🧑‍🏫 An Introduction to the Relational Dojo w/ Sofia-Jeanne Caring ~ Replay

Well, welcome everyone. Good morning, good afternoon. Lovely to see many familiar and new faces. I'm just going to let Ocean run with this, I think. I feel I'm just going to witness and participate today. Ocean, the floor is yours.

Thanks, Jenny. Welcome, everyone. This is our first guest masterclass session. So very excited for you all to experience this. And we are joined by the lovely Sophia Jeanne, who I've had the pleasure of collaborating with, spending time with and learning with over the past probably six, six to eight months or so. And Sophie Jean is an expert in a relational practice called circling, which is something that Johnny has personally been very inspired by and informed by. And we wanted to find a way to take circling and make it into something nervous system y, which is where the relational dojo came to be. So many of you here are in a relational dojo pod or have heard of the relational djs, and these are essentially a practice arena. So we called it a dojo similar to martial arts, where we have the like in the arena practicing our nervous system skills. And the relational piece is where circling comes in and this idea of bringing awareness to our relational dynamics. And Sophia Jean will speak a bit more to that. But we found that bringing this work into the nervous system regulation field was really interesting exploration. Last summer, Sophia and Johnny and I developed the relational dojo facilitator training and facilitated 12amazing alumni. And then that evolved. We've just done our second iteration and many of you in the room all here today. I saw Tessa and Jennifer. Apologies if there are more of you. Here are some of our facilitators. And so today is really to give you guys a bit of a taste into what relational practice kind of could be. If we're at the other end of the spectrum where the relational dojo is kind of like just testing the waters and feeling what it could look like to bring more awareness to our relational dynamics. So with that, I will hand over to Severe Jean and say that today will be very experiential. So if you want to come off camera and be in the room to participate, great. If you just want to witness, that's also okay. But it will. You'll get a lot more if you're kind of in the room with us. Sweet. Thank you. Okay, so I just want to say from the start, it's true that you will get things out of witnessing, but if it's at all possible, I would really encourage you to come on camera, to participate, to feel and explore, because almost all of this will be primarily beneficial to the extent that you put yourself into it, whatever that means or looks like. You're totally welcome to be tired, you're totally welcome to be distracted, you're totally welcome to be present and just to say whatever it is to bring it forward and to let it be here in the group and to set a baseline for that before we dive into anything else. I just want to encourage all of us to get comfortable, to adjust our seats if we need to wiggle around to grab water. If you want have water. If you really have to pee right now, you should totally go pee because otherwise you're just gonna be distracted. Whatever it is that you can do to set yourself up so that you're comfortable, you're ready. And I just want to encourage you to keep doing that if you find yourself over time needing anything else, needing to adjust. Yeah, just say yes to that so that you can stay engaged. There are a few zoom settings that can be helpful to play with depending on your preferences. Some people like to hide self view, some people like having self view on, some people like having the speaker, some people like having gallery. And so if there are any adjustments that you want to make there to help yourself settle in, I would just encourage that. Sweet. Okay, so a few logistics in terms of how the session will go. It'll be a lot of experiential practice and for some of it we'll be doing that in the full group. And so when we're in the full group, it's a little tricky because not all of us can speak at once. Or we could but you know, we wouldn't be able to hear each other. So we'll be using the chat a lot. So I just really want to encourage you if there's anything that you want to share about your experience as we go along, just to use the chat as thoroughly as pleases you to do that. You can literally stream of consciousness the whole time if you wanted, it would be wild. And then we'll also use the raise hand feature. And so if you want to share out loud just to use the raise hand feature and we can use that to let people share. And I'll also just add that once you've shared out loud for a specific practice, see if you can step back after that and let other people share as well. There are a bunch of us and it'd be really nice to get to hear from everyone or from as many of you as possible so we can share the space together. Okay, that's all the logistics that I have. Anything else ocean that we should be orienting to before we jump in to the session. All good. I think that's perfect. Sweet. Sandra, thanks for letting us know. And it's totally fine to be off camera. I have nothing against it. It's really just like, how can you let yourself come forward in the experience, whatever it looks like for you today? Okay, sweet. So I'm going to give a little background on myself and. A little background or a little, like, intro to relational practice, and then we're just going to dive in and start playing around together. That's my favorite part. I'm excited for that part. So I've basically spent the last 10 years training in three different areas. I've done an insane amount of meditation. I've been studying organizational psychology, and I've been studying relational practice. And it's kind of weird to do all of these because most people who meditate do not want to do relational practice, and most people who do relational practice do not want to meditate. And most organizational psychologists are, like, totally uninterested in either of those things. So I found myself in a bit of an interesting position. And the thing that I love to do the most with this skill set is to facilitate beautiful groups and to find connection and impact in relationship, to find depth and presence together and to see if we can all achieve our goals at once on an organizational level. That's how I come into this, and we'll see how we do. I was first introduced to relational practice in the living room of a friend of mine, and he had, like, five of us just sitting on the floor, and we had to share all of our feelings. And it was, like, so awkward for me at that point. But it was also, like, so intriguing just to get to hear, like, what other people were actually experiencing and to share what I was actually experiencing. And I was really hooked on that. And so I've been doing it ever since. And some people just kind of like. Like this kind of practice and enjoy the experience that it provides, which is really cool. I'm totally in that camp. And some people like it because it's really effective for a number of things. And I'm also in that camp. It can be insanely beneficial just to become more aware of how relationships are playing out, of how you're impacting other people, of how you're impacted by other people, and just to bring more awareness to everything that happens, the interpersonal space. So whether we're in relationship with each other or in relationship with ourselves, which we always are, at a minimum, I hope we'll be able to turn up the awareness dial, and maybe even the, like, play curiosity dial on whatever it is that we're experiencing together. So if there's, like, one guiding principle that I would invite us into, it's like, can I be open and curious about what's happening, about what's happening inside of me, about what might be happening for other people? And we'll explore from there. Any burning questions before we dive into our first practice? Just wait for, like, five to 10 awkward seconds to see if there's anything bubbling. Sometimes it's really good. It's always worth waiting for it, even if nothing shows up this time. All right. Okay. So the first one that we'll do is basically a group practice to start