Friday, June 30, 2017

My reflection following a Training Day I facilitated on Saturday.












I facilitated a Training Day last Saturday.
I want to reflect with you on something which happened.
I only clocked it after the event.

I use several exercises midst using Blob Tree Materials and mini-movies.
All about creating experiences which stimulate reflection growth & development.

One exercise I sometimes use is with balloons.
I get three volunteers to sit on chairs facing the rest of the participants.
I give them a balloon each and ask them to to hold it on their chest with both hands.

I ask them to close their eyes and then, waving a big pin, I say I am going to burst one of the balloons.
I walk around them as the rooms stills.
Slowly
Walking
Behind them
In front of them.
Slowly ……

Then, after two or three minutes, I announce that I am not going to burst a balloon.
Then I ask each to talk about their feelings.
And what tumbled/raced through their minds?

Very powerfully the three volunteers expressed their anxiety.
Their certainty it will be them who is chosen.
Their steeling of their emotions to cope….. and more.

Powerful reflections indeed.

The objective of the exercise is about experiencing the numbing of emotions to survive.
The total preoccupation about the balloon but in real life it can be like toothache - 
totally blocking out everything else.

That is experiential learning which I specialise in - I don’t do talks - 
I can’t teach people anything - I facilitate experiential learning.

Later on in the training day I referred to the need to manage emotions - not control them - or suppress them.
I reminded participants that feelings travel to the brain four times faster than our thinking.

Only after the day in my reflections - I put both of these together because……
During the Balloon exercise one woman made a comments saying::
“ I realised when holding the balloon that I had no control over whose balloon was to be burst so I thought about it and relaxed!"

WOW - she had allowed her brain to take the balloon issue into a thinking mode rather than retain it as an emotional matter.
That is a perfect example of how we can learn to manage our emotions - emotional intelligence in action.

I don’t know the woman's name - but thank you for being able to step outside the fear bubble and manage a situation.

We can all learn to do that in real life.
Life is for learning.

Stay Beautiful

Pip BHP