Monday, November 19, 2018

I Came Out Full, Not Empty When …


New Horizons Board of Directors played it’s  third “new” Truth Or Dare GAME on Saturday.
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“On the path to our Higher Selves through community support and engagement.”

Saturday, I ended up on Full, not empty at all, after a truly tumultuous day, due to connection difficulties, on one hand, yet managing to do my part in leading New Horizons Board Members through the steps of our "new," monthly Truth or Dare GAME.

It felt soooo good to be back in this reaching for awe experience again! 
Snowy mountain roads did not keep us apart!


Not at all like the norm, these days, of what is going on around us in mainstream society and politics. 

That’s what exceptional community engagement is like and supposed to be like!

Yeow! We are on our way, at New Horizons, to strengthening our own small “zone of peace.” 

Everyone attending must have felt it, as I sure did! 

The hunger for authentic, cooperative, compassionate human contact assuaged was so palatable we ended up adding a bi-weekly GAME follow-up support group to our menu of delights, beginning next week.

Saturday's GAME, with the inordinate maneuvering we did to make way through a multitude of chaotic moments  ended up with our having established our intent to support one another in building, rebuilding, expanding and flourishing, an evolving community development agenda, grounded in our Truth Or Dare GAME, that may have no end, “G-d willing and the creek don’t rise” (again).

Getting curious and wanting to join in the adventure?

Look for information, after the first of the year, about how you might be able to qualify when we begin taking in new players, one-by-one, and by invitation only (or application) and meeting our criteria for participation.

We will let you know when. 

In the meantime, if you wish additional information, contact us at: mountainwomanrj@aol.com

Saturday’s GAME was our third. And with it came a solidifying of individual and collective commitments to our powerful, beyond societal and political polarization, making violence obsolete, possible human, possible society, gender transforming process!

All rolled into one.


And, catch this -- we did the whole thing by conference call!

An 8-10 inch snow storm, days before our GAME, made travel up to our mountainside retreat center totally unrealistic. Next time, on Saturday, December 8, hopefully, more people will be able to show up in person. 

However the "chaos" we went through taught us that our “new” GAME must now  take in the options afforded us by the high tech era we live in. Thus allowing GAME players to participate from as far away as one board member who lives in Northern California, if need be.

Via conference call it was a bit weird. But we, overall, accomplished our aims-- and in great measure!

Yeow!

The high point of the GAME, from my perspective, might have been when Steve our single male board member,  demonstrated his heroism, getting some heat, likely for all males, as he took his first "formal" steps in the direction of learning to recognize his subtle and not so subtle male-type put downs, i.e. discounts.

Of course, this was one of those times when “you just had to be there.”

It looks like Steve and I will be back on the air with an Anastasia The Storyteller Radio Show broadcast this next Saturday. 

Maybe, by then, the dust will have settled enough for New Horizons Truth Or Dare GAME players so that we can get Steve to share what he experienced.  

And, my two cents on what I saw happening for him with the others.

In the meantime, here’s a peek at how our GAME proceeded last Saturday.

New Horizons Support Network, Inc. presents


The Third “new” Mini-Truth Or Dare GAME
Saturday, November 17, 2018 1:00 – 4 p.m.

Agenda

Step One: Establishing working goals for the GAME. 

Setting our intentions to learning to work with other New Horizons Board Members to step out of the boxes we create in our minds, and consequently in our lives, by not having full access to and embracing the most complete truths and realities available to us.

Step Two: Playing the GAME. 

Discovering through dialogue how confronting discounts in one another can help us achieve our intentions to strengthen ourselves, personally, along with the small “zone of peace” base, upon upon which our board operates. 

This is Truth Or Dare at its most elegant!

For a discussion on the Transactional Analysis (TA) healing strategy of confronting discounts, check out the Cathexis Reader by Jacqui Shiff, one, among many, of New Horizons basic resources for our Truth Or Dare GAME, an interactive, educational process, based on community dialogue principles and practices. 

One comment on the Cathexis Reader by “Fishface” on Goodreads described this text, making a good case for it, as a profound  resource, on how critically important confronting discounts is, their presence and purpose in a person's life.  

The comment I appreciated is as follows –
This book was my introduction to Transactional Analysis. Absolutely intriguing, empowerment-based ... with roots that reach clear down to Carl Jung. It was a bit mystifying to a reader who did not yet know the basics so I went ahead and read up on it some more.
I will introduce readers to other resources on the psychological phenomenon called "discounting" over time so you can begin to make sense of it for yourself. 

Confronting discounts is a fascinating and central aspect of playing the Truth Or Dare GAME, as the active presence of discounts, minimized or ignored, is central to recognizing untruth and thus bringing ourselves and others into a fuller, authentic reality. 

Simply addressing discounts, in safe and non-defensive ways, is sometimes all it takes to get to awe

Try it! 

You might get to love it, as do the many thousands of people who have learned to honor this path. 

Step Three: Wrapping up the GAME

Noticing what and how we gained from playing our GAME, clearing away resentments, giving praise and acknowledgements.

Yum, yum – full, not empty

What made the difference, do you think?

Your comments are welcomed. Please post them here or send them to us at:
mountainwomanrj@aol.com.



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