Growing up, I was immersed in an environment that worshipped feats of mind, to the almost total exclusion of the body. Apart from compulsory school sports on Thursday after school, I spent 5½ days each week studying, studying, studying. Perhaps that’s why I eventually gravitated toward practicing mindfulness in my 50s. But recently, my mediation teachers have been suggesting a slightly different approach, one they call cultivating embodied awareness.
The author (standing, fourth from the left) at age 13 with his school rugby team
“Embodied awareness” evokes for me what meditation is about.
Here’s why.
Mindfulness and embodied awareness
The word mindfulness nudges us to focus on our mind’s experience. Being unattached to those pesky thoughts that come and go when we meditate.
In contrast, the description embodied awareness reframes meditation as encompassing both mind and body. It encourages us to extend our awareness to include moment-to-moment bodily sensations. Aware of a muscle ache, the tick of a clock, and a breeze on our skin without getting snagged by these impressions. Being aware that we are living embodied.
Yet we are not just our mind and our body. To me, meditation is experiencing the mystery of who we are and being this mystery. My meditation practice is to notice but avoid attachment to my thoughts and sensations.
Have your heart be where your feet are
For some time, I have been working on developing a daily practice for living more in gratitude. Accepting loving kindness and feeling gratitude are additional dimensions of my meditative and living experience, rooted in both my mind and my body. While cultivating embodied awareness, my teachers have prompted me to “have my heart where my feet are”, a teaching of Muhammad, the founder of Islam.
To me, this is a helpful suggestion that highlights another facet of meditation that connects my mind and body.
Meditation as embodied awareness
There is no universal definition of meditation. And that’s OK. But I now practice to experience embodied awareness when I meditate—and as I live my life.
In a Pentagon news conference on Feb. 12, 2002, United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gave a now-famous response to a question about the lack of evidence linking the government of Iraq with the supply of weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups:
“…as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” —Donald Rumsfeld, “There are unknown unknowns.”
For full context, here’s the whole exchange. Though it has been widely criticized as an evasive non-answer to an important question, Rumsfeld thought highly enough of his remark that he borrowed from it for the title of his controversial memoir, Known and Unknown.
All of the examples above apply the Rumsfeld matrix to explore different kinds of analysis. What no one discusses, as far as I know(!), are the potential pitfalls of Rumsfeld’s categories. So, my take on the Rumsfeld matrix is—what if you’re wrong? Here are the consequences of incorrectly assigning one’s belief about one’s knowledge to the wrong box.
What you know you know
It’s great to know what you know. Until you’re wrong, either because you don’t actually know what you think you know, or because what you “know” is wrong.
Because everyone makes mistakes. I’m sometimes wrong about what I think I know, and since you’re probably, like me, not perfect you are too.
For example, I tell a client that I know how to do something, and then when they ask me to do it I discover that I can’t. Or, I confidently give incorrect advice.
This is obviously dangerous. Misplaced confidence in one’s knowledge has caused countless tragedies. We have a word for this: hubris.
What you know you don’t know
There are times when you’re wrong about knowing that you don’t know. Sometimes it turns out that, when the chips are down, you do know! (See the next section below.)
For example, fifty years ago I had four years of French classes in school and have barely used it since. My French is terrible. Nevertheless, every once in a while, the French word for something I would have sworn I didn’t know just pops into my head.
The good news is that believing that you don’t know something that you actually do is not dangerous. Underestimating your abilities is, at most, mildly embarrassing.
What you don’t know you know
This is the matrix box that Rumsfeld didn’t mention, though he refers to it in his memoir. Surprisingly, there’s a lot of stuff you don’t know that you know! In fact, there are probably more things that you don’t know you know than things you know you know! (I’ll wait while you figure out that sentence.) This box is about tacit knowledge, which I wrote about here.
For example, I never learned to touch type. If you asked me to list the QWERTY keyboard layout I’ve been typing on for fifty years, I’d have a hard time deriving it from memory. Despite this, I can type with three or four fingers far faster than the hunt and peck I used for the first few months on a typewriter.
Tacit knowledge is a bonus. It’s not dangerous. Thank goodness for that!
What you don’t know you don’t know
Finally, we get to the most dangerous region of the Rumsfeld matrix. When we are born, we don’t know what we don’t know. And we’re helpless, completely reliant on other humans for our survival. Slowly we pick up knowledge, making discoveries constantly. But there are always things we don’t know that we don’t know. They bedevil us our whole lives. This has been true for every culture throughout history, including ours right now.