outing a little bit of the experience that's happening right now. And there's often a pretty big range of. But it's also extremely rare that any one person is the only person experiencing something. And so it's nice to start bringing awareness to what it is that's happening in the group. And so I'll walk through a series of prompts that will sound like, raise your hand if. And then I'll say something. And so we're going to do this with physical hands, not zoom hands. It's really weird that I have to distinguish that we'll do this with physical hands. And so if I say, raise your hand if you're hungry, then if you're feeling hungry, you would raise your hand. I'm, like, mildly hungry. No one else is hungry. Thank you, Johnny. I appreciate that. Even if it was just in solidarity. Very good. So I'll walk us through a series of prompts like this, and I would just encourage you to raise your hand if it feels appropriate and just to take a little look around as you do and see how the movement is through the group. So raise your hand if you're feeling comfortable right now. Not bad. Not bad. Raise your hand if you're feeling nervous right now. And these don't have to be mutually exclusive. Right? Feel nervous. Raise your hand if you had a moment today where you didn't quite say what you were thinking. Raise your hand if you're curious about someone else in this room and you haven't talked to them yet. Raise your hand if you're comparing yourself to other people in the group. Raise your hand if you're wondering, am I doing this right. Raise your hand if you've had a thought that you think no one else is thinking. Raise your hand if there's part of you that's excited to be surprised by what Happens next. Sweet. Two two hands. Awesome. So I really like to do that as a warm up just because it's nice to see how much is happening in the group and it's like a really easy way to just get a gauge of that. So I'm grateful to you all for being willing. And we're going to now launch into one of like the most basic exercises that I have for approaching relational practice. And it's called the full set practice. And those of you who did the facilitator training with me will be aware of this one. But it's basically a practice where we first become aware of sensation, whatever sensation is happening in our body. Next, we'll bring awareness to the emotional space. And then finally we'll bring awareness to the thought space. And we'll also practice sharing out at each of these levels. So I'll walk us through it and we'll do them each distinctly. But this is a really good practice for starting to like hone your attention and become aware of your experience at each of those three levels really distinctly and really explicitly. So we'll try it out. And I would just really encourage you to let whatever the experiences that you find be okay and be true. And if it changes in the next one to 10 seconds, that's totally cool. And just to be with it as it changes or as it stays the same. So we'll start with sensation. I just want to invite you to tune into the body. Tune into your own body and just start noticing what's going on there. Do you notice any tickling, any warmth or pressure anywhere? Are there areas that feel good? And once you feel like you've gotten your attention in that zone, we'll just start sharing and we'll do this in the chat for now. So I invite you just to start typing whatever sensations you're noticing as they come up. And this is where we start to bridge like this more meditative attention on our own experience with the sharing out that comes with relationality. And so we'll practice navigating that space of being aware of myself while sharing that with others. I'll prime us here. You'd like. You can also check out what other people are experiencing. Sometimes when we find out what other people are paying attention to, we're like, is that happening in me? And you can just check. And sometimes it's like, oh my gosh, that's what I'm feeling. And sometimes it's like, oh my gosh, that's not what I'm feeling at all. To me, the coolest part about this is that to some extent, we're all like, inside of our own experience. And it can be kind of alone there. And in the sharing and getting a sense of what's happening with each other, we start to build these webs together, these connections. Yes. Love these. Sometimes when I read them, there's like this moment where I, like, almost take it on, like it wasn't there before. And then all of a sudden I'm also noticing that my eyelids are heavy. So interesting being a human. Yeah. Beautiful. So feel free to keep sharing here. And we're also going to now bring in the level of emotion, of feeling. I'm using those words interchangeably. And, you know, at the most basic level, it's like sad, happy, afraid, nervous. But there's also a lot of nuance we can bring in here to the emotional space. And learning new emotional words or learning more nuance in how we experience our emotions is one really important way to expand our own awareness of our emotional space, which is often influencing us quite profoundly even when we're not aware of it. So it can be really useful to start finding out what's happening there. And so I'm going to share one resource for this. And it's basically just a single page that has a lot of feeling words on it. And if you feel like you're already pretty in tune with your emotions and you don't need this, no need to click it, but if you ever have trouble choosing an emotion or having a sense of what you're feeling, you're welcome to click this and open it. And you can kind of just scan through the words and see if anything resonates. So we'll start doing this now just inside of ourselves, just bringing awareness into the emotional space. And sometimes when we start doing that, nothing happens. It's just like, okay, maybe it's kind of blank, maybe it's kind of flat. And that's totally cool, too. And you're welcome to be with that if that's happening. Or you can try things out. You can even just try saying, I feel happy, or even thinking I feel happy. And then see if it resonates. I feel sad. See if it resonates as well as just checking and seeing. Can I find out what I'm already feeling right now? And dropping it into the chat as you're ready. It's really amazing how many different things we could feel at once too be very, very astounding. Yeah. So m wonderful. And you can also see if you notice how the experience may be different from the level of sensation. There's more interpretation that comes in here. Often it feels different in the body for different people, different in the mind to be in the emotional space. Wonderful. And then the last one, and this is often the weirdest one, and I found it to be very interesting. This is the level of thought. And often our thoughts are happening so quickly that we're not even aware of them on a superconscious level. And even if we are, usually we're not saying them out loud, especially the super mundane ones. And it can be really interesting to find out what we're thinking and what other people are thinking. So I'll do a little bit of a demo of this just because it's kind of a strange practice. And then we'll do sharing in the chat. And if you'd like to share out loud, you're also welcome to raise your hand. And the only thing I'll say if you raise your hand is try not to, like, grab a thought and then try to hold onto it until it's time to speak. If you raise your hand, just wait until the moment when you're speaking and see what the thought is. Then to see if we can keep it in the present moment. It's like, a little tricky, but I think we can do it. Okay, so I'll just do like a quick stream of conscious. And you guys, can I notice these flowers that are on my windowsill? And now I'm wondering what Johnny wants to be mischievous about. There are, like, so many of you, and I wish I were sitting in a big circle with you, like in a nice grassy area. And I'm really excited to be here. So that was like four thoughts, and I just shared them as they came. And so we'll practice that so you can share in the chat. You can raise your hand and you can share out loud just to start getting this thought level in the group as well. Can I share out loud? Yes. I'll call an order. So, Zach, go for it.

