If the Land Does Not Benefit, You Are Doing Something Wrong

Details

• Interviewee: Nitzan
• Role: Co-Founder and community member
• Community: Spirala Ecovillage
• Date: 2026-02-03
• Language: en

Summary

Nitzan shares his journey to create a sustainable community at Spirala eco-village, highlighting his quest for a lifestyle that reconnects him with nature and supports collaborative living. He emphasizes the importance of a strong foundation of shared values, transparent governance, and clear financial models to ensure the sustainability of the community. Throughout the interview, Nitzan discusses the challenges of decision-making, managing conflicts, and fostering belonging within the group, stressing the need for flexibility and open communication when navigating interpersonal dynamics. He reflects on personal growth, the importance of maintaining a focus on the land, and cultivating a holistic approach to both community and self-care.

Key quotes

If the land does not benefit, you do something wrong.

We need more simple life, close to nature, in a peaceful place.

It requires a lot of patience and a lot of humbleness, to know that you can live in much better conditions and still choose these conditions for a while because you believe in the purpose.

To work with these feelings without taking it personally too much, with the understanding that it is part of the process.

Transcript

**Sharon:** Speak in English. Yes, I am speaking English. Right. Well, let us start. Your name. Where are we sitting right now
**Nitzan:** So my name is Nissan. And some moderate. We are sitting in my tiny house, kind of extension of my caravan, in Spirala eco village, where I live in the last six years.
**Sharon:** Can you tell me a little bit about how you got here
**Nitzan:** It was like always seeking living plus nature. I grew up close to nature in a community setup village in Israel, and like before the big screen revolution, let us say. So I grew up with friends, nature, a lot of time spending in curiosity and seeking new inventions or just traveling and hiking and then sitting around the fire and sleeping under the stars.
So this life of adventure is like finding myself here, part of this project, is based on that that I grew up on in many ways. And the community that I lived, that I grew up in, became louder and louder. And in one point, they shared. It is not appealing for me so much anymore, like this kind of size and orientation, the place.
And I was seeking more intimacy and like looking shoulder to shoulder with people, regeneration, the regeneration of the land of Ireland. And I traveled the world, I searched for inspiration and understanding of what is actually possible. Also kind of trying to close the gap between the fantasy of this kind of lifestyle and the actual practical ways of how we can do it, how we can learn and also gather wisdom or information.
And it is like living for others too that want to pursue this kind of lifestyle in a way that it is not pirate like. It is a more concrete and more pragmatic way. So to find ways to connect between those worlds, if we want to live simply together with the land, from the land, for the land, and then very fast we get to those complexities that are part of that lifestyle.
So to search for the answers for those complexities gives a lot of value also for others that want to do the same or similar. So in short, this is how I got here.
**Sharon:** Can you tell me a little bit about the process of getting the people excited and deciding on this piece of land. How was the process and what did you think. What made people say, okay, yes, we want to go for this
**Nitzan:** So the context was that we were a group of friends, growing up kind of together and close by. So we were very, very bonded and very close group of friends. And we spoke generally about this possibility somewhere in the future to be closer together and to take care of it together.
And it is kind of a broad platform of a way basically to stay close to each other and not to split because of life force that kind of makes people grow apart. So that was the first context behind that.
And I was ready to move to this more practical kind of, let us say, bringing this dream down to earth somehow, to search for more concrete answers and not just keeping it as one day maybe to happen, this notion of actually making it happen.
So I was ready together with my ex, with my partner at that time, and we went for a trip around the world, California and Central America and South America for about a year. And it was already with this orientation of, okay, let us be open to maybe we can stay somewhere or get inspired enough to say that we feel like staying somewhere or like starting this kind of project somewhere.
We did not see that in America. I did not see it in the beautiful country, but it was not feeling this calling of, let us do it. It felt too far away also mentally and also geographically, where it gets hard to imagine our friends going to visit some beautiful land in Peru. It felt too far out to imagine that happening.