By definition, I can’t give you a current example of what I don’t know I don’t know! That’s what makes this box so dangerous. But we can extrapolate from the past. For example, look at the history of our beliefs about what causes illness. Cultures believed that illness was caused by evil spirits and gods, or an excess of blood in the body. Today, these are rare beliefs.
In 1968, Stewart Brand wrote on the title page of his first Whole Earth Catalog, “We are as gods and might as well get good at it.” In my opinion, he was wrong, though on the back page of the final Catalog he wrote, “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish“, which I see as a partial repudiation. What we can learn from this box is that, as Shakespeare has Hamlet say, “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” We need to remember that we don’t know all the right answers; we don’t even know all the right questions!
In other words, we need to remain humble in the face of a universe that has not shared all its secrets.
We are all Donald Rumsfeld
We are all Donald Rumsfeld. We are all susceptible to hubris and overlooking how little we actually know in the likely scheme of things. If we strive to avoid hubris and stay humble, our world will be a better place.
Here are my suggestions on how to handle three kinds of metaphorical holes.
Assholes
We’ll begin with assholes. They are people (usually men in my experience) who reliably exhibit mean, uncaring, selfish, disrespectful, and contemptible behaviors. Most of the time, they are pretty easy to spot.
The best way to deal with assholes is to avoid them whenever possible. If you can’t, then don’t confront them; assholes love that. Instead, ignore them. If you have to interact with an asshole, set boundaries on the time you’ll be with them and what you will tolerate. This can be tough, so remember that their assholeness is their problem, not yours.
A couple more points.
First, everyone acts like an asshole sometimes. While waiting to pick up a prescription in a pharmacy the other day, I talked for five minutes to a clearly stressed woman in the line. As the pharmacist filled my order, I heard screaming and turned to see the woman smashing the credit card terminal next to me. Based on our conversation, I’m pretty sure this woman was behaving as a temporary asshole due to circumstances, and I was happy to see staff and customers give her some slack and support.
And second, remember that assholes are not happy people. Though it’s hard to do, if you can feel compassion for an asshole you’re with it will help you deal with their behavior better. And it may (don’t count on it) help them be slightly less asshole-like with you.
Everyone experiences metaphorical potholes—setbacks, disappointments, bumps on the road of life—once in a while. They are always unwelcome and usually unexpected. A pothole is your problem to deal with, but don’t take it personally as it may be nothing you could have done anything about. When you encounter a pothole, try not to get stuck. And be open to asking for help if and when you do.
Remember that you’ll almost always be able to get out of a pothole. As Sufis say, “This too shall pass.”
Sometimes, anticipating a potential upcoming pothole will help you avoid it. The trick is to anticipate potentially serious potholes while not trying to plan for every possible eventuality, which leads to analysis paralysis. (Meeting designers and facilitators like me get plenty of practice at this balancing act.)
Finally, learn from your pothole experiences so you are less likely to fall into the same pothole again. If you do, there’s more learning needed.
Black holes
Thankfully, unless faster-than-light travel becomes possible, you’ll never have to interact with a physical black hole. They’re too far away. But metaphorical black holes exist, and they can seriously affect your well-being. They are about unhealthy attraction to other people, whether it’s romantic, physical, sexual, emotional, intellectual, platonic, aesthetic, or sensual. These kinds of attraction intersect and overlap, and each of us experiences and prioritizes them to varying degrees. Additionally, attraction can be fluid and can change over time or in different circumstances.
There are, of course, many positive aspects to attraction. It fosters one of our most important needs: connection and intimacy with others. Attraction elicits positive emotions which can contribute to overall well-being and satisfaction. And it can be a powerful motivator, driving us to pursue our goals and aspirations, and increase self-confidence.
Mutual attraction is usually a positive experience. But metaphorical black holes only involve one-way attraction. They attract so strongly there is no escape. You become obsessed and besotted with another person, causing distress and interfering with other areas of life. Such extreme attraction is rarely reciprocated, typically leading to feelings of rejection, sadness, and heartbreak. Black hole attraction may also trigger feelings of jealousy or insecurity and provoke biases or prejudices.
