In her Book The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown talks about cultivating play, laughter, song and dance as a way to feel authentic. Feeling authentic is one avenue through which we can feel resilient and well. When we aren’t fully ourselves we are likely to burn out.
Yesterday, four Birds were out delivering workshops in both the New Forest (what a joy to deliver in such gorgeous surroundings) and Manchester. One of the activities our brilliant Bird Elloa suggested we include in the New Forest was a rock paper scissors tournament, as a way to cultivate play and laughter. The game went down really well, with plenty of energetic cheering, clapping, laughter and playfulness.
The tournament works by firstly bringing everyone into a space together. Once there, everyone finds a partner to play rock paper scissors with (in case you have been living under an actual rock(!) it’s the count of 3 and then a showing of either a fist (rock) two fingers (scissors) or a flat hand (paper). Paper beats rock, rock beats scissors and scissors beats paper.) You play a round with your partner and whoever wins goes on to find someone else to play with, with the person who lost cheering them on. Eventually the whole group is split behind two ‘finalists’ battling it out to be champion.
Yesterday it created such a beautiful sense of energy and camaraderie and playfulness. It helped everyone in the room to step away from worry or concern and enter an inner state of lightness. To get technical, a rock, paper, scissors tournament takes people out of fight or flight and switches on their parasympathetic nervous system – their repair system, which is essential for feeling energised, engaged and resilient.
So my invitation to you this Friday afternoon, is to gather your team and play a rock, paper, scissors tournament. And let us know how it goes.
With love as always, Hannah and Team Bird
Ps we have some space at the end of February to deliver resilience workshops. If you would like to discuss us coming to your organisation to work with your team please get in touch.
Pps. There are still a few spots available for our workshop on April 7th in collaboration with The Social Change Agency. This is a rare opportunity to attend one of our workshops externally, and we’d love to see you there. Follow this link for more information: https://thesocialchangeagency.org/events-trainings/building-personal-resilience-in-a-fast-paced-world/
Photo by Samantha Gades on Unsplash