Sharing

On thursday, I left for a short study tour to western Denmark with my Core class.  It's hard to choose which activities were most memorable.  The entire trip was a 3-day condensed bonding and learning experience.  We had two speakers a day for 2-3 hours each explaining how they apply positive psychology in their specific field.  At the very end of the trip, we visited an alternative business school called Kaos Pilots (KP for short).   After lighting candles in the middle of our circle of chairs, our speaker lead us through a number of personal goal setting and team building exercises.  It sounds kind of corny, but the atmosphere was warm and inviting and felt like such a safe place to share.  She introduced a special "check in" activity to us where everyone can share things that are on their mind and might be distracting them or that they just need the group to understand in order to better interact with them. I can see this an an important step in a business setting although it very rarely happens.  So rare in fact, that I knew I had to take this opportunity to share my Dad's story.  Evan asked me later why I felt compelled to share and I honestly didn't have an answer - but once I thought about going through with it I knew there was no backing out.  What happened was kind of an amazing thing, I simply told my class that my dad had killed himself this summer. I asked them before hand to just listen and feel no need to comment.  I think hearing about dad's story helped our group be vulnerable together and brought us closer.  A couple people have reached out to me to tell me something along those lines.  I don't really know what possessed me, it was nerve racking before sharing but after it was over, the burden felt lighter - almost like every time I talk about it, it gets easier to digest.  But I didn't do it to "lighten my burden" I think I did it because it was the truth and it was worth sharing.