There's so many people here. I'm feeling really grateful to be a part of this and happy that I took the plunge to try out this course. Feel tension in my throat.

Sorry, Zach, that's. Yeah, go for it, Hannah. Okay, awesome. So I'm noticing the temperature of outside. I'm noticing are the things I've surrounded myself with to nourish me. I'm noticing that sharing is bringing me some joy. And I'm noticing it's bringing me into the present more even. Thank you, Maria.

So.

I'm thinking Right now that I regret putting my hand up. Now I have to really pay attention to my thoughts and that's really hard. And I feel my heart beating a little faster. So now I'm thinking, am I nervous? And now I'm thinking there's so many of you. And then I'm thinking, hopefully some of you have shared that experience. Experience where you put your hand up and they're like, actually maybe it wasn't a good idea. But I'm glad I did. And this is a really hard practice. So thank you for challenging me. Thank you, Kate. So right now I'm thinking, why did I raise my hand? And I remember thinking back then I really wanted to make the experience. And now I'm thinking I'm really glad that I turned off my self view so that I don't see myself. I'm also realizing I think my body temperature just went up a little bit, a few degrees. And I'm noticing it's really getting dark outside for me. And now I'm looking at all of you, which feels very slightly intimidating but also very nice because there are a lot of faces smiling back at me. So I'm thinking, I'm really, I'm really happy to be here today. Thank you. Okay, we'll do these last two. Taylor, go for it.

I'm noticing a very big difference in this call than the call I just did with my pod. Like an hour ago I was a little wired, dissociated. After the pod I kind of allowed myself to feel my emotions and then now I feel more of a grounded like able to co regulate more playful energy. And so I'm kind of noticing how allowing myself to feel the motions in between those calls creates a totally different experience now for me.

Yeah, gorgeous. Thank you. And Alex, you want to wrap us up?

I catch myself on the recurrent thought how happy everyone is. And my secret emotional state is a bit different and my thoughts are a bit more negative. So I'm kind of coming back to this thought and also I'm thinking right before raising my hand that this is something that you don't like thinking about doing, like speaking about how you feel. But actually when you do it it feels good. So actually I am happy that I raised my hand and it's getting, feeling better in the moment as we speak. So I feel some tension like in my solar plexus getting, let's say it's religion. So that's it.

Cool. Thank you, Alex. All right, thank you. Thank you all for going. Thank you all for trying it out. I'll be sending you into Dyads next. Well, Ocean will be sending you into Dyads next. And the practice that we're going to do is a pretty short one that I'm, as of this morning, calling flowing. It was previously called blabbing, and we now have two camps on what it should be called. You can choose blabbing or flowing, but the basic idea is that each partner will have two minutes just to speak, and you'll speak without being interrupted. And the only rule is that you have to keep speaking. And for some of you, this may be very easy, and for some of you, this may be very difficult. And I just want to encourage you to bring in the full set, to bring in sensation, to bring in emotion, to bring in thought, and to see if at least once you can hit each of those areas of experience. So we'll send you into Breakouts. The first person you'll choose, whoever is going to share first, whoever will flow or blab first. They'll have two minutes, and we'll send out a ping at the two minute mark, and you'll switch and the other partner will get to blab or flow, and then you'll have a little time to talk about it. For those of you who are, you know, you could do this in the chat. You could do it via chat or via your voice. Voice. And for whoever can't go into breakout, I guess you'll just hang out with us here. It'll be so boring. I'm sorry. All right, Any questions before you go into breakouts? Are the instructions clear for everyone? Cool. Okay, so, yeah, so you'll blab or flow, depending on which camp you're in, for two minutes, seeing if you can hit sensation, emotion, and thought at least once. And then you'll switch partners. The other partner will go, and then you'll also have a minute or two afterwards just to check in together and chat about how that experience was. And we'll keep anyone who can't participate here and we'll figure out what to do with you. Troublemakers Lab. Wow. I gotta say, that one was not on my radar. Hilarious Lab. Yeah. Y' all have any other recommendations? This can be the kind of practice that's that. That the name of it always changes. And because it's a weird word, you know what the practice is? Give me any combination of. Of like Fs, Ls and Bs that you can create, collaborate, blather. The creativity here is on point. Very good. Very good. Yep. Wow. I gotta say, I wasn't anticipating this. This is an unexpected surprise. Blabber about. Go flab you like. Okay. Too much. Too much. Go away to your breakout rooms. All right, Ocean, send them away. If you can't join a room, you've been assigned the quiet room. But you don't have to go to it. You can stay here. I just did that because I needed to put you somewhere. Very good. Thank you, Ocean. Copulate. Absurd. Absurd. Okay. The quiet room people went to the quiet room. Very good. By the end, these. These four folks. What are you all doing here? I think Tom and Gavani, can you guys join a room today or are you sitting out? All good. Either way. I just need to make sure the people you're supposed to be with. Sitting out. Cool. Hey, Zach. This happened to you again? I'm just finding you a partner.

I'm very lucky.

Who can I put you with? Can we have a three Sevasion? There won't be enough time. But, Zach, you can blab in here if you want. Oh, Annie. Hello. Hi. I was alone, so I came back. Yay. Then you and Zach can be together. Yay. Okay. Something cool always happens. Of course. By the way, Sophia, Jen. I'm also an organizational psychologist. I also love meditation and relational practices. So you are not alone. It's like the three circles. It's rare, but, you know, there's a few of us out there. I love your energy, by the way. It's awesome. Thank you. Yeah, it's great. Did you get the invite to re. Oh, she's gone. Cool. Fantastic.

I think TJ's contribution of coflabulation is my favorite so far.

Oh, that was.

We need to have a group. Cool.

Okay, I'm going to set a timer for two minutes. You want to send a message that's like, go ahead and begin if you haven't yet, or something like that. Oh, sure. Should we blab? We could do a color blabbing. We could. We could try to all do it at once and see. See what happens if just someone has to be talking at any given moment. Okay, I'm gonna talk. But we'd have to make sure we weave it because there always has to be someone talking no matter what. So you have, like, start, like, right after this sounds really hard. It's like the opposite of, like, a spacious presence. Johnny, we're inventing a new form of someone has to be talking at any moment. Like, they're not allowed to be any silence.

