Wonderosity

Since the “I like” game was one of the most popular at our last playformation workshop, and it is obviously a very simple exercise to incorporate into daily life, I thought I’d say a few words about it here:So, the skinny, with some tips:
1. Give yourself* a time limit (we gave ourselves 2 minutes, but you could do anything. I’d suggest 1-5 minutes to not burn out)
2. Try and find/feel that place in you that is ‘real’, where you really ‘are’ right now.
3. Start saying “I like” …whatever you honestly are liking, enjoying, diggin’, at this moment. It might be a certain color, a feeling, a memory, an excitement about something upcoming, a food, a friend, whatever is true.
4. Repeat “I like” for each one and don’t stop talking -even if you need to repeat the same thing over and over. Why not groove on the goodness of that particular thing?
5. Check in with yourself, how do you feel compared to before?

*Note: while you can surely do this by yourself, as a recent participant mentioned, there is something powerful about hearing the “I likes” of someone else as well as knowing that your “I likes” are being heard. Do you have a friend, family member, coach or counselor you can do this with when needed?

This game started years ago with a much more ‘exterior’ motivation (what ’should’ I like and ‘praise the lord’ for?), and sometimes led to the more authentic kind of ‘praise’ of God and life that my current practice does. Patricia Madsen’s ‘improv wisdom‘ has a chapter related to this entitled “Wake up to the gifts” and I’d highly recommend reading her book.

People often make the mistake in thinking that one FIRST finds happiness, then one is ‘feels’ thankful. Surprise surprise. It is often the other way around…find what you like, what is already there, ‘the good’ (from the simplest to the most sublime) and then you’ll likely feel happier.
Enjoy, maybe it will lead you closer to Pronoia (more on that later!)

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Whew! I’m tired…though from some good fun work. Spark NW had a great playformation ‘teaser’ workshop last night that brought together about 22 different indie biznik folks from around the greater Seattle area. We had a great time and overall it was clearly a successful evening with lots of new connections between people, new creative breakthroughs sparked, and goofy playful fun. However, I stayed up way too late afterwards summarizing the 20 post-workshop surveys I received. Overall, the response was great. Here are some of the highlights:

• 95% of participants said that they enjoyed my facilitation process.
• 85% said it was a worthwhile event (the other three were ‘neutral’)
• 60% said they would like to come to a full day playformation workshop (7 neutral about it, 1 wouldn’t come due to his not being able to connect that evening.)
• In addition, 12 out of 20 of the people were interested in talking more about either breakthrough coaching, team-building, or other Spark NW workshops. Excellent! I look forward following up with each of them (or you!)

The verbal feedback was also overall positive: many comments like “Very interactive, lots of movement and laughter. Total participation. Loved getting a chance to talk to so many of the people. Great Activities!”

Here are some pictures from the evening:

Find more photos like this on The Spark LifeThe primary two threads of critique confirmed what I too felt were problematic (and had warned the group in advance about:

1. We did too much, too fast…not enough depth to really get into activities
2. Related to that, not enough explanation about the purpose and ‘life-application’ of each activities.

These issues are issues I’ve struggled with a lot –I want to do and share as much as possible (everything!) and that can be a little overwhelming for folks, understably. It didn’t help that I had advertised this event with fairly general, ‘catch-all’ terms so that people came with expectations and interests from ‘just having fun with other people’ to ‘learn creative exercises to enhance my business’. While I believe that one can do both, indeed that is the heart and soul of Spark NW (’breakthrough transformation that is also fun and enjoyable), the people with interests focused on either ends of the spectrum will probably go away feeling like there was ‘too much’ of the other.

How can I resolve this tension? Well, I think I can solve much of it by forcing myself to narrow down my focus both on WHO I’m doing workshops for and WHAT outcomes one can specifically expect from this. That’s why I’ve decided to make the full day workshop on the 13th of October very focused on indie business / entrepeneur types who want to find creative ways to Spark their business, while I’m making the Oct. 26th a more fun personal development day open to all. Hmmm, but even that second one is still too vague. Should it be about increasing personal confidence, having a more positive mooditude, increasing creative flow and innovation, better listening and people skills, centering/awareness/groundedness, opening up and receiving offers from the universe, or what? Maybe the trick is to narrow down the WHO first (but but but, I like the idea of it being totally open), and then find out what their needs are. Anyway, if you are one of the ‘them’, let me know what you YOU are looking for. More details coming on those two events by the end of this week. Check back here, or at the SparkNW.com site.

Hope to chat with you soon!
Warmly,
Leif

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