Designing For Discomfort

Inviting the right kind of suffering into my events

I picked up Ivan at the airport, glad to have an hour together in the car before we join the group at the house. A chance to catch up and exchange stories.

I last saw him at XiqWeek: one of those 4-day gatherings of twitter friends I wrote about recently. I found the event tremendously energising, so I was curious to hear what impact it had on him. He told me it was not all plain sailing.

the view outside my bathroom window

A little background: Ivan started attending these gatherings a couple of years ago. He told me about the positive impact they’ve had on him. He’s made significant changes to his life, gradually becoming less solitary and more embedded in a rich network of friendship. He said he’s gained a lot of confidence.

I think I’ve seen the same thing happen to a lot of my friends from twitter: finding like-minded people is an enormously effective wellbeing multiplier. When you feel like nobody gets you, it's easy to conclude there must be something wrong with you. But when you start to “find your people,” it’s much easier to hold on to your self-respect. A moment of anxiety or self-doubt is much easier to handle when you have trustworthy friends around you that can remind you that you are indeed awesome.

So Ivan was surprised by what happened at XiqWeek. He spent a lot of the event in a kind of tension, feeling “on the outside”, frustrated and struggling to connect with people. He expected to arrive as the new gregarious confident Ivan, and was bummed out to find that the old ghosts of social anxiety and rejection-sensitivity still hound him sometimes. 

After the official gathering was over, 8 friends stayed on for a few more days, in a kind of DIY meditation retreat. So he had the chance to review his discomfort, to introspect and observe patterns, to get a greater understanding of his particular attachment style and his needs. So while it wasn’t all easy or fun, in the end he learned a lot. He told me, “In retrospect, I wouldn’t change a thing. The right kind of suffering, in a loving container feels key for growth.”

To me as an event organiser, this is extremely interesting. It raises questions about what kind of experiences I want to design for. Until recently, I designed for “inclusion at all costs”. Many of the people who come to my events have suffered a lot of social rejection, so I make a lot of effort to give people easy ways to connect and feel belonging. 

For example, until recently, all of my events were designed with “home groups”: everyone is assigned to a small peer-support group, where you meet the same 3 or 4 people each day to talk about your experiences. This does reliably avoid the problem of anyone feeling left out. If someone is feeling a bit awkward or out of place, they have a couple of people to talk to about it, and they usually get good advice and find ways to connect without getting stuck in angst or anxiety. Nobody is left to suffer in silence.

Lately I've been wondering if this structure is excessive.

It certainly works as intended. But I can also see it’s like riding a bike with training wheels. It gives everyone a direct experience of what it feels like to be included — but it prevents them from learning “how do I create inclusion for myself”.

If Ivan had a small group to share with on Day 1 of XiqWeek, he would have avoided some unpleasant feelings, certainly. But he would have also avoided learning something important about himself.

So this is what I had in mind when I designed RichFest, the most recent event I hosted. I took a page out of Jess Burton’s hosting handbook. I took responsibility for the material needs: everyone will have food, a bed, a shower. I provided the Schelling point: “hey everyone we’re meeting here!” But I didn’t supply any content. I didn't give people a clear purpose to hold on to. I didn’t assign people into home groups. I even abandoned my prior role as “best friend of last resort” for the people who were feeling less included in the group.

As hosts, Nati & I took care of the physical needs, and let go of responsibility for the emotional experience of people in the group.

This was all a big stretch for me. You mean I can see someone having a not great time… and just do nothing about it?! It feels callous. But I think it was the right thing to do.

We asked the group to manage itself. Each morning we had a 30 minute coordination meeting, to deal with logistics and make a rough outline for the day. This worked exceptionally well, better than I could have designed it. 

For example: instead of me explicitly designing some “icebreaker” activities on Day 1, I left an open space, and right on schedule, Vynn offered an eye-gazing workshop: the perfect way to accelerate intimacy in a group of mostly-strangers.

Instead of me designing “the big emotional connecting ritual on the 2nd or 3rd night”, Val proposed a poetry circle which was profoundly moving, completely spontaneous, effortlessly co-created, and perfectly responsive to the needs & capacities of the people in the room in that moment, rather than being contrived and cooked up beforehand in an invisible backroom somewhere.

Another example: Doro stayed on for a few days after RichFest. On Day 6 or 7 she finally asked for help on a specific complex challenge she’s facing in her life. At first I thought, damn, we could have set up a “ask for help” session on Day 1! She might have gotten good answers sooner. Maybe that would have been “more efficient”, she would have gotten the help sooner. But she would have not learned how to create a context in which it feels safe to ask for help. That’s a much more valuable lesson than any specific advice she could get about a specific problem.

And yes, some things were awkward. Some people had difficult experiences. There was some discomfort that I could have alleviated just by flexing my “I’m the host so people will mostly do what I say” muscles. But instead I chose to be passive and let the dynamics play out in their own time. 

I hope when I publish this post I will get some more feedback from event participants that helps me see other ways I could improve the design. I’m sure I’m missing some information. But for now, I’m feeling pretty good about this new approach. 

I know I can design events that minimise discomfort. But my new learning edge is how to design for the “right kind of suffering”. There’s a particular type of discomfort which is the unavoidable symptom of growth. So if I’m vigilant about avoiding discomfort, I’m also avoiding opportunities for growth.