Avoiding black holes
So, like assholes, you should avoid black holes. This is especially challenging because black holes attract no matter how far you’re from them, while assholes are generally only a problem when you’re with them. It’s also often difficult to determine whether the attraction we initially feel is or will become obsessive. As a result, you may not realize you are too close to a black hole before it’s too late.
To avoid being sucked into a metaphorical black hole, you first have to notice you’re in danger. One warning sign is becoming aware that an attraction to someone has become a constant obsession to the extent it’s significantly affecting your other relationships. Romantic obsessions of this kind are called obsessive love disorder.
A mild obsession with someone can often be lessened by choosing to spend more time doing things you like, focusing on other relationships, practicing mindfulness, and meditating regularly. Mental health counseling is recommended when these approaches aren’t working, especially if you notice a pattern in your life of obsessive relationships.
The Law of Holes
Finally, there are other kinds of holes you may find yourself in from time to time, such as foxholes and rabbit holes. Whatever kind of hole you might encounter, the following two Laws of Holes can be useful:
“If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.” —The First Law of Holes
“When you stop digging, you are still in a hole.” —The Second Law of Holes
I wish you good luck dealing with all the metaphorical holes in your life!
In my 7th decade, I think I better understand some of the mysteries of my youth.
Feelings
Paradoxically, one of the things I now understand better is the importance and influence of my feelings. Growing up, no one talked about feelings in my family. I got the message that feelings, especially uncomfortable ones, were taboo to discuss and best suppressed. So, I focused on understanding the world and my life by developing my rational understanding and knowledge of the world as a physicist. I had little understanding of how my feelings were influencing my life and decisions.
Over the years, I’ve realized that how I feel determines what I do far more than what I think. Though it’s still a struggle at times, I work to be more aware of how I’m feeling and how it is affecting my behavior. Doing this helps me to minimize being “stuck” in feelings that are associated with my recent or distant past. This leads to another understanding…
This too shall pass
These days, I find myself better able to deal with life’s ups and downs. I wouldn’t say my life feels easier overall. Increased financial security comes hand in hand with the infirmities of old(er) age. But over time I’ve internalized my understanding that “this too shall pass”.
Perhaps this is because I have more experience knowing that bad or good times don’t last forever. Perhaps I have become more resilient, or more accepting of the reality that some things are beyond my control. Or, maybe, it’s simply that my short-term memory is worse so it’s easier for me to live in the present!
Forgiveness
As I age, I’ve become more tolerant of imperfections in myself, others, and the world. I am better able to forgive myself and others, having learned that everyone makes mistakes and that it’s not fair to hold anyone to impossibly high standards. I’m more empathetic, tolerant, and understanding than I used to be.
Many of the certainties of my youth have given way to respect for diverse opinions and a greater acceptance of imperfections in the world around us.
One specific example of this is forgiving the flaws and limitations of my parents, of whom I was so intolerant in my youth. I now see them as imperfect people rather than the all-knowing, all-powerful figures they appeared to me as a child. As a parent and grandparent myself now, I recognize the sacrifices and efforts they made on my behalf. I’ve gained a deeper appreciation for their love and support, despite their imperfections.
Everything else
The older I get, the more I realize how little I know compared to what there is to know. Paradoxically, I’m increasingly surprised by what I do know when circumstances bring it to mind. Most of my knowledge is tacit. Though my slowly deteriorating memory bugs me at times, I’m fundamentally at peace with remembering and understanding stuff that I used to know. Coming (mostly) to terms with my frailties as I age is a blessing.
Living looking forward
Until I die, there’s always the future—which hasn’t happened yet! I think the trick of experiencing the future as fully as possible is to work on minimizing the effects of past experiences that get in the way of being in the present. I’ll never completely succeed in this, of course, but it’s a worthy goal. Living looking forward is tough because…
…looking backward evokes feelings
Looking backward helps us to understand our past in ways that were previously hidden from us. In addition, thinking about the past often reinvokes feelings associated with that time. Sometimes this is a positive or healing experience. But sometimes it leads us to wallow in the past, stuck in unresolved trauma. That’s why looking backward with therapeutic support is often useful. It’s something I’ve done numerous times over the years which has paid rich dividends.
Living in the present
Here’s a final thought about living in the present by a meditation teacher:
“Let thoughts about the past be known for what they are: thoughts about the past. Let thoughts about the future be known for what they are: thoughts about the future.”
