CONCON/FORMATORS' MEETING 2016 INDONESIA

24 July - 6 August 2016, Sylom, Bandungan

Report fifth day 28 July 2016

The ConCon/Formators' meeting  began its fourth day with a reflection on "A personal God who embraces all and everyone" during our morning prayer. The focus of our prayer was an awareness of  God as an invisible reality. We cannot seek God with our eyes but with our heart. With this awareness of our creator, we delved deep into the business of the day, namely The Role of Emotions, Affective formation and healing of past memories. 

Explaining the role of emotions in our lives, the facilitator, Bro. Martinus Handoko pointed out that some brothers are not happy because of their inability to properly manage their emotions, which play a vital role in the way we act, relate with other people and even the way we make decisions as leaders and formators.  Since we are called to be happy people and to make others happy as indicated by article 36 of our Constitutions, it is imperative that we manage our emotions well, so as not to be overpowered or even victimized by them. As leaders and formators who take decisions on others, we are advised, as a principle, to express our emotions proportionally, keep calm and not react immediately and most importantly, not to make important decisions when we are overcome by our emotions. 

Affective formation is an important aspect of our formation program and therefore crucial for our candidates in developing a healthy relation with the self, with others and with God. Connecting affective maturity with the subject matter of intimacy, Bro. Guido stressed that as formators we need to attain a deep affective maturity and also develop the capacity for intimacy as these influence our ability to love and relate with God and others. Growth in healthy intimacy and maturity involves naming, claiming and embracing old hurts and negative scripts from families of origin and making conscious decisions to act with integrity. 

This implies that formators can assess growth in healthy intimacy by taking a closer look at a candidate’s overall relational history as well as recognize both the candidate's strengths and weak points or areas of growth. The formator therefore must know how to evaluate the whole person in totality including his psychosexual development. Body, mind, spirit, social, cognitive and affective dimensions all are to be taken into account.

The third presentation of the day was "Healing of past memories" given by Bro. Petrus Anjar, who coloured it with his personal experiences. Why do we look back at our past? Our past hurts are not completely forgotten but remain in our unconscious mind and affect our attitudes, behaviour, and the way we think and feel. Thus they affect our relationships, choices and actions in life. As humans our emotions trigger both negative and positive feelings within us; they affect our bodies and can make us feel joyful or powerless and can even cause physical illness. Bro. Anjar proposed a method of healing called AMR (Awareness, Meditation and Relaxation)  in which he is an expert himself. The AMR Therapy tries to deal with negative feelings of people or past experiences not well processed which are within the unconscious. These experiences affect the lives of people including our candidates and brothers. Through AMR, a client is able to bring back these past hurts from his unconscious. It is expected that AMR can help the client to experience this wounded world as a valuable and meaningful experience. The process takes quite some time and a sustained effort. It has been used for our candidates in initial formation and young brothers in Indonesia. The presentation included a discussion in pairs on the topic: What negative feelings always surface in your life? What are its effects on your life as FIC brother?

The presentation of these three topics were interactive and quite exciting as some participants were able to recognize themselves in various psychological and emotional defects that have affected their growth and development. Some brothers felt today's topics are relevant for all brothers and not only formators and leaders. 

As usual the day ended with the Eucharist which is our source of unity and strength. Apart from this the usual informal interactions, which normally take place during recreation, break or meal times, were another source of strengthening our brotherhood. 

Written by Raphael Besigrinee