A resource for your circle

The
accompaniment.

To accompany is to sit down for an hour with the woman who is going to bring the case, before the session, and help her reach what is actually weighing on her — so that she does not arrive at the circle and discover it in front of everyone.

There are two women and two different jobs. This page has both, kept apart: first what the woman presenting does, then what the woman accompanying her does.

And there are two ways to accompany: the prepared one, with a meeting beforehand, and the urgent one, done live in front of the circle. Almost everything is the same in both; what changes is at the end of this page.

Neither is optional. An unaccompanied case eats the whole block telling the story — and the story is not the case.

What the accompaniment is

It is a one-hour conversation, between two women, before the session. One is going to bring a case to the circle; the other listens to help her find the difficulty underneath. That is all of it, and it is harder than it sounds, because the only thing you have to do is ask and then be quiet.

Other peer groups call this coaching. MQHD calls it accompaniment, and that is not a change of label: coach carries the idea of someone who knows more and takes you to a result. Here nobody knows more. There is one woman walking beside another while that other one finds her own.

In English we keep the Spanish word for her — la acompañante — because English has no word that does this without dragging back the idea the method spent years removing.

Four things the accompaniment is not

It is not therapy

The past is not worked on and nothing is diagnosed. If something comes up that needs professional help, it is named carefully and a contact is offered — it is not accompanied.

It is not advice

Not financial, not legal, not business. The woman accompanying does not go through numbers and does not give a view on the decision, even if she knows the subject.

It is not mentoring

There is no woman who already solved it teaching the one who is inside it. The one who already solved it cannot accompany the one who is inside it.

It is not a rehearsal

You do not practise how she will tell it and you do not write her script. What she takes into the room has to sound like her.

Two parts, one hour

The woman presenting

Fills in her two sheets before the meeting, alone and by hand. She arrives with them and willing to be asked the uncomfortable thing. Afterwards she decides what goes into the room.

La acompañante

Arrives with nothing written and no settled opinion. She asks, listens, gives back. At the end she writes a four-part introduction and reads it in the session.

The line that is not crossed

The woman accompanying does not solve, does not advise and does not tell her own.

The woman presenting · before the meeting

Two sheets, alone and by hand. They are in the booklet. The first comes out without effort; the second is the one that costs, and it is the one that works.

Sheet 1 · The facts and what hurts

01
In one sentence
What do I want to bring to the circle?
02
The facts, without interpretation
What happened, when, with whom?
03
The hardest part
What is hardest about this for me?
04
Where I am stuck
Where I stopped being able to move.

Sheet 2 · What I have to look at

01
My own part
How might my own decisions be holding this situation in place?
02
What I feel
With the emotions wheel beside you, to land on the exact word.
03
What I fear
What do I fear will happen if nothing changes?
04
What it would be for this to go well
Said concretely, not as a wish.
05
What I need from the group today
To be heard, to be asked, or to be told other women's experience. Those are three different things and it is worth asking for one.

If finishing the second sheet does not make you slightly uncomfortable, you have not reached the bottom yet.

And before you fill them in, check that it is a case

That it moves you

Something that keeps you awake, not something you are curious about.

That it is not resolved

If you already decided and you are coming to tell it, that is a story. The circle works on what is still open.

If it fails either one

It is a topic, not a case. It goes to the open space, which is what that is for.

The woman presenting · during the meeting

You arrive with both sheets filled in and with one disposition: let yourself be asked what you have not asked yourself. You are going to hear yourself say things you had not written down — that is exactly what the hour is for.

You do not have to arrive tidy. If you knew what the difficulty underneath was, you would not need the meeting.
You can say no. If there is somewhere you do not want to go, you say so and nobody insists. Nothing that comes up here has to go into the room.
What is said in the meeting is confidential, the same as the session. It does not leave the two of you either.
At the end, look at your sheets again. Very often the first sentence has to be rewritten, because the case turned out to be another one.

And one that surprises people: you decide what gets told. La acompañante writes the introduction, but she reads it to you first. If anything in that sentence exposes you more than you want, it gets changed right there — not in the room.

La acompañante · what shows and what weighs

What she brings written down is, almost always, the story: what happened, when, with whom, who said what. That gets told easily and it will take the whole hour if you let it.

Underneath there is something else, and that is what the circle can work with. Your job is the step from one layer to the other. If the hour ends in the first one, the case reaches the circle as an anecdote and the block does not pay off.

Two layers, and only one tells itself

The story · what shows

What happened and when
Who said what
How much it was, how much is left
What steps she is considering

The difficulty · what weighs

What she feels, in all her own words
Where she feels it in the body
What she fears will happen
What she needs and has not asked for
What she believes about money that keeps her there
Which of her values is at stake
What sets her off: the word or the gesture that brings it all up at once
Her own part: which decision of hers keeps this in place

La acompañante · the question guide

You do not have to ask them all, or in order. They are a repertoire for when the conversation stays up top. They are all open: none of them can be answered with yes or no.