During a recent meditation session, teacher Narayan Helen Liebenson shared that it was Parinirvana Day, the day when the Buddha is said to have achieved complete Nirvana, upon the death of his physical body. She explained that you don’t need to believe in the concept of reincarnation to be a Buddhist. And she talked about the fact that many of us have experienced, often more than once, reincarnation in this life.
I don’t believe that I possess a non-physical essence that will, after my death, begin a new life in a new body. When we die, the atoms of our bodies remain. They continue to be incorporated into other forms of matter, including bodies of people yet to be born. And I don’t believe that anything else remains except perhaps in the hearts and minds of friends and family who are still alive, their descendants, and occasionally an ongoing influence on our culture.
While I don’t believe in traditional reincarnation, I have experienced reincarnation in this life more than once. You probably have too.
What do I mean by reincarnation in this life?
I remember a life history that stretches back to my childhood. But I do not see myself as being the same “person” throughout my life. I’m skeptical about the concept of moments of enlightenment that radically change a person. Yet I can identify distinct periods in my life, and I interpret the transitions between them as a kind of reincarnation of my being.
I describe these phases and their dominant characteristics as:
Early childhood: being intensely curious and playful.
Childhood through adolescence: focusing on an intellectual approach to the world, emphasizing thinking over feeling.
My 20s – 40s: moving toward a more balanced integration of the role of thoughts and feelings in my life.
My 50s – the present: discovering the primary importance for me of connection with others, coming into my power to create my life, and desiring to use my talents to make a difference in the world I inhabit.
Though there aren’t clear boundaries between these chapters of my life, looking back after each transition I experienced myself as a significantly different person compared to who I was before.
The future
Will I experience another reincarnation during my lifetime? I don’t know and want to stay open to that possibility. Whatever happens, I think the concept of reincarnation in this life is a useful way to think about one’s personal lifetime evolution. Perhaps it will be thought-provoking for you.
Feel free to share your thoughts on reincarnation in this life in the comments below!
Image copyrighted to Himalayan Academy Publications, Kapaa, Kauai, Hawaii. Licensed for Wikipedia under Creative Commons and requires attribution when reproduced, CC BY-SA 2.5, Link
Animated gif attribution.
Today, I’m tired and achy, recovering from yesterday’s COVID booster. So I replaced my daily run with a long walk.
I continue to move.
My Twitter bio includes that I love to dance, sing, and meditate. All these are different ways to move. For me, dance evokes the very essence of movement in my body. Singing requires the movement of my vocal cords, forming moving sound waves in the air. And even meditation involves movement as I watch breath move in and out of my body.
More than life
In fact, movement is more than life. At a deeper level, everything is moving. Every lifeless atom—whether in a bar of copper, a vat of mercury, or a tank of oxygen—is constantly changing position. At the deepest level, quantum mechanics tells us that no particles in the universe are static; all exist in a probability cloud of possible positions.
I am grateful for the movement in my life, both for the joy it gives me and movement’s constant reminder that I am alive.
After two years of only designing and facilitating online meetings, I’m suddenly immersed in preparing for in-person meetings again. And that strange emotion nervous excitement is coming back!
Two multi-day events, 2,000 miles apart, in the space of a week.
Even an in-person pre-con, just like in the old days.
I find it tough to prepare for meetings. Creating designs, turning them into implementations, trying hard to not miss any important details, making sure everyone involved knows what they need to know and do, negotiating compromises, contingency planning, etc. Frankly, I feel just plain nervous before the event. It’s stressful. Preparation seems to have no limits — except I know it must end as soon as the meeting starts.
At that moment, nervous excitement takes over.
Nervous excitement
Many meeting professionals, speakers, and performers will know what I mean by nervous excitement. If you don’t, here’s how I described it at the start of my book The Power of Participation:
“When I got on my feet to dance in public for the first time in 32 years I felt a strange mixture of emotions, best described as nervous excitement. I had given up the idea that I had control over what might happen and was all too aware of the scary possibility that I might feel self-conscious or embarrassed. Simultaneously, there was a part of me that was tremendously curious and excited about what I was about to do.” —Adrian Segar, The Power of Participation, Chapter 1
I feel nervous excitement when I:
have the responsibility for making something happen for many people;
am aware that what I do matters in the moment;
am giving up the illusion of control;
feel excited by and open to the possibilities of what might happen.
And then a funny thing happens…
…Usually, these days, I don’t feel nervous excitement for long!
It disappears. To be precise, the “nervous” piece goes away, and I’m left with excitement.