And then so we thought, okay, let us try and see Europe, and Portugal together was already on the radar, let us say. It is 2018. And we came for two months for volunteering on some farms and then understood there is a possibility here in the financial aspect. It is like, the investment is not that huge in the beginning.
So more likely that people would be able to do it and be able to join. So we brought it to the friends and family, opened it up, like who is with us, who wants to try to make it happen. And enough people were interested in starting this seed, this process of gathering more information and asking questions and consulting with each other and debating and fantasizing and imagining what we can do, what we do if we have this dream coming true, how it would look.
And eventually after like half a year process with this group in different forms, we understood more or less what we are looking for, more or less what is the budget, more or less who are the people that are in that. And eventually we found this land that was for sale and we bought it just at the end of 2019.
So we came to the land in January 2020. It was me and my partner then. Just before Covid started, we came to the land. It was winter, it was cold. We made the fire in the kitchen. Now it is renovated. Back then it was all black around and very rustic. And we sat with coats next to the fire and made the eggplant on the fire and stuff like that.
It felt very charming also. And we were eight total that bought this land together. And it is part of initiation of a company that basically owns the land and operates. We operate this project with the company as the entity that is the representative of all of us. So there is no private ownership of the land.
There is no private ownership, the company owns it. We are shareholders in the company. Since the eight started, multiple joined in the first year and a half. So six more people joined and then after that a few more in the third year.
It was kind of, let us say, more like understanding of the vision became a bit more clear for some of the people in the group. And I think it became more clear also for others that it is not for them. So there was a moment of a junction: what are we doing with this project, who is up for continuing, and how the people that want to leave the project support the project in staying alive.
They chose to support the project in not collapsing it. They stayed patient and trusting the rest of the people to find a way that also they can get their investment back, the loan that we all gave to the company in the beginning to initiate the whole thing and to buy the property and to invest in the property.
So there was this junction that carried a lot of intensity. It was quite challenging. For your question, how I got them, how we got them into that. I think there is this basic understanding that we see what is going on in the world.
People here wish to avoid getting enslaved to the banks and to mortgages and the loop as people refer to that, taking too much on our shoulders at a young age, where we cannot really step out of this commitment in a healthy way.
We would need to continue working until our fifties at least in order to justify this serious commitment to the house or whatever. People here want more simple life, close to nature, in a peaceful place. In Portugal, this holds a very good potential for that option.
**Sharon:** How did you make decisions about the vision and what this place is going to be in those early days, and how did you deal with differences and conflicts that came up along the way
**Nitzan:** In the first half a year before we came to look for the land, it was a lot about vision. We came up with this list of values that hold us together and kind of show the compass of what is its purpose.
Like the pillars of what it is about. It felt kind of determined already then. People interpreted it in different ways, but the values were listed. We had a contract, actually a legal contract also, where we put those values and vision in writing.
How we make decisions and how we solve conflicts, we made a kind of constitution of this initiation. It was important for us that people that are putting their love, their heart, their sweat, and their money into that would not become enemies in any moment.
So it was part of speaking about making it pragmatic and not just fantasy, this layer that many other projects that we know about, that we knew about, did not cover. We asked also people before us, and they told us, make it clear and make it legally kind of bound and valid, so you will not need to get to court at any point. That is like a big warning they gave us. We listened to that.
So we put quite a lot of money and effort at an early age as a group to come up with this basic constitution that eventually worked well enough to carry us through this low energy moment that we had in the group, then an amicable split, and still have it.
Everybody kind of went okay with this breakup. It is not something to take for granted. It is a sensitive moment in any life of a project, like a family, like any community basically.
When people skip this layer, many times it becomes very problematic.
So how practically we made decisions. In the beginning it was in a democratic way, where we brought topics from here, from the actual life here, from what we understand here, and we brought it to the whole group.
