forest foundation

The Gift of Growth

In January of this year I learned that staff members of the Forest Foundation are given a personal growth budget that they can use to better themselves as people. As soon as I found this out I immediately began to look into opportunities for myself to partake in a "Counseling Intensive" care of the international organization Re-Evaluation Counseling or often referred to as Co-Counseling.
I grew up around the organization with my mom serving as the reference person for San Francisco most of my life and in high school I began to take on the theory and practice myself and even taught a few classes to friends. The style of counseling is similar to many other forms in its focus on getting people to listen to one another. It differs in its approach - setting up communities in which people do not pay each other to listen but rather trade listening to each other. The theory laid out encourages people to develop strong and lasting counseling relationships with one another and emphasize that when people are listened to well and cared about they have the safety to release emotions, heal from old hurts and "re-evaluate" the present and think more clearly about it.
For community members that are active and take leadership there is an opportunity to come to Seattle for a week, where the only physical space for the organization is, and be given 20 hours of one-way attention from a team of counselors that do this for a living (as opposed to all other community members and leaders that participate in the communities outside of their work-lives). Each day I reported to the office by 9am and had a series of hour long sessions peppered into an 8 hour period. There were 5 different people that gave me sessions and they traded notes with one another about what they gathered from the time spent with me.
I could go on and on about all of the great things that came out of this opportunity but I mostly want to acknowledge the wonderful foresight laid out by Morris Squire in realizing the importance of emphasizing personal growth as a key to a progressive-minded organization. Despite balancing the counseling this week with ample work I feel refreshed and ready to take on much more and think more and more outside the box.
Best of all I had ideal housing - staying with the Moishe House in Seattle (shown in picture). Great folks that I had only been able to talk to on the phone and see in pictures since coming up here in February to start the house. Lucky for me they had two events while I was here and I got to see the Moishe House magic for myself. Look for me in Seattle's pictures on the web!!

Thank you Morris for an incredible week!!

- Isaac

posted by forest foundation @ 4:47 PM