That stuff looks weird

Why do those pictures look so weird? What the heck is going on? What wacky stuff are you making those people do?

Pictures of my workshops definitely don't look like other programs you’ve done before. They look weird. I get it. But there’s a good reason for this. My workshops look weird because they ARE weird. The activities I facilitate are very different from what you’ve done in the past. That’s the whole point.

Day to day we experience very few surprises. For the most part we know what to expect, and build up habitual behaviors and patterns for thinking that support these expectations. This is a natural process—our expectations allow us to navigate the world more easily. But these expectations can impede us as we try to leaprn new things, and definitely can inhibit ground-shaking, foundational shifts in our thinking.

One way to challenge the expectations is by doing something new, something unexpected, even something weird. Doing interactive creative activities promotes demechanization, a process in which participants call attention to, reflect upon, and often destroy their set of habitual behaviors that are often performed unconsciously. When we don’t know what to expect our brains light up as we investigate, take in new information, begin to look for patterns and seek meaning.

This creates pathways for innovative, critical thinking.

Through creative game play, participants in my workshops interact in new, exciting and fun ways. They are challenged to explore together, think quickly and interpret these new experiences as they’re happening, which invites opportunity for new thinking. Sure it’s weird, but also so very effective.