Creating Exercises

Designing and Leading Experiential Exercises For Personal Growth

by Tony Bushman
from

Men's Path to Fulfillment:
A Guide for Men's Groups and Individuals
With Personal Exercises

By F. Anthony Bushman Ph. D., M. Divinity.

Materials: pad of paper, pencils

Purpose:

• To become more familiar with how to design growthful experiences.
• To learn how to develop relevant meaningful exercises and lead them

Background:

If your men's group is to continue its growth and become stronger, it will need to cover material that is of interest to them and will require the active leadership of many men in the group. The group will wither if the exercises are viewed as being irrelevant and only one or two men are always leading it. This exercise suggests how to keep the topics relevant and encourages the leadership to be shared. Often inexperienced members would be good leaders if they were given some suggestions to follow.

Tasks:

Step 1: Have the men suggest various topics they are interested in and then have them pick the best of those. A method for selecting the best ones is suggested on the worksheet at the end of this exercise.

Note that a list of possible topics are listed in the back of the book.

Step 2: For the topics that are best, ask for clarification of the questions and kinds of things they want to cover within each topic.

Step 3: Talk with a respected friend, a minister, religious education director of your church or a therapist about how they would deal with the topic. Ask them for the titles of some published resources related to the topic.

Step 4: Review the resources you have assembled and select only the most important concepts. I recommend you set all the materials aside after you have read them. Clear your mind, and ask what is it that the group needs to experience in order to move forward in their growth in your judgment. Then sketch out whatever comes to mind. Trust yourself. Use a Socratic method to guide the men to discover the internal wisdom they already have.

Note: You may want to provide the group with a one or two page summary sheet of key thoughts the resources give on the topic, but avoid making the session into a lecture. At the end of the session, provide the summaries only as back up material to take home for later consideration. Make sure you give credit to the published sources of the ideas by footnoting the sources.

Step 5: Design an exercise that keeps the group in a behavioral (doing) mode. Try to keep the men from getting intellectual about the topic. "Talking about" is much less impactful than "doing". Get their subconscious involved by getting their body into the action. Consider using some options such as collage, painting, role playing, clay, body movement, guided meditation, etc. You select the methods you are most useful and you are comfortable using.

Step 6: Have the men share what they learned from the exercise.

Step 7: Write an outline for yourself of the steps you plan to take the group through as a guide for the session. Start with the introductory background to the session defining what the exercise is about and why it is pragmatically important in the lives of the group. Be prepared to change the steps when the group seems to require it. Trust yourself here. If you get lost, go to your notes.

Note: What to do if things seem to not work: If your plan no longer seems appropriate, stop and do a process check by asking them how the session is going for them. If the process is not working well, ask them how they want to proceed. Trust them. Do not stay with a plan that does not seem to be working. Be aware there are often one or two vocal people uncomfortable with confronting their insecurities. Do not let the minority control the group. Ask how the rest of the group feels about their comments.

Future Action:

Give them a closing challenge or behavioral assignment which will continue the learning during the next five to ten days. Encourage them to practice, reflect on their actions, and do some journaling

Reference Materials:

Cite only the best few resources, emphasizing pragmatic behavioral oriented sources.