It was mostly online at that time, and we discussed and we debated about it and people brought their ideas and understandings. It carried challenges to do all this online with people, the big majority that does not really live here, and many of them had not even been here at that time to visit.
They could not come, so it carried a lot of challenge and it was tiring for many people. Slowly it was also kind of entangled with the energy of the initiation, the beginning. Together with the financial situation it carried a lot.
Quite fast we understood we were going to reach a dead end financially if we did not get either more people to join or some kind of financial platform that can generate income in a way that feels more sustainable.
So this is where the first part ends.
**Sharon:** How did you deal as a group with the differences that came and how did you manage to stay on good terms
**Nitzan:** I think flexibility carried a big part. We stayed flexible enough as individuals to maneuver around those sensitive and tense moments. It carried a lot of emotions.
Relationships from childhood suddenly showed a different angle that you did not see before. It hurts, in different ways. It hurts more than one or two people.
To work with these feelings without taking it personally too much, with the understanding that it is part of the process. When we wish to be intimate with each other we will get hurt. This is part of the deal.
And this is what we signed into when we stepped into this process.
These frictions, they carry dedication. There is a fine line between friction that feels very pleasant and friction that feels annoying and unpleasant.
I feel we stayed, as individuals, mature enough and with enough capacity to keep things alive, not throw them away, not become enemies, to keep listening and trusting each other, even when it carries a lot of triggers.
To stay able to go back within, breathe into it, maybe take some air and eventually come back to the meeting and speak genuinely about how we can find a solution, find the win win formula, how it can actually work.
Happily, I think a big portion of what took us to succeed in crossing this junction was that this other group that we knew a bit, that were not part of the project yet, were seeking to initiate something on their own, quite similar in the values and direction that we were already on the way to pursue.
**Sharon:** You can talk about it a little bit in a way that formalizes, maybe in a clear sentence, what was the vision to this point and how this vision changed with this new group coming in
**Nitzan:** The first vision was to find a way to live together legally on the land, on a rural agricultural land, in order to take care of it and to increase the levels of relationships between us.
The depth and the intimacy and the quality of the relationships, something that is beneficial for the individual to grow and to learn, and also to benefit the surrounding of this place, radiating these kinds of learnings outward.
That was a broad vision or platform, and it felt concrete in terms of our daily need. For us it felt more egocentric, I would say.
We needed practical solutions that we understood would be very hard to find at all, to live in this kind of complex.
So that was the first vision.
Along the way, we understood more and more that the company must create value that people can recognize and pay for, so it can be sustainable on its own.
For that, the purpose must feel much more clear: what we are about, what this place offers to society and to the world that adds real value, that people can then translate into income that holds this place for long term.
Then kind of the more side part of it is that we need a team that lives here. So we also need to find the legal solutions for this team to live here permanently, long term.
That is the shift, the change from the first vision into the second vision.
So hospitality became part of it, and content that we can create here that feels valuable and inspiring for people, something that can be monetized.
It is not easy, we work on it, fine tune it to a level that feels more easeful and less struggle.
It still carries struggle, and at the same time we can see a light in the tunnel, a big potential. We still need a bit of a buffer, a financial buffer, until we can fulfill this potential.
**Sharon:** Can you speak about the moment you understood that the current trajectory did not work anymore, and how it went with introducing a new group and giving them power and decision making, handing the place over to a new group that might help
**Nitzan:** From day one, when we started, we understood we need more people to be part of this project in order for this project to succeed. We did not imagine that it would stay eight or twelve or thirteen people.
The idea was to get to twenty shareholders as the first step.
The whole investment and financial plan was based on that. The first big investments of infrastructure and legal work would be based on those people and their investments.
With that money we can create the platform that also generates income.
Because we did not get there fast enough, we got into this loop that we are working from a place of lack, and instead of a spiral that goes upwards, it became a spiral that took the energy downward.
So the whole time we understood this financial structure that we have does not carry us long term.
Even when we got some people that wished to join, it felt clear how long it would keep us alive.
