Sacred Space, 1

Many years ago, during my first semester in social work school at the University of Maryland, I was in a clinical techniques class and the professor had asked me and other class members to each make a presentation to the class.  I was to be the first presenter.  The exact topic of the presentation is not important here.  However, each presentation was to cover why we had selected a certain technique and I thought the presentation was to last around five minutes and be clinically oriented.  I found out, as I was being introduced, that the professor intended for the presentation to last around forty-five minutes.  Within that minute or so, as I was being intro-duced, I decided, very calmly, to go deep within myself and disclose parts of my own history, my own woundedness, and what the topic really meant to me, a decidedly non-clinical approach.  I, very lovingly and openly disclosed my own emotional/spiritual truth and vulnerability.  During the discussion after my presentation, several people spontaneously disclosed their own woundedness and others described various personal truths, many things that they had never, openly, disclosed previously.  It was as if some sort of a spell had been cast over the class.  As was pointed out to me when that semester ended, that openness lasted, to a lesser degree  throughout that class.  That was my first experience with setting up, what I now recognize to be, a “sacred space”.  I was quite impressed and impacted by the obvious healing effect that it had on the class.