Experiential Group

Today I had my first experiential group. I missed the last one due to being ill, so I was both excited and apprehensive - especially as I'd heard reports of people crying last time.

It was good though. I enjoyed it. I think that they're going to be very insightful. At the moment we're starting off with an exercise each session to ease us into it. Today we had to think of one strength and share it with the group. We were then challenged by the group to voice what the positives and negatives about the strength.

I sat there getting more and more frustrated as my mind just went blank and I couldn't think of a strength. I know I have strengths. I've seen them! I've written them on application forms, and I've discussed them with people - but I just couldn't think of anything to say. Eventually I admitted to the group how frustrated I was and that I knew I could agree with people once they told me my strengths, but I couldn't think of them in the first place. I came to the conclusion that maybe one of my strengths is reflecting on why I do things and being passionate about personal development. We had a good discussion and the teacher asked if I was up for people spontaneously saying what they thought my strengths were. That was fine, so they did. The first person said that they had noticed my great interest in other people. This was backed up by another saying that I really care for people and am always the one to just drop a text to see how someone's doing. A number of people said it was my determination to do things especially after they heard me talk about my desire to better myself and saw me running around trying to get a house last week! Another said my genuineness and openness. Another said my organisation and that I always seemt to know what I'm doing. We also picked out the perfectionist in me.

I think I benefitted a lot from this exercise and I'm going to hold on to the things people said. I'm not sure I could have such an insight into them back - I'm not that observant. But I'm impressed as they've only known we since late September!

I am looking forward to the next one!