It's great. Just keep talking. Don't possibly think about what's happening. In the present. Just keep talking.

But what if we go over each other?

How unattuned can you possibly be?

I am really uncomfortable right now. I kind of like hearing all of her voices at once.

Ellie's been developing. Kelly's been developing an inauthentic relating practice that we could.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. It feels like my satirical breath work. You need, like, a whole suite of, like, anti. Like, anti presence practices. Blabbing is kind of like that. It's like people, like, have gotten too filtered, and you just need to, like, open the channel, and it doesn't even matter who comes out.

I like that. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Oh, imagine. I imagine Ocean's, like, really fast.

There's a beast inside.

What am I gonna say? Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Nothing. What something? All right, that was two minutes of co fabulation. I think we just. That's, like proper co flobulation.

That was great. I'm just imagining people watching the replay and, like, seeing this.

Soon. All right, Ocean, you want to. All right, now switch. I like that we're pioneering new practices in between.

That's my favorite part of, like, relational innovation happening in real time.

Yeah. Yeah. I think this can, in a way, be actually very effective for the people that are used to just being okay in spaciousness and, like, openness. This is really uncomfortable for me. Yeah. Well, the whole practice, to me, all of relational practice, is just practicing the opposite of what you can already do or what you think is okay. So you really maintain your range, and you don't start thinking one culture is better than another just because they do it in XYZ way.

I. I love the idea of relational range. That's so good. It's like, we just get in these, like, narrow. Like, these are the things that I can say or do.

Yeah. That's like, literally the premise of my weekly groups. It's like, how do you expand your range?

Yeah.

Hey, Kate, did you leave your partner alone in a room, or are you coming in? I abandoned new. Yeah, he's dead to me. No, no, no, no, he's fine. He. His sourdough timer went off, which felt more important than this, and my dog interrupted, so we came to a natural conclusion, and so I decided I would join you guys. Natural. Hey, how are you feeling about that? About what? Being abandoned for the sourdough time. Oh, my God. I totally support it. I think it's a really good save, the sourdough.

It's a noble course.

Yeah. You weren't like, am I. Not more important than your sour dough. Good. Are you sure that's a good idea? We just pioneered a new version of flabbing. I'm just trying out the different words where we did it with Johnny Ocean and I, and someone had to be talking at all. At all points. There couldn't be any silent area. So it was like co blabbing or co flapping. It was very uncomfortable for multiple people. Do you hear anything? Yeah. Yeah. It's like when you listen to a song, you're not like, oh, no, the guitar is, like, overwhelming the piano. I mean, sometimes you are. But you're not, like, upset that there are multiple musical instruments playing at once. You're just like, oh, the music. That was what we practiced, in my opinion. That was not my experience. Go for an ocean.

Tell them.

Tell them what it was like for you. I felt like everyone was playing horribly out of tune and it was very overwhelming. So. Sorry. I felt sick in my stomach. It was. It was a very sensory experience. Like, there were definitely multiple, like, sensors that were, like, amazing. Hi, Ryan. Are you the sourdough guy?

I sure am. I didn't know you were. Sour guy. A Saturday guy. Ryan, that's. That's wonderful information. Yeah. You come grab a starter before you guys move. I think. I think I might have promised to bring you one down. I will hold you to that. Absolutely. Actually, Sissy will be down in Santa Cruz this weekend. I can send her down if you can. She's doing a book. Book writing retreat, so I don't know.

Swap them to a deep.

We will greatly receive your Saturday contributions. I'll see. Just a second. You can arrange it.

Be brief. Go on. We talked about the fact that you abandoned Kate for a sourdough starter. And if it had any bearing on anything else that we should be, you know, paying attention to, it was just.

I had that timer going and we. We got right off. We did not banter for too long. I think we got at least 90 seconds each solid.

Not too bad. I found the hard, so I was happy to cut to short. Yeah. Yeah. For some people, like just being quiet. Well, next we'll do being quiet. For some people, being quiet will be much easier. And for some people, speaking will be much easier. All right. People are going to be coming back, huh? Yeah. Those of you who are in the room with us got a special show that's not on the books.

Yeah.

What was that? Making us all feel jealous. Now we missed a special. Hopefully. Hopefully your blabbing was. You're in your own like, private room. True. We're just, like, hanging out in the auditorium, like, entertaining ourselves while everyone's having exciting experiences elsewhere. And we did a pretty good job, I think. Sorry for making you nervous, Ocean.

Okay.

I'm pushing the boundaries, pushing the edges. Should I have closed the rooms by now? Yeah. Okay, let's get them all back.

Yeah. We weren't sure. We just left the breakout room. We weren't like, are we supposed to still be here?

Very good. We missed the whole session. Very good.

Silence will be challenging.

Welcome back. I'm just trying to prime it. Maybe if I start calling, they'll return. Come back.

Bad cools.

Yay. We missed you all. We were so lonely in the main room. Welcome back. Welcome back. Ocean, will you let me know when we're all back?

Everyone's back.