Which is pretty nice.
It wasn’t always like this. When I started standing up in front of meetings, I felt scared of making mistakes, losing control, or failing somehow.
And decades of practice showed me that I survive (so far) whatever happens. This emotional learning somehow changed how I felt once I got going. I’ve become brave. And I quickly move into what the psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi called flow, “characterized by the complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting transformation in one’s sense of time.”
I’ve noticed however that if I feel rushed — like at a workshop I gave recently — the nervous component persists. And that’s OK. As a lifelong learner, I continue to accept opportunities to improve my work. Nervous excitement is a vast improvement over the fear I felt when I dared to present and facilitate long ago. Oh, I gotta go, time to step up to the front of the room…
“There are worlds built on rainbows and worlds built on rain. There are worlds of pure mathematics, where every number chimes like crystal as it rolls into reality. Worlds of light and worlds of darkness, worlds of rhyme and worlds of reason, and worlds where the only thing that matters is the goodness in a hero’s heart. The Moors are none of those things. The Moors exist in eternal twilight, in the pause between the lightning strike and the resurrection. They are a place of endless scientific experimentation, of monstrous beauty, and of terrible consequences.“—Seanan McGuire, Down amongst the sticks and bones
So I continue to experiment. I try new things. Say yes, despite the ease of staying with the familiar. Practice endless scientific experimentation, I hope until the day I die.
Monstrous beauty
We are all weird. And we are flawed. Monstrous, even, though our monstrosities are in the eye of the beholder.
Yet beauty shines through our monsters’ cracks.
“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” —Leonard Cohen, Anthem
We could close our eyes.
But even monstrous beauty has charms.
I (mostly) keep my eyes open.
Terrible consequences
Once in a while, a seemingly small event in our life leads to terrible consequences. The tires start to slip as you steer around an icy curve. An idle remark explodes into a screaming argument. The “minor procedure” triggers months of pain and immobility.
Such terrible consequences can happen at any time. What makes them especially difficult is that they are not preimagined — Heidegger’s dreadful that has already happened. They are a revelation, unexpected, and painful in ways that are totally new.
And so, sometimes I live on The Moors. All of us do, to some extent.
This leads to a question for you.
How much of the time do you live on The Moors?
Image attribution: 4wd at English Wikipedia. – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42295185
I belong to a couple of small groups that have been meeting regularly for decades. The men’s group meets biweekly, while the consultants’ group meets monthly. I have been exploring and writing about facilitating change since the earliest days of this blog. So in 2021, I developed and facilitated for each group a process for working together to explore what we want to change, and then change our lives.
Each group spent several meetings working through this exercise.
What happened was valuable, so I’m sharing the process for you to use if it fits.
The process design outline
It’s important for the group’s members to receive instructions for the entire exercise well in advance of the first meeting, so they have time to think about their answers before we get together.
Exploring our past experiences of working on change in our lives
We begin with a short, three-question review of our past experiences working on change in our lives.
These questions give everyone the opportunity to review:
the life changes they made or attempted to make in the past;
the strategies they used; and
what they learned in the process.
This supplies baseline information to the individuals and the group for what follows.
The questions cover what:
we worked on.
was tried that did and didn’t work.
we learned from these experiences.
We each share short answers to these questions before continuing to the next stage of the process.
For the rest of the exercise, each group member gets as much time as they need.
Sharing what we would currently like to change in our lives
Next, we ask each person to share anything they would currentlylike to change in their life. This includes issues they may or may not be working on. Group members can ask for help to clarify what they want to change.
Exploring and discussing what we are currently working on to change our lives
Next, each person shares in detail which of the above issues they are currently working on, or want to work on, to change in their life. This can include describing their struggles and what they are learning, and also asking the group for advice and support.
Post-process review
Exploring long-term learning is important. So, after some time has elapsed, perhaps a few months, we run a post-exercise review of the outcomes for each person. This helps to uncover successes as well as difficulties that surfaced, and can also lead to additional appropriate group support and encouragement.
Here’s an example — what I shared and did
Things I’ve tried in the past to make changes in my life that didn’t work
Trying to think my way into making changes w/o taking my feelings/body state into account
e.g. trying to lose weight by going on a diet.
Denial—doing nothing and hoping the change will happen.
What I’ve learned about successful ways to change my life
Anything that improves my awareness of feeling or body state can be a precursor to change: e.g. mindful eating or emotional eating.
