Life Skills - March 10, 2014

Yesterday was a super long school day, as we had a double class from 2-6pm of our Jamaica Seminar before the Life Skills course for 6-9pm Ive had an ongoing issue in my Seminar Jamaica class that has had me frustrated for the last few weeks during and after class, so I find coming into Life Skills class at 6pm immediately after the seminar course, I am often discouraged and frustrated overall. I don't think there could be a better class than Life Skills to transition to while I'm feeling this way. I believe this is because the overall sense I get from this class is empathetic (since many of us are tired from the previous class) and inclusive. I've felt comfortable sharing bits of pieces of my frustration or my situation, as its applicable to the class (i.e.: check in's etc) When going over the class's goals for the day 'Identifying helpful and hindering group behaviours' I was able to name some of the behaviours I was dealing with in the previous class (anonymously) that I found hindering or not helpful. This expressing of what was frustrating me, although vaugely, helped those feelings dissipate a fair amount. Again, during Evocation we were asked how we felt when a group did not work well, and I was able to express my own feelings by submitting 'defeated' and 'detached' as my responses. I learned the theory on group task and maintenance and realized through the Skills practice that I do some of these task and maintenance functions very well. After the skills practice when we were receiving feedback, I also learnt that I am quite fixated on 'getting it done' whatever the task may be, and that I may miss other opportunities due to my focus being so fixed. What I would do differently if I were coaching the session would be to condense the handouts, or use less, as Ron gave us quite a bit, and some of them were repeats or reinterpretations of the same thing.

Life Skills - March 3, 2014

Life Skills - March 3, 2014 I really enjoyed March 3rd's class, where Ron was our Prof as Sasha was away. I was initially quite tired, as I'd had trouble sleeping the night before, but I found the content to be interesting as well as Ron's style and possibly even just the change of style (of prof), stimulating. We worked around concepts of thinking and feeling, and how both are essential to constructive communication. Although I felt tired physically, I was still able to stay engaged. I hadn't slept well the night before, and I was a bit upset about correspondence with a teacher, I had had earlier in the day,where I found the info she shared to be inconsistent and illogical and minimally offensive. I found the class and some of its content, to be almost helpful in processing and letting go of some of that frustration I was carrying. This subject, of how thinking and feeling both effect and our key to, communication, is one that I have previously researched. Ive done a lot of studying the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, where cognitive, personal and communication preferences are tested. One of the categories is Thinking / Feeling, and while we all of course access both 'preferences' we do most often lean towards one state and preference, being stronger. I am quite a strong T in the myers briggs type test. My full profile is INTP. A great online test is at http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm I learnt the most from the 'describing feelings statements', where there was a multiple choice test of sentences describing a feeling, and where one statement was deemed most effective. In the exercise statements that did NOT include 'I feel...' were noted as the most effective. I found this interesting, and I think many others did too, as it seems we may have been somewhat trained to express ourselves in "I feel " statements, generally to avoid offending others, or to avoiding portraying our perceptions as confirmed reality (instead of possibility). I learnt that stating your feelings, can be just as concrete as stating the weather. For example, when going through the statements options, it seemed to me that saying 'Im really shocked by what you just said' was more effective than 'I feel your rudeness is inexcusable', even thought the 'I feel' statement includes the identifying self as feeling such and such. Now apart from the fact that the 2nd statement attaches a negative statement such as ones behaviour being inexcusable, it also doesn't name the speakers feeling. So what I drew from this, (and other similar examples) was that this part of naming the feeling itself,in this case 'shocked' is most important. It could be said 'I feel really shocked by what you just said' which is most likely how i would say it, since the 'i feel ' statements are a habit of mine. (perhaps due to extensive therapy, haha) What I might do differently, is to have us slightly more involved in practising this type of communication, by coming up with some of our own 'statements' to then discuss and analyze. We also worked on concepts around 'giving feedback' which I also found super interesting. I really noticed how my skills in being able to receive and give feedback, can strongly vary depending on who I am interacting with. I was able to identify that I'd strongly like to work more on aligning this skill, and becoming better at being receptive to feedback at all times. Ron shared concepts around feedback, and how permission to give feedback should first be attained, before launching in. He said he likes to use statements such as 'Can i tell you something' when speaking with someone that he would like to offer feedback too. I like how this sounds, and i REALLY like the idea of getting cosent before sharing personal feedback with someone.

Life Skills - Jan 27, 2014

During the session I at times, felt anxiety. The anxiety I feel is in my chest and my arms; i also feel tension in the muscles in my legs. I was having a hard time concentrating, due to my learning disability, but I got really engaged both during the ice breaker activity, the sticky note on our backs guessing game, and the name game. I was also very engaged at the end of the class when you handed out the self-care assessment and handouts, which I brought home and really enjoyed. When I began to feel anxious, I reacted by letting my mind wander and then bringing it back to focus; I allowed myself to take some notes and do some work on my iPad when appropriate, and then bringing my attention back to the session. These are things I will continue to do, next time the same emotion (anxiety) arises. I think I learnt a fair amount. I learnt a bit more about my classmates, which I really appreciated. I learnt the most from the Self Care assessment and definitions, and test. It was really fascinating to learn about compassion fatigue, as I'd never realized this is what myself and so many others suffer from. Some of the behaviours I exhibit and which I became aware of are, being hypercritical of others, feeling bored and and hopeless. I was able to set some good personal goals after reading and learning from the compassion fatigue description. I set a goal to continue to be diligent about therapy, meditation and health/fitness. All of the things I learn about my behaviours, thought pattern and the way I relate to people coupled with the goals I have set myself will factor into my anti- oppressive practice, so that I am coming from a place where I am not stuck in my own processes while working as professional life coach. There's not much I would change about the session, other than to make sure the names on the sticky note exercise were relevant to Jamaicans. I would possibly then introduce Self Care and anxiety theme and speak in the open circle style about these definitions and focuses and then go through the hand outs as we did.

Life Skills - Jan 13, 2014

Jan 13th class was great, i was really engaged, which isn't always easy for me. I felt very encouraged by the sharing about personal concerns around self disclosure. Other people shared similar concerns to my own, specially my teacher Sasha, and I felt validated about my concerns. The ted talk video is one of my very favourite. It was very poignant when she spoke about vulnerability being empowering, and that those who feel included continue to be included (paraphrased). I appreciated this class, the patience people had to listen to me, and the video especially. I went and searched for the same author/speakers interviews with Oprah after class, and enjoyed them as well. They really put into perspective the misconception around vulnerability and sharing your story.