We did not have the human resources and the capacity to create, at the same time that we work physically on the land to maintain what exists and develop it a bit, the focused work on generating income.
We did not create strong sources of hospitality income or agriculture business or other ideas that existed.
We did little pilots, trying some events, working with people from the area.
Each time when we did those trials, the income that came in mostly went out to the people that helped us make it.
So again it stayed external and did not hold us financially. It added value to the area.
It felt like pilots that succeeded in that aspect, that people got to know us and people wished to cooperate with us.
We took this role of bonding maker, a mingling place that people liked and enjoyed, especially during Covid, where meeting carried many barriers.
In that manner it felt like a success. Financially, each time it meant we put a lot of effort into those events and then ended up drained energetically.
So it felt very clear that we need more people.
We opened it online to everybody, a very broad zoom call on the second year of the project. Sixty people joined this zoom call.
In that group, the group that eventually joined a year and a half after sat.
They felt inspired from how we shared things and what we shared. Since then, we were in contact with them here and there. They came to visit some of them as representatives of that group.
Once they got more understanding that they are ready to move, at least some of them, they had their own leadership to lead, at least for a while, this process.
I felt really ready to take a step back from leadership. It felt draining at that time.
Other people were ready to leave the project.
So this merge felt kind of smooth.
It did not require a big ego fight or some heavy process. It felt natural. Once they came ready to make this move as leaders of this new phase, we met this transition moment.
I helped a lot in this process, giving as much as I can, the knowledge that we gathered here.
Still until today, as much as I can, I try to support from the knowledge that I have, from the network that was created before they arrived and that still grows.
So it feels like a natural process. It feels quite beautiful for me to see that this vision that started very abstract and young in mindset becomes more mature with time.
With this maturity, more mature people wish to join, and they bring their own maturity and their own vision to this blend and make it more accurate and with more potential to succeed long term.
Recently, last year, another layer entered for all of us together that we did not really know consciously before.
Maybe somewhere in the back of the mind we knew it is about that.
The regeneration of the soil, part of the vision, feels like a unifying element. This part of what we do here and what we stand for.
We got into this method, into the philosophy of topic farming, with a couple friends from Spain.
That brought enthusiasm and very practical ways to create soil, to heal the soil in a very rapid way, very fast, very local, and with a holistic approach also to the team, to the human level.
This approach that it is not about draining ourselves in order to heal the land. It is about healing ourselves and healing the land at the same time and working within our capacity, understanding that it is about consistency rather than speed.
To act within our capacity and keep doing it, and keep growing in this impact in an accelerating way over time that becomes easier.
So that feels like a very important layer that came from the network he entered, and eventually he invited his people here to teach us and teach also other people.
We got hooked in the best way, seeing it as this component that felt missing in the first vision.
It gives something people can say yes to: I am into that, I wish to do that, I wish to dedicate myself to that, and the whole structure around it supports that.
So yes, we still create and generate income, and the storytelling for ourselves becomes that we need income so that the team can actually heal the soil and act as a center that hosts people, shares this knowledge and these practical tools so they can heal other lands as well.
In that way we can support this bigger movement that is happening.
**Sharon:** If you can give one tip to people that are in a similar place, people that have their own project, something feels stuck, they understand they need more people, they feel unsure how to give away power or how to find partners, what could allow them to do the next step in a sustainable way
**Nitzan:** I believe that a big part of this ability to release control is to understand that in the first place the story about ownership is a story.
It is a story of society. It does not carry truth in an objective way.
The land owns us if anything. We will come, we will go back to the soil eventually, whether we want it or not.
So if we can see our purpose in life, our own purpose, as guardians of the land instead of owners of the land, it makes a huge difference in the ability to see the land as the main beneficiary of what you do here.
If the land does not benefit, you do something wrong.
This is the way I see it.