Hannah, did you have a question you wanted to ask? Go for it. Let's hear it. Amazing. Thank you. So I. First of all, I'm an internal processor, right. So that blabbing about was a wonderful exercise outside of my norms. My question is, when we're doing this exercise, is there value of. Because I noticed there got to a point, like, I just didn't have anything else to say, so I was like, is this something like food where you eat until you're full, you talk until you finished, or is there the part of the magic is in, like, you keep pushing when you think you have nothing left? Yes. I love this. And this actually touches on a little bit of what we were talking about in the main room while you are all off having amazing times, flapping about, which is that in relational practice, often you're doing, like, a concentrated version of something that you generally wouldn't otherwise do. And so the purpose of flowing or blabbing or coflopulating or whatever you want to call it, is to practice opening the channel and keeping it open. And for some people, that's really easy, and for some people, that's really hard. And so if you've ever done, like, morning pages, it's like a class of creative practice where you have to write continually for three pages without stopping. And sometimes you literally end up just being like, curtains, curtains, curtains, curtains, until something else happens. And so you can do the same thing. You can just start saying nonsense words, even, because you're just priming the pump. And it's not because you should be talking. It's just to practice how do I open it because I want to, not just because whatever the other reasons are that you might do it. So that's a great Question. The other thing that came up while we were hanging out in the. In the main room is one of the ways that I conceptualize this, that Joni plus oned was a sense of relational range. You're just trying to widen the range of how you can show up in relationship so that you can explore different corners and find ways to harvest as much as is there in any given relationship. And so for some of us, that means practicing speaking up more. And for some of us, that means practicing listening, which is what we'll do next. Thank you for bringing that. Yeah. I also want to add in, just for fun, that we made up a new practice in the main session, which is that there always has to be someone talking, and there's not a lot to be any quiet time. So Ocean and Johnny and I spoke continuously, and it was extremely weird and awkward and a very intense sensory experience, but we did something, you know, and there are. There are some cultures where it's very traditional to, like, constantly interrupt and talk over each other and sometimes when there's a lot of space and a lot of silence, both like within America, within different kinds of groups, as well as, like, around the globe. Right. And it can be interesting to let ourselves go into those modes and just see what it's like. Yes. You can watch the replay. It's all in there. Fun, fun. Blooper, blooper reels. Thanks for sharing, y'. All. In the. In the chat, too. Two minutes can feel like a long time when you just have to chat. Yeah. This is also a great practice if you ever notice that you're keeping a lot inside or it's hard to. It's hard to start communicating. My partner. I do this all the time. If one of us is feeling kind of like shut down is. We'll just say, can I blab for a minute? Or do you want to blab for a minute? And you don't. Like, you don't. You don't really pay attention to anything they're saying. It's not even important, is just to allow yourself or allow the other person to start speaking out loud. So it's really. It's a really nice tool to have and to let yourself use. Awesome. Okay, so the next little exercise that we'll do. Do I address this comment before moving on? Just open up and let it all out. Okay. So the idea is not to use it as like a. A blame vent session so much as it is to allow yourself to start speaking. You know, if you want to do solo blabbing sessions where you Just say whatever you want. That's cool. But once you're with someone else, like, there's going to be impact no matter what, and that's going to have to be part of the equation. Right. Okay, I'll leave it at that for now. We can come back to this at the end if it still feels open. Yes. Maria, just a quick question. I'm curious, like, and maybe there's, like, research on this. Is there benefit to the actual process of, like, speaking out loud rather than like the equivalent of that being maybe morning pages and just like, journaling, stream of consciousness style. I can. I can speak subjectively. And if any of you have opinions on this, please feel welcome to chime in on the chat for me. They're quite different. There are things that it's very easy to talk about and things that it's very easy to write about, but they don't necessarily. They're not necessarily the same just for me personally. And so I really enjoy practicing both. I do a lot of free writing, and speaking out, especially speaking with another person, can feel different. And so I just encourage you to explore that. Sometimes I like recording myself on voice memos even, which is like talking out loud to myself. And just to find out what comes out of your own mind can be really interesting. Yeah, beautiful. Thanks for that. Yeah. Okay, cool. So we're gonna try out the next piece, which is presence. And presence is like the opposite of blabbing. Presence is like, how do I really pay attention to what's happening right now? How do I really listen? How do I stay here so I'm not too distracted by my own thoughts and I'm really hearing what this person is saying? And you can listen to the words. Often we listen to the words. You can also listen to the tone that someone is using. You can listen to their body language if you're really paying attention. You can even watch how someone's breathing and notice how they're breathing. And that can say a lot about someone's state. And so we're going to practice with the focus on presence. And so it's not actually going to look that different than the last session because someone will be sharing and someone will be listening, but the focus is really on presence. So one person will be sharing and sharing from direct experience, but seeing, can I really stay present with myself, really aware while I'm sharing? Often this means it moves a little bit more slowly. Often this means there's a little more time in between that there can be silence, and the silence, too, can be listened to and listened into. And if you're listening, it's just an invitation to set yourself aside a little bit for these two minutes to put whatever's on your mind aside, put whatever is on your heart aside. It's a really good practice to be able to do that, even just for our own sanity. If there's a lot going on to practice, setting it aside for a few minutes and just being present can be really, really nice. And it can be particularly wonderful when we get to see someone else blossom because of that. That because of our presence and our listening, that they get to come forward and express and reveal themselves in ways that they might not have felt comfortable otherwise. So we'll do this in a very similar way to the last practice with this focus on presence. I'll reiterate it again and try to make it a little bit more clear. So we're going to be doing dyads again in the breakout rooms and each person again will have two minutes to share while the other person is just really present, really listening, really paying attention to the sharer, to their words, to their body language, to their tone, whatever it is that they notice. And then you'll swap and the other person will get to share. You're welcome to use the same full set practice if you want a guide or you can just speak directly to what's arising in your experience as it comes. If you want to just name sensations the whole time, you could do that. If you want to just name emotions the whole time, you can do that. I wouldn't recommend only naming thoughts because it has a tendency to keep us here without the rest of the system. So I'd encourage you to incorporate sensation and to incorporate emotion into your awareness as you share. So two minutes. The first person will share, staying with a sense of their own presence, and the other person will listen, will just be quiet. You don't have to say anything, you don't have to have questions, you don't have to do anything but be there and be present with them. And then you'll swap. And in the same way, you'll have a little time at the end just to check in together and see what that was like. Yes, it's very similar to the witness wall. Yeah. Is that clear? No. You don't have to minimize that engagement. No, that's totally fine. It might be interesting to notice for yourself why you do it or what is pro, what is prompting it. Sometimes we want to comfort the other person. We want them to feel affirmed and just to notice that process in yourself. Can be very interesting. But you don't have to. You don't have to. Like, in some practices, it's really intense. You actually, like, talk to someone who just keeps their face blank and it's like, it can really mess with you. It's really strange. You don't have to do that. No, it's really just that you're not guiding them with your language. That you're letting whatever flows forth from them flow forth. Yeah, you get to try. Any other questions to clarify this one. Good. All right, so I'll do diets again. And whoever can't dyad can stay in here or be in the quiet room. Yeah, totally. Just notice your inclinations. Right. Just bring awareness to them. All right. I'll just like ping them to start since they all got into the right rooms, I think this time. And I'll start the timer. I feel so grateful for you, Ocean. I noticed a sensation of like letting that in and feeling really fuzzy and then like kind of guarding of like. Wait, what, what, what, what? Can I really let that in?

I notice a tender sweetness witnessing you both.

