February 2020 till October 2022 - Überlingen, Germany / Bern & Schaffhausen, Switzerland -/ Lisbon, Portugal - Skopje, North Macedonia - Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan - People
Thanks to my virtual quarantine coffee chat with my dear friend Sam Huber yesterday, I finally found the missing link to write and share this story.
Sitting in quarantine sucks, but at least I get tons of nice Taiwanese take-away food and time get some brain food too.
I have not yet read the impressive 800 pages book by Hartmut Rosa called “Resonance”, yet reading a few interviews online, I think there is some magic in his sociological approach.
His claim is that:
“… resonance is the very process through which we are formed as subjects and through which the world we encounter and experience is constituted” - Hartmut Rosa
If you do want to get more expert know-how on the topic, directly talk to Sam. :-)
The Exercise
We are back to the notion of creating intentional Yuanfen moments.
At the TealCamp reunion in October 2019 in Berne, I’ve gathered a group of people to go through following exercise.
We did an adapted version of the Appreciation Shower, which I found in a valuable Toolbox compiled by Mirjam Pfenninger as part of her thesis work (thank you Mirjam for this initial spark!).
The set-up
Set-up a chair per person in a circle
Choose a calm environment without disturbance
Set aside enough time, min. 30min - 2h depending on the size of the group
The procedure
Find one volunteer to start receiving the appreciation shower
This person is only allowed to say thank you, nothing more
Without a pre-given order, person by person, share your appreciation with the chosen person
No matter how deep the connection is, look into the person’s eyes and share what beauty you see in the moment, appreciate what this person had showed in the past or may will create for the future
After going through the entire circle, the person may say thank you or simply stay still
Turn your full attention to the next person and again, one by one, give this person your personal appreciation shower
The magic moment of Resonance
What struck me most about this exercise, is how deep you can go with giving your appreciation, even with people I literally met on that day.
Something happened between George (he is the founder of resonance, this story was truly meant to be), Sonya, Siiri, Rosaria, Matthias and me in that very moment, when we openly shared our positive and personal views of one another.
“For experiences of resonance (…) always involve a moment of being overwhelmed, of losing control, of being unexpectedly and unpredictably touched and transformed by another. Resonance means becoming vulnerable and losing control.” - Hartmut Rosa
Sitting outdoor on a grassy patch in Berne, time started to dissolve. And the group was all that mattered.
Resonance around the world
In February 2020, I’ve designed a 1.5 days offsite with my Design Thinking team at GF Piping Systems. The appreciation shower helped to kick-off the days with Andy, Moritz and André at the lake in Überlingen.
Similar, I’ve hosted the exercise first time in a bigger group, during the Innonauten Meet-up in August 2021. We set-up a two days absolutely remote and analogue session deep in the woods in Schaffhausen.
Being new to the group I was able to observe how different yet similar the appreciations where, between people that knew each other for years or not at all.
The beauty of the exercise is that you can totally come up with your interpretation and imagination of an appreciation. Sometimes it hits the truth, sometimes it’s a bit off. It was pure bliss to see how Jogi, Wäck, Lilli, Frank, Peter, Pitt, Stefan, André, Peter and I held that space sitting out there in the forest.
No matter the accuracy the key message was always “I see you. I value you.”
The Ripple effect of Resonance
In October 2021, I participated in the House of Beautiful Business Conference in Lisbon (which was already mentioned several times here). Between the program, I had this sudden urge to test out the Appreciation exercise in this special setting with people that literally glowed with insight, wisdom and energy.
Eunji, Sam, Greg, Kira and Kunal were up to the experiment and fully gave themselves into the exercise.
I could literally feel the burst of resonance on my skin, in my heart and the air around me, created through that moment of Yuanfen, with people I knew and did not knew at all before that Shower Hour.
About a year after this magic moment, Kira wrote into our WhattsApp group, that she used a similar exercise with young people from 41 countries in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and in Skopje, North Macedonia.
I have yet to speak with her over the phone, but just her writing about the impact the exercise created gave me a shiver beyond words.
How about you try this exercise with your friends, work colleagues or a totally new group?
If you need some support or coaching on how to set it up, do let me know!
The world needs more resonance and it all starts with you ;-)
The full interview between Hartmut Rosa and Bjørn Schiermer:
https://journals.sagepub.com/pb-assets/cmscontent/ASJ/Acceleration_and_Resonance.pdf
Very nice and interesting story and very much my ‚style‘ :) Thank you for sharing dear Lea !
Much showering, much love! :)