Tuesday, June 26, 2018

A group session described here - it's all about understanding ourselves & everyone experiencing nurturing moments.










This group - work session is all about understanding ourselves and experiencing nurturing moments.
1      Get the group buzzing with some starter type questions or a Blob Tool from one of my books.
Some activity to get everyone contributing. Easy and fun. 
Starting into deeper things too quickly is not recommended.

2      Use toilet roll paper or a clothesline to make a big ‘kiss’/ ‘cross' shape in the centre of the room. 
Ask some volunteers to do this – participation is a growth activity.

3      Introduce H.A.L.T. = Hungry Angry Lonely Tired. 
(This is often used to help alcoholics and drug dependent beautiful humans, & me & you, to become more self-aware.) 
Basically, if we are one of those Hungry Angry Lonely Tired, all of us are at risk of slipping into behaviour which is not healthy for others or self. 
Explain how we all can be feeling these without clocking the feelings but be irritable, snappy, sulky and other ‘not so whole’ behaviours especially with those we love.  
 
At the same time place down A4 sheets of paper in the cross on the floor, see illustration.

4      Ask all to quietly consider which one is when they feel most vulnerable/irritable/nasty? 
Then on ‘go’ everyone in the room walks and stands in one of the sections. 
If the group can do this without talking – in silence, 
it makes it more powerful. 
Allow moments for them to feel and think as they stand there.

5      Still standing – ask all to say why they chose this one and give an example. 
Start with a human who will take risks in sharing vulnerability, model openness and authenticity =You.

6      Time to sit down and further reflections about becoming more and more sensitive about ‘self’ 
and from that learning becoming the sort of human we want to be. 
(Not just being, but ‘becoming’). 
This could be done in twos and threes around the room. 
Small numbers help to create more intimacy.

7      After a coffee break, all my words are just a guide – not gospel, 
place a shredder in the centre of the cross in the middle of the floor space and 
give out a pen and an envelope each. 
Ask all to write three of their qualities/positives/gifts on the outside of the envelope – 
all which are known to others. 
Ask all to write three of their weaknesses/vulnerabilities/failures, known only to themselves, inside the envelope and seal it. 
This can be a great time for some beautiful appropriate music to be bursting out of the player. 

8      With more music playing each human is asked to come one at a time and shred their envelope as an offering to God of ourselves with strengths and weaknesses – our beautiful imperfection.

9      END:: This is a ‘Group Experience so reflection is part of the expanding of it – the learning from it. 
You will know the rightness to be silent or a discussion reflecting on the experience.

10    A good piece of practice is, next time you meet as a group, or as you meet 121 - 
ask each one what their experience was like. 
Their feelings? 
Their reflections.
An experiential exercise like this can be much more of a developmental experience if opportunities taken to reflect afterwards



Pip Wilson

www.pipwilson.com

Blob Tree - loads of products , not just the Blob Tree Posters

From my Foot to my Nose - You are ...............

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Friday, June 22, 2018

I was in Manenberg, Capetown, South Africa.



Manenberg, Capetown, South Africa. 

It is like inner city 
East London, UK,
but the streets have not been turned on their ends.
70,000 live here in project type flats.
Here they still have real streets but also describable as slums. 
It is a township.
I have feelings.
Poverty is hurting me.
I was in South Africa.
I want to reflect on one experience there. 

This was one day...

We came here to visit a home.
It was in a terrible condition , more like a charity shop , 
with beat-up furniture throughout. Worse than I have ever seen. 
Junk crammed in every small space.
I have lived long in Inner Cities. 

This one... massive poverty.
Feelings - I was amongst angels.

"A nation's greatness is measured
by how it treats its weakest members."
Mahatma Ghandi

An Angel was in residence.
Her name was Angel, she was that to me.
She is from the so called 'coloured' sector of this large city. 

Her sick elder brother was in bed under a blanket
as she warmly conducted us around her home.
The feelings were warmth.
The feelings were shuddering down my spine.

Every Wednesday she cooks a mammoth pot
full of meat and potatoes
to give freely to humans in her crammed community. 

Another pot also went to the local church where,
without any announcement, 

the locals came streaming with a small plastic tub or plate in hand -
but to feed a family of up to ten, a local resident told me. 

That's why we were here.

To help in the preparation and the serving of the dish - 
smelling so good even twenty feet away. 
Feelings were WONDERMENT. 

I was with Gideon.
A local Pastor who was also our chauffeur. 
It was not safe to walk down the streets. 
Feelings - I felt excitedly nervous.
I did some walking around to shake hands
with some young humans hanging around the streets. 
I started with a few early teens.

