Expectations

  • Setting the Container:
    • Welcome
    • Land Acknowledgment
    • Introductions
    • Group Commitments
    • Mindfulness Activity
    • Circle
  • QPR Training
  • Lunch Break
  • Mindfulness Activity
  • The Wheel of Emotion
  • Evocation Interviewing
  • Close out

What Is NYCID

Our Mission: We Improve Lives

Setting the Container

Land Acknowledgment

In New York, we are on the ancestral land of the Lenape people.

We say this to acknowledge that, no matter when or how we personally arrived on this land, we each have a relationship to the life and the pain that this ground has been witness to.

Let us take a moment to reflect on the responsibility of that relationship.

Let us be stewards of this land and make a connection to it that allows us to leave it better off than when we arrived.

If you’d like to learn more you can go to these links to get a deeper understanding.

Introductions: I Am Because We Are…

Taking a few minutes:

  • Turn to the person next to you.
  • Introduce yourself if you do not know them.
  • Share how you are feeling today.
  • Give them a chance to do the same.
  • Then, find someone clear across the room (either that you do not know or have not seen for a long time)
  • Repeat the process.

Group Commitments

 

-You are here ~ Be present ~ Be Kind ~ Treat others how you want to be treated

-Embrace “The Circle Process” – As shared the way we work at NYCID is using the Restorative Circle – We will never force you to speak so understand you can pass and we expect that you will participate as you become more familiar with the how we work together.

-Let perfection go and share your experiences – We must work together and learn from one another in order for our process to be fulfilling.

-What’s shared here stays here and what’s learned here leaves here.

– Remember impact over intention – As shared we often have the best intentions and we do not always realize the impact our actions have on others. When you get a reaction you were not expecting say “oops” and if you are on the receiving end say “ouch.”

-Notice our own biases and judgments – We all have them. Let’s not ignore them!

-Realize our privilege – It exists and is based on different seen and unseen identities we hold – we deepen our connections to one another when we acknowledge as much.

-Practice self-care and community care – Take care of yourself – when done right – you will take care of others!

Mindfulness Meditation

Collecting Thoughts

Spend three to five minutes journaling.

Answering any or all of the following questions

  • How does it feel to be asked, “How do you feel?”
  • What did you feel you needed or had to today?
  • Were you able to sense a particular emotion?

Circle Up – How are MWe?

Discuss your responses

  • Speak from your own experience
  • Everyone has a chance to speak before responding to what has been said.

Harvest

Upon returning to the main circle – we will harvest (share) some of what was moving in the smaller conversations.

Let’s Break Bread

A Thought Experiment

Consider a time where you had a visceral reaction to a situation. Lots of intense emotion.

A moment of terror. A moment of amazement. A time of grieving. A time when you were vigilant. A time you felt loathing. A moment of rage.

  • How did you know how you were feeling?
  • Were you aware of “where” you were feeling the emotion?
  • When did you become aware?

Circle Up

Discuss your responses.

  • Speak from your own experience
  • Everyone has a chance to speak before responding to what has been said.

Harvest

Upon returning to the main circle – we will harvest (share) some of what was moving in the smaller conversations.

Tool~ The Wheel of Emotions

All emotions have a function; they help us map our inner landscape. Additionally, emotions can become universal, developed in all cultures throughout time.

Our inner emotional system expands outward to others and can help create a positive or negative environment for those around us. (This is also know as a generative, or degenerative, social field.)

The Wheel of Emotions is a jumping off point which can help individuals map and navigate the space of their emotions to cultivate a higher degree of emotional literacy.
With each state of emotion, there is a less intense and more intense version. For example, the emotion of Anger might be expressed in an intense version as Rage and a less intense version as Annoyance.

Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions

Robert Plutchik:

He suggested 8 primary bipolar emotions: joy versus sadness; anger versus fear; trust versus disgust; and surprise versus anticipation.

Activity ~ Standing in Your Emotions

After laying out cards:

Walk and stand beside a particular emotion and reflect on when you felt that particular emotion in the past.

Directions:

  • Closing your eyes to identify where the emotion showed up in your body.
  • Notice the effects of feeling that emotion again in their body and rest with it for a little while.
  • Reflect on other events. Notice which emotions may show up as a habitual way of responding to certain events.
  • Move and stand next to an emotion you may have been trying to avoid.
  • Consider why and recognize that sometimes culture, gender and other reasons may be contributing factors.

Harvest

What are the big takeaways from The Standing in Your Emotions Activity?

Tool ~ Evocation Interviewing

It’s one thing to be able to feel your emotions, feelings, and mood and to learn to put words to each for one’s self – to create an emotional fluency which allows you to better understand your human experience.

It is entirely another thing to be able to have the confidence to share your experiences with others using this vocabulary. This tool helps us better describe our experiences by challenging us to use of senses to breath life into our memories and to help others feel what we may have felt.

Harvest

What are the big takeaways from Evocation Interviewing?

Wrapping Up