformative experiences often occur when we shed the scripts and let curiosity, vulnerability, and discovery lead the way.
I love the concept of being lingerable in How To Know a Person by David Brooks.
I know a couple who treasure friends who are what they call "lingerable." They are the sort of people you want to linger with at the table after a meal or in chairs outside the pool, to let things flow, to let the relationship emerge. It's a great talent—to be someone others consider lingerable.
When we linger, spaces of belonging appear. We hear things we never heard, stories from friends about studying lemurs in Madagascar, or cold plunging in Alaska, or simple points of connection we have with people, like being in the same kindergarten class, that we’d never uncovered, despite years of friendship.
But how do we create spaces for these conversations to emerge? Can we build experiences where showing up unscripted feels not only possible, but also welcomed? When we can really be truly agendaless?1
the big idea
There’s a temptation to jam as much content and activity into an agenda as possible, to demonstrate that “we’re being productive.” We value productivity over people. Instead of settling into deep relationships with people, many of us have a clock in our heads: “Oh, I’ve got to do this, I’ve got to do that.”
We glide through people. We glide through classes. We glide through projects. We guide through experiences without really experiencing. So when we gather, we frequently forget the people parts and focus on an agenda and goals and outcomes.
And that is fine, sometimes, when you are checking boxes.
It’s not ideal if you have anything creative to do, or if you want to people to really know each other. I mean, there is something inherently wrong (and really, just awkward) about saying, “We’ve created a structured activity for you to be as innovative and inspired as possible!”
It’s a shift from: performing or presenting to participating, controlling outcomes to being genuinely curious about what might emerge.
So might it be possible to create the in between outside of, or without, the meeting?
How might we create more spaces where we can show up and let go?
✨Drop your favorite space to show up unscripted in the comments. I’ll include your answers in a future post.✨