I sat down on the pavement with them
in the simmering heat of the day.

I felt their boredom as they flicked little stones into the street.
Then some older and older generations of men wandered
over and came within reach of my handshake and to see this strange white man from London. 
Many of the men, old and young,
had their front four teeth missing.

All were quiet, cautious but warm in their communication. 
Accepting.
Feelings - I was on my own in a Capetown township
and I want to reach out to these strangers -

but it was me who was the stranger.
Within me feelings were signals saying 'this is good to do'.


I sat on the concrete pavement with the young ones
leaned on the street bollards with the older ones 
All greeted me with street handshakes
and were up for questions.
I went for it.

The young boys, say 10 upwards,
and really old men
all had no front top teeth.
I felt strange as a stream of beautiful humans streamed out of local flats.

Some coming close enough for me to encounter 
others standing at a distance
observing.
I felt privileged.

I asked almost everyone questions
'what is the worst and best thing here'? 
"We are a community"
"The gang violence"
Predominant answers.

Feelings within me -
they were living on the edge
poverty/ hostility/ danger
robbery/ survival was the social norm


The only hostility I felt was from a group,
a gang would be a better description,
who came and stood smiling about 10 feet away. 

Keeping distant from me.
They were all in their twenties.
One repeatedly spun on his heels
lifting his arms high
which lifted his shirt on his back
where I saw a large knife tucked in his waistband. 

I observed that but, only afterwards as I reflected, 
I considered it to be 'this is our manor'.
Feelings:
I felt steeled in the act of going out to them.

"There can be no vulnerability without risk;
there can be no life,
without community."

M. Scott Peck

I introduced a few of those I was talking with
to Gideon the local Pastor.
He worked this patch.
This may help.
Making contact is always the number one challenge. 

Feelings, I sat down more - less of a threat to the locals.
As I was circulating on the street corner
a team of volunteers were helping with the food.
It was brought outside and the community changed. 

Out from the stack of flats came lots of children, 
women and some men too.
All with bowls or tin plates and
they queued, orderly, to receive a portion of food.
I felt privileged to be here.
To see and feel this act of weekly generosity
by one woman serving her community
by giving in her poverty
out of her poverty.
She is indeed rich


Joining a gang in this community means
taking out four front top teeth as a visible sign of belonging. 
Belonging to a gang.
Reflection.
I feel disturbed as I write this now.
I had some brief notes from the day but 
as I click these keys it brings it all back to reality.
My comfort is disturbed. 

 
BHP

A street full of beautiful humans .............

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Mask wearing - everyone is communicating with my mask not ME !!!!!!


Something about you - moving

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BLOBTREE COMMUNICATION TOOLS new #Feelings #Fans





BLOBTREE COMMUNICATION TOOLS 
new #Feelings #Fans helping all ages 
to put their finger on #anger, #anxiety #calm #mental health - #well-being. 
 
 







BHP

Wednesday, June 20, 2018

READ THIS - young kids can. - We all need to be able to 'Read The Room' to be able to connect.

Child Abuse or, at least, child neglect.

Todays Version ............

Trump & his detaching of children from mothers & fathers - the most horrible with lasting impact on young lives.






A securely attached child will store an internal working model of a responsive, loving, reliable care-giver, and of a self that is worthy of love and attention and will bring these assumptions to bear on all other relationships. 
Conversely, an insecurely attached child may view the world as a dangerous place in which other people are to be treated with great caution, and see himself as ineffective and unworthy of love. 
These assumptions are relatively stable and enduring: those built up in the early years of life are particularly persistent and unlikely to be modified by subsequent experience.






BHP

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

TALK OUT or we will ACT OUT & that means more pain for everyone ...............

Blob Tree :: "Blobs are a very direct and yet unobtrusive way to help adolescents explore their feelings.”






"Blobs are deceptively simple figures, recognisably human and manifesting an extraordinary range of emotions and relationships. 
They are a very direct and yet unobtrusive way to help adolescents explore their feelings.”
Jill Aitkin, Canons High School Harrow London.
 
 
 
 
 

Blob Tree Communication Tools:: "Even the youngest children can come to own the images"





"Even the youngest children can come to own the images, 
finding in them Blobs that reflect their past and present circumstances 
and how they would like to be in the future.”
Sarah Davidson 
Slough Borough Council's Educational Psychology Service

Blob Playground
 
 
 
 
 
BHP