Oh, Joanna, are you without partner? No, it's okay. I can just chill here. Well, presence practice too. We won't do it in the formal way. We're not switching roles, but we're filling out the vibe. The vibe of presence. I was just sharing that. I have a lot of gratitude for Ocean. I'm feeling slightly self conscious and I felt lighter. Having said that.

I'm noticing my mind went to the idea of self conscious and I'm like, when am I conscious of anything else? Such a bizarre thing to say.

Ocean. They're good to switch. I'm noticing that the more I'm feeling into this practice, the harder it is for me to write words. Often my words want to come from somewhere else when I'm really present and not as much from the technical planning or instructing. Have an image of a flowing river and then technical is like a something. A boat coming in. Yeah, like the boat on the river. Like a little sailboat on a river, which makes no sense. I feel like it's very. It feels like intense to be in this room with you guys, because you guys are. But it's. The more that I hear you talking, the more I'm like, okay, cool. Actually, it's all. It's cool. That feels good. People are people are people. Sometimes there's a spot on my screen and it looks like it's on my face. I'm not sure if I should check on the screen or on my face.

That's funny. There's actually a spot on my screen that's also on your face. Like on the top, top left of your forehead. Yeah, right there. I'm gonna leave it there because it amuses me.

Okay, that's the timer, Ocean. We can give them a minute or two to debrief, and we can close the rooms in a minute. I'll. I'll send the thing, and then they can choose whether they stay. I like that I'm leaving it there because it amuses me. I love that. It makes me think of, like, drawing funny faces on your. Like, on the screen with a white erase marker.

Mustache and horns. Yeah.

Halos.

That'd be fun. We could probably experiment with some of the zoom filters in a future session and see how that impacts adding mustaches and horns and things to people's faces.

What's it like if a giraffe is present with you for exercise, nodding compassionately? Okay. We're having way too much fun in.

The main room, I think. This is not.

We're gonna cut this out.

People are gonna get jealous.

Just imagine, like, a really compassionate giraffe. All right, we can call them back and let them filter. Back in a minute.

I love that. That got you, Johnny.

We're never going to be prone to, like, random outbursts. You start imagining that someone's a giraffe. Oh, welcome back, welcome back. Oh, very good, very good, very good. I got myself. I want to know what y' all were doing when we're all gone. Oh, we were doing a lot of presence practice, and then I'm not sure what. Oh, I remember what happened now. Okay. The end state was that we were thinking about playing with different zoom filters. And if we did the presence practice, but the listener is a giraffe, what would it be like to share and be present with a really compassionate giraffe? I am not a cat. All right. I love to hear from a few people, especially if we haven't heard your voice yet. If you feel good about sharing what that was like for you. Yeah. Tessa. Hi. Hey. I just had a really interesting interaction because I always paired with somebody that. We had a similar pattern of feeling quite comfortable, like, in the listening role and quite uncomfortable in the speaking role. But because we were both good at listening, it made it easier to speak. That was cool. Oh, beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, beautiful. Thank you, Juan.

I. It was just heartwarming to. I don't know, at the end of both sessions, sharing things we don't usually or I don't engage with Even with myself was kind of. It was just a new sensation that is just so foreign to me. But it was very heartwarming to see that the other person was also on the same boat. So it was. No pun intended. Very relational or very humanizing.

Oh, beautiful. Thank you. Yeah. Tamara. Tamara. It's Tamara. Hi. I. I'm a better. I realize I'm a better talker, I think, because I have adhd. So I interrupt a lot. This last exercise, I've noticed through this whole. This nsm, that how much. How conscious I have to be about holding space for people because I have to actively get my mouth and not interrupt people. But this last time was really interesting because I have always listened to people, but I didn't realize how engaged I was on paying attention to how he was feeling and what he was saying and his emotions behind what he was saying. So it was really sort of tuned in differently this time. Instead of just hearing him, I could feel what he was saying because just worried about him and not worried about holding the space, I guess I just. I don't know, I felt it this time instead of just hearing it. So that was nice for me. Beautiful. Did that make sense? You know, I just. I knew where he. I knew what he was saying, so. Yeah. Oh, so cool. So cool. Thank you. I love that. Yeah. Anastasia, we'll do. And then we'll do Lila and Guy, and then we'll transition. I think along the same lines when you just allow holding the space. And, like, the more you get to know, like, for example, with Heather, the more I listened, the more I felt connected to her. So that. That was such a cool experience for me. Yeah. Beautiful. Beautiful. Thank you. Leila. Leila. Yeah, you got it right. It was so much easier the second time because I already knew that what I was going to do and that this person had already done it, even though it's a new person. And so just being like, the. The playing ground was set and then just like reminding myself to be present while listening. I didn't feel unpresent on my first one, but then, like, just having that, like, be the goal of this felt like I was just like, kind of like in meditation when you're trying to, like, like, no, no thoughts, like, let it go away and just be like, oh, wait, no, I'm really focusing on. I'm like, okay. And I'm like, like, I am, but, like, I'm like, okay, but what is her mouth doing? Like, what is her breath doing? I'm like, trying to, like, suck every ounce of it and be like, is this enough? And it still, like, was cool, but I don't know, like, we were talking about, like, how it would be different in person, how much you. How much more you get. And I notice, like, how much you can feel like you're present and you are engaging in the conversation with body language, with verbal or, like, facial cues and stuff, and just kind of, you know, giving them that. And I think that actual, like, physical action helped me also stay more present with what they're saying. Cool. Thank you. Yeah. All right, guy.

Hi. Yeah, I felt like the second time where we were practicing presence, I felt like that came easier to me than the. Especially the sharing than the first one, where in the first one it was like, I need to. I can't allow that to be silent. So it's just like, keep going. Like, no matter what kind of bullshit comes into my head, like, just say something. Whereas the second time was more like giving me a chance to kind of really drop down into what's really happening inside of me and how can I share something which is. Yeah. Meaningfully expressing what's happening in me. Yeah. And also the listening was really interesting to practice because it's like this curiosity, like, what's going to happen next? Like, what's. When you really follow someone's experience, like, what might be the next thing? And you never know. So that was quite fun.

