This tool invites participants to explore and reflect on the power of storytelling in shaping how we see others – and ourselves. Through playful and reflective activities, participants identify the stereotypes they carry, discover the personal stories hidden behind generalisations, and practice ways of relating beyond labels. Rooted in empathy and creative expression, the method encourages participants to rehumanise others by uncovering and sharing stories that foster connection and inclusion.
The Path of the Four Elements
Participants should be able to connect individually to the four basic elements and to the emotions resulting from them.
The exercise can be implemented in several ways. However, it is important to take some conditions into account:
- participants should walk through each station alone
- before the trail, we can prepare the exercise by sitting in a circle, listening to soothing music, possibly supplemented with an art activity (painting, coloring, drawing)
- participants start individually on the path from the big circle and they return there
- while the individuals are at the station, the other members of the group can receive a short thought-provoking, inspiring text every few minutes in addition to the music
- when the individuals return to the group, we can ask them to write about their experience a short poem
The success of the exercise depends on the openness of the participants, so the trainer must strive to create this safe space for the group.
Easy songs can be used in a very wide range of ways for almost any facilitation need:
opening or closing a ceremony
forming bonds amongst a group
soothing hearts after conflict, tender sharing, or grief
empower participants, put them in touch with their power & energy
meditation or contemplation
and more!
The Power of Yet is a simple exercise of shifting the language we use to be more empowering. In this method, we identify a situation we’d like to change and add “yet” to a statement about it. When we say this statement to ourselves or to a partner, insights may arise and energy may move in our bodies. It’s amazing!
The purpose of Setting Your Intention is to clarify, both within oneself and within the group, what each person’s aim is.
The Dreaming Circle is one of the essential skills of Dragon Dreaming. It is the process by which, in a win-win way, the project of an individual becomes the project of a team. In the Dragon Dreaming pathway, this is the first stage. The next stages then are the planning, the doing and the celebrating, which are not in our focus in this description.
Working on a project that has been started by someone else always generates less personal motivation than working on a project collectively owned by a group. And yet every project is always started as the dream of an individual. But, all too often the dream is not shared. And yet as Carl Gustav Jung and Australian Aborigines knew, we rarely ask, “where do such dreams come from”. Failure to share our dreams in an appropriate way is one reason why 90% of all projects get blocked in the dreaming stage. It is easier to work on “our project” than to work on “his project”, and yet every project starts as an idea of one person. How can this apparent paradox be resolved?
Catherine Baldwin calls this first process “calling” or “casting the circle”. This is the first stage in converting an individual intention into a collective one for Dragon Dreaming, and is a process by which “project ownership” is transferred from the individual to the group. Rather than maintaining a sense of possession, the group becomes custodians of the collective dream of the project. But to do this it needs a “Dream Team”, an initial circle group that can be drawn from friends, family, colleagues, neighbours, acquaintances, or people you have identified because of their possession of special skills, who come together to share a dream.
The purpose of the Round of Gratefulness is to practise the attitude of gratefulness. This brings deeper peace, greater well-being and an enhanced capacity for joy and self-empowerment.
There are five guiding principles that can serve as touchstones to support the practice:
- Life is a gift
- Everything is a surprise
- The ordinary is extraordinary
- Appreciation is generative
- Love is transformative
The tuk-tuk game is an activity in pairs which aims at giving the participants the sensation of trust: receiving trust to lead and giving trust to be led by someone else. It has different levels as it can be carried out by people who have known each other for a long time, or it can also be tried out in a group where the participants have only been working together for a short period of time.
This tool comes from the Kaospilot school for creative business design and social innovation. It was used when students pursued their final projects, working individually on their chosen topic. The class came together weekly to support each other. The input from others helped to maintain a feeling of being part of a bigger cohort, even if everyone was working individually. Even when used with strangers it can elicit much gratitude towards the group.