**Sharon:** Can you talk about how you needed to change within this project to allow yourself to really come into your power and to live with the people in a sustainable way. If you can talk about one element of self growth that happened in you through this process
**Nitzan:** It feels like a paradox. The detachment of the part in my identity that connects me to the project, actually separating myself from the project and staying able to avoid slavery to the project, avoiding seeing the project as a kid of mine, literally as a kid and using that symbol.
This became a big need, to grow into, to mature into. I did not have it in the beginning. It became unhealthy for myself.
Because once you connect with that symbol, that it is my baby, then if this baby dies, it feels devastating to the level of the death of a baby.
This carries a huge symbol and a huge weight on our shoulders when we want to pursue a project that is supposed to be a lifelong project.
We want to live in it and flourish in it. It brings heaviness, especially in the leadership that wishes to make it happen and mixes too much between the project and ourselves.
The project is mine, therefore the project is me, therefore what happens in the project reflects myself and vice versa.
This does not feel healthy.
I needed to grow beyond it and release into this understanding that I am part of this project, I put myself in the service of this project, yet it does not define who I am.
I try to make it the best that I can and then I release. If it works or fails with what we come up with, it feels beyond my control.
So this period of time where the project was in crisis helped me see that clearer.
I went away a little bit. I traveled for three weeks.
There was the breakup with my ex, and this junction brought me after many years back to myself as just me as an individual, not me as part of a partnership or couple that then holds leadership of the project.
To sit with myself for a moment, watching the waves at night in Sines, helped me see a broader perspective and to understand that I carry my own pillars of values, and I can bring them more forward in the next phase of my life.
**Sharon:** What kind of inner work has living here asked from you
**Nitzan:** To stay centered. To come back to my center again and again. There is a lot of input, a lot of sounds, a lot coming in from all over.
Seasons and nature bring a lot from inside. Emotional work and dream work and symbolic work show up very strongly.
Many people experience it in the first weeks and months here, that suddenly their dreams at night feel much crazier and they cannot understand where it comes from.
So this feels like a common part.
Another part is consumption of substances. In this lifestyle, it feels common to use substances in daily life.
It took me a while to find balance and to find my center in front of those medicines, slash poisons.
It feels like a fine line. It is a slippery slope, they say.
I felt sometimes centered, sometimes not. It went on for a while until I found more clarity for myself.
I chose a path of discipline. I took a specific period of time to step away from smoking joints or cigarettes with tobacco, to teach myself discipline.
Not only to step away from the substance, also to shape my mind in a way that I know I can go for what I believe feels healthy for me and stick to it.
To avoid those moments of weakness in the mind, especially with pleasant substances that make us cheerful, and still carry compassion toward myself.
So it feels like discipline together with a lot of compassion.
Another discipline compared to the army.
A discipline that comes from care for myself and care for others around me, care for the land.
Therefore I know what feels good for me, and I know it carries challenges, and I know I will have times where I wish to release and feel soft in front of cravings.
To walk this path without coloring everything as a failure, or as if I am not good enough.
To keep walking the path as a long path.
It changed me and my life.
**Sharon:** How do people usually find their way here, and is there any kind of process for newcomers
**Nitzan:** As far as I know, most of the people that arrive here come from either a direct recommendation from a friend that has been here or somehow online.
They reach this place through different platforms that they follow, or social media where we publish this domain.
Many ways lead here.
For newcomers who seek potentially to be partners with us, to be shareholders in the company, there is a process. It feels quite clear.
We have the agreement that whoever feels interested can read. They should read it, reflect on it, feel if they relate to it.
If they wish to move forward they sign it.
They should come to visit, ideally to spend some time here, not only a day or two, to spend some quality time.
There is this period in the year where we work on the festival, the month and music festival in the spring.
That brings a lot of people to the farm.
In the last two editions, the first two editions we made, people that were seeking this kind of idea and thought it might be for them also came.
That felt like a good moment for them to see the place in full capacity, the farm seating itself in a way.
It feels like a very beautiful production. Many people get involved.