To get in

01
«What are you thinking about?»
The most neutral of all, which is why it is first. If you open by asking what she feels, she often closes: it is too early. This one asks nothing of her.
02
«What weighs on you most about this?»
Usually the first one that goes from the story down to the bottom.
03
«Tell me more about that.»
Not a question, and one of the highest-yielding. You say it and then you are quiet.
04
«Help me understand.»
Useful when something does not add up, without pointing out that it does not add up.

To reach the feeling

01
«What do you feel when you tell it?»
Asked more than once, at different points in the hour. The answer changes.
02
«Where do you feel it?»
Sometimes the body answers before the words do.
03
«Which part of all this keeps you awake?»
It forces a choice, and choosing is what focuses.
04
«If this were an image, what would it be?»
A metaphor, without explaining or justifying it. It is the one that pulls her out of the facts fastest, and whatever she says here is written down word for word: it is usually worth more than twenty minutes of detail.

To find the difficulty underneath

01
«What is the real difficulty here?»
Direct. Very often she already knows and nobody had asked her.
02
«What question are you hoping to answer for yourself?»
It turns the case into a question, which is what the circle needs.
03
«Out of everything you have told me, what worries you most?»
Asked at the end, when it is all on the table.
04
«Which part of this depends on you?»
The most uncomfortable one and the one that changes the case most.

To look ahead

01
«What do you want?»
Three words. It is answered with difficulty, and that is why it works.
02
«If this went well, what would it look like?»
Concretely: what would look different on an ordinary Tuesday.
03
«And what would it mean if it went badly?»
The opposite, and it goes down faster. «What I fear» stays in the feeling; this one forces her to name the concrete consequence.
04
«And for the people around you?»
Added to the two above. It almost always uncovers who she is protecting — and with money that is usually half the case.
05
«What belief would you have to let go of to get it?»
Something she takes as true about money. It is almost always a sentence learned at home.

And one that is not asked: «why?», on its own. It is the most tempting and it lands worst — between peers it sounds like being called to account, and she goes from telling to defending. «Tell me more» gets the same thing without moving her.

La acompañante · how to listen

Four things the woman accompanying does

Be quiet

Listen more than you talk. The silence after an answer is what brings the second answer, and that is almost always the good one.

Give her words back

Repeat what you heard, in her terms and without interpreting. She hears herself from outside and corrects.

Notice where she returns

If the conversation comes back three times to the same point, that is the case — even if she says it is not.

Keep the metaphors

When she says «it's like carrying a suitcase that isn't mine», that is worth more than twenty minutes of facts. Write it down word for word.

And four it does not

Do not solve

Even if you can see the way out perfectly. If you hand it to her, she stops looking for it and the circle's block is left with nothing to work on.

Do not tell yours

The preparation is not a conversation between two: it is one woman listening. Your experience goes later, in the circle, like everyone else's.

Do not interrogate

If she does not want to go somewhere, do not insist. Note it and move on.

Do not judge the decision

Not even with your face. You are there so she reaches the bottom, not to assess her.

La acompañante · the introduction, in four parts

At the end of the hour, you write the introduction. It is the piece that decides what the circle is going to talk about, and it is read out loud when the time comes to share experience. It is in the booklet, on your sheet.

What you write

01
The core, in a single sentence
What she came to explore. In her words, not yours.
02
The difficulty you heard underneath
The one she named at the end, not the one she had written down at the start.
03
The feelings you heard
All of them, not the most comfortable one. Usually two or three that contradict each other.
04
The sentence that opens the group
The one that makes the others look in their own lives.

The format of the sentence is fixed: «Think of a time when you felt [her strongest feeling] because [a general description of the situation, without her details].»

The sentence, written well and written badly

Like this

«Think of a time when you felt trapped because a money decision depended on someone else.»
«Think of a time when you felt ashamed because you did not understand something you were supposed to know.»

Not like this

«Think of when you lent money to a brother and he never paid you back.» — it names the case: the group will talk about brothers
«Think of a problem with a loan of eighty thousand.» — the number and the product hijack the conversation

The test: strip out of the sentence everything that identifies the case. If it still stands, it is well written. If it collapses, it is still naming facts and not the feeling.

And before you read it in the session, you read it to her. It is her case: if the sentence exposes her more than she wants, the two of you change it.

What happens if the introduction goes wrong

If it names the facts

The circle tells similar stories and she listens to eight anecdotes that are no use to her.

If it names the wrong feeling

The others look in the wrong drawer of their own lives.

If it is too general

«A moment when you felt bad» opens nothing for anyone.

It is the easiest mistake to make and the most expensive: the whole block is lost and there is no way to get it back inside the session.