Yeah. You never know. Brilliant. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Okay, so we have one more exercise, and I always have, like, a bucket of extra exercises as well as, like, the ones we will not get to do, inevitably. And so there are actually two exercises that each take 10 minutes, and I was wondering if we could decide together either which we will do or whether we will do both. And I'm not going to give you all the information, but I'm going to give you a little information and then you get to, like, feel the fomo. Because other cool things are always happening all over the world and you will never get to be at all of them, but you can watch the recording, I guess, of the main room. So the key distinction is that. The key distinction is that one of them will happen in triads in a breakout room, and one of them would happen in the full group in the main room. So we could ostensibly actually do both. For anyone who wants to stay in the main room, we could do larger group, and for anyone who prefers a group of three to explore with, you can have a breakout room. So I guess I'm gonna check. Will you raise your physical hand? I gotta find A different way to say that. It's like a little silly. Nope, we can't do both. It's not enough time. Otherwise it'll just be like a slap dash version of both of them and it's not going to be good enough. I promise you it won't be as cool. So what's the best way to do this? Okay, Ocean, can you open up breakout rooms? What's the best way? How are we gonna do it? How are we gonna do it for tryouts? Okay, are there people who want to go into triads? Raise your physical hand. Okay, can we put them in triads? And what you'll be doing in your triad is you'll be expressing curiosity with each other. If someone expresses curiosity about you and you want to respond or answer it, you can, but you don't have to. You could just experience their curiosity and bask in the waterfall of their curiosity and not do a single thing or say a single thing. Or you can respond an answer, but you'll just be curious together. I feel like I just put a lot on Ocean to negotiate. Yeah, I'm really overwhelmed. Oh, no. Okay, well, let's find a Can everyone raise their virtual hand? I think that would be easier. And then I can just like raise your virtual hand. Okay. Sorry, this is really boring Sophia Jean talk. Oh, well, in our full group, we can start our full group practice. Our full group practice will be something called desire polling, where you share out something that you desire. And the key is that it can be anything. It doesn't have to be within any reasonable constraint. There's no practical consideration. It's just what do I actually want? And we can share in the chat. We can share out loud, we can weave together depending on. I think the group actually will be small enough that we can weave and it'll be perfect. Okay, have the rooms. We have four threes and one two. So if there's anyone that's semi tempted to go into a dryad, you can do this with any number. Okay, thank you. Do you want to just quickly re explain what they're doing in the threes or is everyone be curious about each other? You never have to answer any questions if you don't want. You can just experience the curiosity or you can share back and just take turns, make sure everyone gets to share and oh yeah, we could have the quiet room too, if anyone wants. The quiet room? Yeah, the quiet room. I can put you in a quiet room. Or you're welcome to just hang back here and observe. If that doesn't Feel. You can turn off our volume so you can just watch our mouths move, but you don't know what we're saying. You want quiet? It's a fun practice. It really makes you focus on body language if you do that. It's really interesting.

Yeah.

So we have a small enough group here that I think we can just talk. You don't have to raise your hand or anything. So if you want to share out loud, you're very welcome to. And the point of desire polling is that you never know what's going to come up, and often it leads to better outcomes because you're actually saying what you want. And usually we don't actually put that on the table. We don't actually put on the table what we really want. There are cases where you put it on the table and someone's like, no. How could you want that? And then, you know, you have to have a conversation. But this is not consequential here. And so I'd encourage you just to practice being honest. As honest as feels comfortable to you. You're welcome to be in the chat, and you're also welcome just to share out. What do you deserve? I want vanilla soft serve right now, which feels, like, mildly embarrassing. Like, really.

I want the breath I just took out of the oven to be ready to eat right now, and I don't want to wait for it.

I want the garlic pasta, which has been cooked downstairs, and I can smell it up here. Now I just want food. I wasn't hungry, but thank you very much. I was hungry. So now I'm like, oh, I just want to share a meal with all of you. I want to be less judgmental. I want all of us to achieve our greatest dreams and deepest desires, as long as they don't involve, like, babies being harmed.

I was gonna say I want to see Sophia's Jean's face as a giraffe.

I'm afraid that I'm going to turn it on and I won't be able to turn it off. I want us animal. That is a giraffe, and I want to name it Jerry. I want a puppy.

Well, I want the puppy, too.

Yeah, me too.

I want a really slow walk downtown by the water on the bay. I think that sounds like it would hit the spot right now. I want to get rested.

I want some sun.

I want to put the kids in their beds. It's bedtime.

I want to go outside and let my eyes wander.

I want to go surfing in the afternoon. But I want all the other surfers to Just go away. Want to have unlimited time to procrastinate, but also unlimited energy and time to get everything done.

I want to laugh so hard every day that my abs are sore. I want that too. It's like laughing and an app workout in one. I want that because I skipped my workout today. Well, I skipped my gym workout today. So we have a few more minutes here before our curiosity friends come back. And so I just want to see are there any other layers that we want to float into in this that we haven't touched yet together?

Perhaps. Perhaps a deeper level.

Okay, sorry, one more second. And if you haven't gotten a chance to get your voice in yet, please let us hear you if you would like. Okay. Jonathan.

Yeah. So, so for on a deeper level. So I've some motivational quotes and who looks outside dreams and who looks inside awakening. And I want both of them. So I have dreams, but I also want to awake. So that's a bit on a deeper level. That's what I want. I want to feel less self conscious. I want the job that gives me energy.

I want to heal my relationship with food. I want my natural curiosities to be my job. I really, really, really want to be useful to my clients and help improve their lives. I want to show more of myself with other people. We're gonna have one more. So just like wait a second and see if anything is pounding in your heart. I want more of this. Beautiful. Thank you. All right, I'm gonna ask Ocean to call back our other friends and over the course of the next 60 seconds, they'll come back in. And I just want to invite all of us to keep that close to our hearts, to keep those desires, those feelings, the aspirations, and the warmth and comfort that they may provide really near and dear. That was really beautiful. Thank you. We'll see how our. I always love to see what pie, what people's faces look like as they pour back in, because you can kind of get a flavor of what it is they experienced. And so I'm like looking at all of you and like savoring this flavor that we just created and, like, curious. Like there's going to be this barrage. Like all the other surfers are going to come back. You know, we're like, oh, my God, there's so many of them. I feel my heart. It's really wonderful. Oh, very warm. Yeah. Welcome back, surfers. Okay, that's not gonna make any sense now. Welcome back. Yay. Yay. All right, so some of us did curiosity and some of us did desire polling where we shared without constraint what it is that we want, both in terms of small things and in terms of really big things. And we'll take about five minutes now to do what I call a harvest, where a few people will get a chance to share wherever it is that they've landed. And just to see if you can really tune in and share out from a place of presence and to keep it on the shorter side so that as many of you who would like to share will get a chance to. We'll do, like a problem. Four minutes. So if you feel called, if you'd like to put into the space where you've landed anything that stood out to you what you're taking away or the experience that you just had, you're welcome to raise your virtual hand and yeah, we'll share. We'll share together and hear together and be present together for these last a few minutes. Taylor.