The whole thing comes to life.
This blend of many different cultures and generations creating together something beautiful and positive.
So far, five new people decided to join since those events.
They came in those moments, felt it, stayed with us and supported.
**Sharon:** Let us say someone wishes to come and volunteer here. How does it look. What is the process
**Nitzan:** We have a page on Workaway. We also publish on our own page.
We send a form to fill, just to get a bit of orientation about their experience before and what they wish to experience here if they come.
We look for a balance between expectations from both sides. When it feels like a fit, when it sounds good, we invite them to come.
We ask for five hours a day during the weekdays to help in different projects on the farm.
A lot of maintenance and development of facilities and infrastructure.
It is morning work until noon, then lunchtime.
After that, people have their own time.
Some people mix it with working online and staying here.
We stay quite flexible.
Some people need to work in the morning, so they can support in the afternoon or on weekends.
We feel open to different ways to make this exchange work.
We also had moments where people that came as volunteers became long term community members.
We had people that came already with the orientation that they feel interested to maybe join and eventually joined.
My partner, my wife, we met here four years ago. She came as a volunteer, she came as a tenant in a camper.
It was a vegetable. This is how we met. She stayed.
**Sharon:** Can you tell me a little bit, how does life, how does a day in the community look for someone engaged and part of the team? How does a day here in Spirala look
**Nitzan:** The weekdays start with a shared meditation moment at eight in the morning.
Everybody meets in the main house during the cold season.
We gather in a big saloon where people sit together. It feels cozy.
We share ten minutes of silent meditation. After that we sit in a circle of gratitude, where each one feels invited to share one or two things they feel grateful for.
Recently we added the Portuguese word of the day, to increase integration with the local population and offer this practice in language learning over time. After that, we share the tasks that wish to move that day. Moa is responsible for that.
She leads that part. Each one can take from the list of tasks what calls them most.
There is work time until approximately ten, then a break for breakfast.
The kitchen team prepares breakfast for all the team and for guests if they wish to join.
These moments of breakfast or lunch stay open. Guests can join with a basic contribution to balance the costs.
After that people have a break. They work until two or two thirty. It depends on the day.
Some days we have singing circles, some days people offer workshops internally.
We hold events sometimes on weekends for a broader circle, more open for others.
Every Friday we have a community dinner that many people from around already know. They come and we share a good moment together.
This is how it looks.
**Sharon:** We talked a little bit about the events. Maybe you can say a few things about the place, the culture, and rituals here in the community year-round, and how this feels meaningful and contributes to what is building here
**Nitzan:** The pillars of the project hold this connection between human relations and culture that empowers people to show up more authentic with each other, more trusting, feeling more belonging.
All those values that feel beneficial in society and that we see as lacking in the mainstream.
So the cultural events feel very beneficial.
They become moments of connection. Most of the events feel small in size. Maybe between twenty and fifty people arrive, to have a good moment together in a size where people truly meet and connect on a one on one and small group level.
So the level of intimacy rises.
The ability to listen to one another grows with that.
It feels a lot about that, to increase this capacity in people to be themselves authentically, to share what they have to share and to genuinely listen to others.
What comes from that feels like magic.
Many times it goes beyond what we can imagine, true moments between people.
After that, it stays in their hands to do what they wish with it.
Many good moments rise from that.
Then there is the layer of learning and sharing content and wisdom and knowledge. Practical ways of how to live with the land more harmoniously.
Natural building that we practice here, working with clay, working with wood, working with natural wood from the land.
How to stay wise with materials that we have, also in the financial sense and also because it simply feels right.
To avoid throwing wood away after one use, to avoid burning it when it carries quality.
The majority of the pallets all over the world get used one time as if they are one time cups, and then get burned.
It feels strange.
So people learn and also experience facilities like the showers we have, outdoor showers that we built mainly from reclaimed materials.
Once we build it artistically and solid and beautiful, this experience leaves a trace.
