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Mental training drill to exercise the awareness of how even the most massive reality consists of the contributions of many individuals . For two or more people of whom you can expect that you will meet them again. You can practice it at a party, in school, in the office and everywhere else, but also in the back seat of a car while somebody else is driving, or during a plane or train journey.

  • Discuss with everybody what piece of reality they would like to go away. That can be a thing as small and unimportant as the dust on a bookshelf, or a reality as massive and dangerous as global warming, but if you are doing the drill for the first time, make it something not too big and serious: it should be do-able within a few days.

  • Fill a jug with water, milk or fruit juice. Write the name of the piece of reality you just found onto the jug, or stick a label to it. Give everybody a straw.

  • Ask your people to suck as much reality out of that jug as they can digest. Or if they don't want to swallow some really dirty piece of reality, have them spit it into the sink.

  • Discuss what the contributions could be that each of you could pull out of the reality that you want to get rid of. That could be time, money, manpower, certain actions, mere tolerance or even just silence. Have everybody write down what they found on a strip of paper and put the paper into their purse. Ask them to look at it daily and do what they can to follow up on their decision.

  • Make an appointment for a day not too far away in the future where you will meet again and talk about what each of you has done to take down that reality you want to get rid of.

  • Now take the label away from that jug and put a new label on it of a reality that you want to create out of the void. Again, it can be a small thing like new wallpaper in the bedroom, or something really big like a community garden project for your whole country, but if you are doing the drill for the first time, make it something not too big and serious: it should be do-able within a few days.

  • Let the jug go around between the people and have everybody fill some liquid into it from a glass or a bottle or from the water tap. Let them say aloud what it is that they are contributing to the reality you want to create together.

  • Now discuss what actual contribution each of you could make to the reality that you want to create. Have everybody write down what they found on a strip of paper and put the paper into their purse. Ask them to look at it daily and do what they can to follow up on their decision.

  • Make an appointment for a day not too far away in the future where you will meet again and talk about what each of you has done to take down that reality you want to get rid of.

  • Make sure that your group of people is really getting a completion on both projects. Then repeat the drill with a new set of projects, one to undo a reality, and one to create a new reality. Do this several times and let the projects become bigger as your people get stronger.

  • ALTERNATIVE: if you are doing the drill with people whom you can't expect to meet again, make sure that they pick projects that can be completed while they are together.

  • Celebrate each completion as soon as it is done according to its magnitude - eat an ice cream, go to the cinema or buy everybody something they really want! Even if the real reward of these projects lies in the projects themselves, human beings need the formal experience of such a celebration in order to get the feeling of an accomplishment.

 

 

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This page last updated on 01.04.2007