I just want to share. I feel like in my work, in my environment is so cutthroat that there's no real CO regulation going on. And I feel like the pod today in this call with people just being in this present state, there was, like, a lot of CO regulation. And so I'm realizing how much I'm missing healthy CO regulation for my nervous system in my life.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe enough of us can change that business flavor, at least balance it. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. Tessa, I'm feeling glad that I showed up today. I was sort of like, I don't know if I'm gonna go maybe yes, maybe no. And so I'm happy that I did. Thank you, Tony.

Also really glad that I showed up today. And I thought it was interesting that our desires all sort of started around food, which might be sort of a shared collective need, and then went more individualized. So that was cool.

Yeah. You never know where that game's gonna go. I've ended up having some really cool days because we started with that practice with what we really wanted. You never know where it's gonna go. Thank you, Alex.

Yeah. My thought is that we should normalize the conversations for the sake of this CO regulation. Even if it sounds really weird. That's actually pretty cool.

Yeah. Yeah, totally. It's awkward getting into it, but once you're into it, it's just like another normal thing that you do. Totally worth it. Spread the gospel. Thank you, Heather. Hi. So one of my partners helped me come to the realization that I was expressing some appreciation for these exercises because usually when I'm on a zoom Call. It's like work, corporate America. And usually I'm maybe leading a meeting, and I have to have an agenda and all these talking points prepared and make sure it flows in some regard. But here the flow is so much more different. I felt more free, and I could just express as it came to mind. So there was this lack of pressure to perform. You know, there was. I understand that there's grace from the audience that we're all learning together and practicing, and so just really appreciate having that forum to do that. And I actually have a question for, like, a. Okay, so I. After the presence exercise, I realized, like, you know, when someone's talking, I want to validate, like, everything that they're saying. So just from a professional, like, should we just not do that at all? And then wait to the very end? And then sometimes I might forget all the validation I wanted to give them, you know, from so many points. Or is it okay to maybe smile or give a nod or give some sort of gesture that affirms what they're saying as they're saying it without having to potentially, like, interrupt them and throw them off of their train of thought? Yeah. I love this because to me, it brings up, like, the main point of why you would do this is just to, like, give yourself more options, more choices, more range. So sometimes you're nodding and you're smiling, and you're like, yeah. But sometimes someone's talking and you, like, feel like you should be nodding and smiling, but actually you're like, no, this is not okay. You know, and it's good to be able to be like, this is not okay, and not to nod and smile, because for some of us, it's very strong default. Right. And so it's really just to put the option on the table so that when validation is right, and often it can be wonderful, right, to know someone's listening and that when it's not needed, that that's okay, too. Yeah, Yeah. I imagine that if you just started going flat face, like, a lot of people would be like, what are you doing? Right. You know? And so to me, it's just a practice that, like, it's okay not to smile all the time, you know? And if you make a big change in your personal life, you might want to warn people. Otherwise they're gonna be like, what's going on? Right. Yeah. Because I still want to be my personable self, but I just want to know what's appropriate, you know, so. Totally. Totally. Yeah. Thank you for asking. Thank you. All right, Maria. And then we'll do a little transition out. I. I'm very appreciative of witnessing your facilitation skills today. That was just a total master class, like, truly very inspired and very appreciative for how you challenge the desire pulling to go a level deeper. The way you did it was beautiful and skillful. So that's something that I'm taking away also from it. It's just, wow. Facilitation can be done in such a beautiful, seamless way. So thank you for that. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, we had a lot of fun, these last two cohorts training the facilitators. It was messy and awkward, but it was also brilliant fun. And there's something new that's going to be happening too. Potentially. Potentially. I'll just leave it at that. You know, maybe something cool will happen. Okay, so I'm gonna do a little outro for us, which is just to say that anything you experienced here, just see if you can draw the thread forward for yourself to take anything that came up and journal about it, talk to a friend about it, take a walk with it. And if there's anything in here that you're like, you know, I'd like a little bit more of that in the rest of my life. Just to see if you can try it out. And it might be so awkward the first time you try it, but you're gonna be like, but what. What emotions are you feeling? And they're gonna be like, what do you like? You know? But like, try it out. See, even if it's just like bringing a little more curiosity, bringing a little bit more presence, bringing some of your desires, noticing your own body when you're in relationship, trying to really encourage you if there's anything that stays with you, just to be willing to try it out. And if it goes horribly, just be like, it's okay, I just tried it. That's great. We want to try new things even when they're scary. Right. And just to play around with it and experiment. Yay. Good. I'm going to drop my. My website's like horribly under construction right now, but I'm going to drop my link tree here. If you want to be in touch with me, you are totally welcome to. I hold weekly relational practice spaces that are beautiful. I actually have two spots open right now for one on one work, which is kind of unusual. And I also do this work with teens and with organizations. So if you have any questions on the follow up, you're welcome to be in touch with me. You can book a 30 minute call with me if you want to chat more. You can check out more my other groups that I run and just keep doing the good work. Keep doing the good work. Yay. We did it. Thank you all. Thank you for sharing yourselves and for being present here. It's really a gift for me and I'm super grateful to get to do this work with beautiful people. So thank you. Thank you. Ocean and Johnny, thank you.

Thank you so much. Yeah. Wonderful as always. I appreciate you.

Thank you, Johnny. How are we closing?

Let's all put our hands to the side and or unmute first. We'll close with 3, 2, 1, coflabulate.

Thank you all. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Bye. Take care of yourselves. Thank you. Thank you. Farewell.