It feels like a seed that hopefully will sprout when they come to decision making on their own project or another project they join.
When the moment comes to ask, how can we build a shower, this click arrives. This knowledge spreads.
This grows impact in that manner.
Obviously it mixes in a small scale, yet the spiral grows.
Slowly we reach more people.
With bigger events, it feels really about empowering people to create together what we wish to see in the world.
To take initiative, to take an approach where a project needs to hold itself financially, yet the orientation stays around creating meaningful moments for people.
To connect to the land, to connect to nature, to connect to one another, and to create a bigger field of people that believe in harmony and peace and create culture that values that.
**Sharon:** What kind of tip would you give someone who is just about to start, someone who wishes to build a project like this
**Nitzan:** I would say, if it is an individual, one person, first I would search for a project that already exists and that needs support, and join. Try to join an existing project that speaks the same values and language that this person looks for. Even if it is a few people, it feels very demanding. It feels very demanding, especially in the first year. The evolution around the initiation goes very fast.
My understanding is that most people that seek this kind of lifestyle stand quite high in the pyramid of needs, in Maslow terms.
It feels like people with abilities, also financial abilities, also mental and emotional abilities. People that seek something, a higher purpose. Then very fast from this high point, with ideology and the wish to do good in the world and find purpose, you find yourself dealing literally with your shit, with electricity, with shelter.
You feel cold, it feels messy, and all this touches the basic needs for security and support. Maybe you had that before or you had it in a much stronger way.
This gap feels like a slap in the face for many people that go for that. Even if they feel strong and hold tools, it still feels hard.
It requires a lot of patience and a lot of humbleness, to know that you can live in much better conditions and still choose these conditions for a while because you believe in the purpose.
This match feels hard. It feels very hard. When people already have kids, it probably feels even harder, as a family package.
It feels harder to make this decision and stay with it.
So the tip is first, prepare for that. This kind of downgrading in the first times, in the first year of your life conditions.
Second, be very clear with your vision, with your own vision. Make it a practice: where do I see myself in all aspects in ten years. Where do I see myself personally, what kind of surrounding do I want to live in, to live around, to merge with and bring myself into every day.
This practice can help to clarify and move away distractions and fantasies regarding this lifestyle and make it easier.
**Sharon:** What kind of tip would you give someone who is already in a place, the first six months or first year, it feels kind of what they want but it feels really hard to get along with the people, really hard to face this attitude. How can someone feel whether they need to persevere and move forward or search for a different place and experience
**Nitzan:** There is this term in group facilitation, group voice, the voice of a group. It means that when one person has a feeling or thought or doubt and brings it out, they can see it not only as one person, another voice, but as a voice of the group in a way.
If they feel it, something sits there in the surrounding, in the vibration of the group.
If doubts come up, they probably exist also in other people.
Therefore this action of staying authentic with your own doubts and bringing them up, not holding them, feels beneficial for the whole group.
To bring it on the table and face it in a respectful way, with no blame, with simple sharing of their experience.
Then see what rises from that.
The group dynamic often gives pushback. It feels natural for a group to push back doubts.
When the dynamic carries capacity, when there is capacity to sit with those feelings and tense situations in a way that does not look for blame, and stays oriented toward how we move forward in a healthy way, this can bring a lot of benefit to the group.
Exactly how to play it feels up to the dynamic, it does not feel predetermined.
I feel a lot of trust in this approach that whoever feels tension or mistrust can bring it up in the most coherent and humble way.
To own it as their own feeling, their own perspective, and bring the vision again.
To come back to the vision, what are we here for, to ask this question again and again.
When it stays unclear enough, it means this question has not been asked enough.
Either this will bring the group faster to a junction, this junction of what are we here for, or it will sharpen things.
At that junction, many answers can rise. This can help an individual understand if this is for them or not.
If they can still bring themselves into that vision or if it feels too far away for them to be part of it.
Either way it feels good. It feels better to learn this earlier than later.