Two accompaniments, and they are not done the same way

What has just been described is the prepared one: there is a meeting beforehand, two sheets filled in and a written introduction. It belongs to the prepared case, the long block of the session.

But there is another. When something happens to a woman that cannot wait until next month, the circle works on it the same day, in the open space. There was no meeting, no sheets, and no time to prepare anything. The accompaniment happens live, in front of everyone.

How they differ

The prepared one

A meeting one or two weeks before, in private.
She arrives with both sheets filled in.
La acompañante writes an introduction and reads it when the block opens.
She names the difficulty underneath in phase 2, and the group asks about that.
Who presents and who accompanies is known from the previous session.
It goes in the case block: about an hour.

The urgent one

There is no meeting. It happens in the session, the same day.
There are no sheets. There was no time to fill them in.
There is no introduction, because the group has just heard all of it.
The difficulty is found live: the conversation replaces phases 2 and 3.
Who accompanies is decided by everyone, on the spot.
It goes in the open space: whatever is left of the session.

Everything else is the same. The two layers, the question guide, the four things you do and the four you do not: all of this page applies to both. What changes is that in the urgent one it has to be done hot, and with the group watching.

The live accompaniment

When a woman asks for the space because something has just happened to her, the group has already heard the essentials: she said it when she asked, or it came up in what weighs on us. What is missing is the same as always — getting down from the story to the difficulty — only without the hour beforehand. It has to be done there.

How it is done

01
Who accompanies is chosen
Everyone decides, in the moment. Nothing was arranged and it does not have to be the guide — quite the opposite: it helps if she stays free to hold the session.
02
Two chairs, facing each other
The two of them sit looking at each other, not at the group. The posture is not decoration: it is what makes what follows possible.
03
They speak only to each other
As if the others were not there. Nothing is explained to the group, nobody looks at it, nobody addresses it. It is a conversation between two that the others happen to overhear.
04
The circle does not step in
It does not ask, does not agree out loud, does not finish sentences, does not comment. It listens, and that is all.
05
She names the difficulty underneath
Same as in the prepared one: she says it, out loud, when she gets there.
06
One minute of silence
The guide announces it and counts it. There is no sentence to read here, but the minute happens anyway: it is where each woman looks in her own life instead of saying the first thing that comes to mind.
07
And then the circle comes in
Each woman shares her own — relevant or resonant — and she says what she takes with her. From here on it is identical to the prepared case.

Why facing each other, and only between the two of them

Without the hour beforehand, the work has to happen there

And that work — asking the uncomfortable thing, waiting in silence, giving her words back — only works between two people. It is what would have been done in private, done in the open.

Eight women asking is an interrogation

If the group comes in, she stops looking and starts defending herself. With a single person opposite her she can think out loud without being exposed.

Looking at each other changes what gets said

Sitting across from one person you speak differently than addressing a room. The chair is what produces the conversation.

And that is why there is no introduction

The introduction exists to tell the group what happened in the private meeting. Here the group was there: it already knows what to look for in its own life.

What the ones watching do

Nothing. And it is harder than talking.

For the circle this is the most uncomfortable part of the method: hearing a hard conversation without being able to enter it. It is worth saying so out loud before starting, so nobody takes it as being shut out. It is the same silence as phase 1 of the prepared case, only longer.

What the circle can do while it listens

Fill in «What I am going to share»

The sheet on the back of My three axes. It is exactly for this: writing down her words, where I resonate, and what I am going to say when it is my turn.

Not prepare your answer

Taking notes is not rehearsing. If you spend the conversation assembling what you are going to say, you stopped listening to her.

And afterwards, in the session

In the prepared one, the accompaniment ends when the block starts: the woman presenting tells it, she names the difficulty underneath herself, the circle asks about that difficulty, la acompañante reads her sentence, the minute of silence comes, and each woman shares her own. The five phases, what the circle does and what breaks it are in the prepared case.

In the urgent one the accompaniment is the block: there is no before and after, the conversation happens in the open and from there the circle goes straight to sharing.

In both, once the circle starts sharing la acompañante has no special part: she has done her job. She takes part like anyone else, and tells her experience like the rest.

Where it comes from

The peer case format and its rule of sharing experience instead of advising are attributed to «Jiggs» Davis and Fred Chaney, who in 1975 shaped the YPO forum. The way of listening described here — giving back the speaker's words without interpreting, and not solving for her — is the reflection of Carl Rogers and his person-centred therapy, from the 1940s; that is also where the principle behind MQHD's third pillar comes from: the capacity to understand oneself is in the person speaking, not in the person listening. Open questions and reflections as a conversational technique are systematised in Miller and Rollnick's motivational interviewing. The name «accompaniment», the question guide, the examples and the test for the sentence are MQHD's own.