Creating habits: e.g. brushing my teeth first thing in the morning; setting triggers (calendar reminders, timers for meditation or breaks).
The habit of daily exercise and regular yoga improves awareness of my body state.
Three issues I worked on
Tidying up and documenting my complicated life before I die.
Living more in gratitude; developing a daily practice.
My post-exercise three-month review
I’m happy with the way I continue to work on the long-term project of tidying up my office, getting caught up on reading, and documenting my household and estate tasks. To help ensure that I work on it every day, I created a simple spreadsheet with columns for various short tasks that advanced my goals. Checking off time spent on one of these tasks each day shows me I’m making progress, and this feels good.
I created a buddy system with another group member who wanted to meditate more. We send each other an email when we’ve meditated. This has greatly improved the likelihood I’ll meditate every day.
After trying a simple daily gratitude practice, I decided to let it go for the time being until my daily meditation became a fully reliable habit. Sometimes, small steps are the best strategy!
Detailed instructions
Interested? OK! Here’s how to run this exercise.
First, explain the process and see if you get buy-in from the group about doing this work. It’s helpful to explain that each person can choose what personal change they want to work on. There are no “right” or “wrong”, or “small” or “large” personal change issues. Any issue that someone wants to work on is valuable to that person, and that’s all that counts.
I think it’s helpful for everyone present to participate, rather than some people being observers, but ultimately, that’s up to the group to decide.
Well before the first meeting, share the following, adapted to your needs, with group members.
Working together to change our lives – the first meeting
“We’ve decided to work together on what we are currently trying to change in our lives. As we will have about an hour for this work at each session, we’ll need two or more meetings for everyone to have their turn.
For the exercise to be fruitful, we will all need to do some preparatory work before the meetings.
Our eventual focus will be on what we are currently trying to change in our lives, and how we are going about it.
We’ll start with questions 1) and 2) below, which are about the past. Please come with short (maximum 2½ minutes total per person) answers to them. Please answer question 3) in 90 seconds or less. At subsequent meetings, we will spend much more time on questions 4) & 5).
Please come to the first meeting prepared to answer the following three questions:
==> 1) What have you tried to make changes in your life that didn’t work? What have you learned over the last 20 years?
==> 2) What have you learned about successful ways to change your life over the last 20 years?
Don’t include childhood/teen lessons learned, unless you really think they’re still relevant to today’s work.
Remember: a maximum of 2½ minutes for questions 1) and 2) combined!
==> 3) What would you currently like to change about how you live your life? (You might not be working on it. You can ask for advice if you want.)
Be as specific as possible in your answer to question 3). Your answer should take 90 seconds or less! (But we’ll provide more time if you want or need help clarifying your goals.)
Working together to change our lives – subsequent meetings
At subsequent meetings, we’ll each take turns to answer questions 4) and 5) below. You’ll have as much time as you need to answer these questions and partake in the subsequent discussion.
==> 4) What are you currently working on to change in your life?
==> 5) How are you going about making the changes you shared in your answer to question 4)? What are the struggles and what are you learning? What advice would you like?”
Running the meetings
At the first meeting, you’ll typically have time for everyone to share their answers to the first three questions. Keep track of the time, be flexible, but don’t let participants ramble. It’s very helpful for the facilitator to take brief notes on what people share. If there’s still time available, I suggest you/the facilitator model the process by sharing their answers to questions 4) and 5) and holding an appropriate discussion. Use subsequent meetings as needed for every group member in turn to answer and discuss these two final questions, and write notes on these discussions too.
The post-exercise review
When this exercise has been completed for everyone, I suggest the group schedule a follow-up review in a few months. If your group starts with check-ins, it can be useful to regularly remind everyone about the review and ask if anything’s come up that someone would like to discuss before the review meeting.
Before the post-exercise review, let group members know that the facilitator will share their notes for each person in turn, and ask them to comment on what’s happened since.
At the start of the post-exercise review, explain that this is an opportunity to share information — discoveries, roadblocks, successes, etc. — without judgment. It’s also a time when group members can ask for ideas, advice, and support from each other.
Finally, you may decide to return to this exercise at a later date. After all, there’s much to be said for working on change throughout our lives. The above process may be the same, but the answers the next time may be quite different!
Have you tried this exercise? How did it work for you? Did you change/improve it in some way? I’d love to hear about your experience with it — please share in the comments below!