Hi! I am Petra. Thanks to MOVE to Be You, I took part in the Your Natural Element – Erasmus+ Training course focused on personal development, enhancement of wellbeing and resilience. It took place in 03.-12. June 2022, Bátonyterenye, Hungary.
Here I am sharing with you two (out of many) learnings.
Engage more in talking about values
Our values are our guiding principles in life. Have you ever thought about what your values are? If not, I invite you to stop for a bit and make a list of 3-4 values that you have in your life. But that´s not all. Once you have your values, go and ask someone around you to do the same and discuss the findings. You will be surprised by how rich conversations you may have.
We did an exercise like this during the training course. First, we defined our own values. Then we met in a group of three participants and discussed them.
At first, my mind could not grasp why others have those different values, especially when one’s value was a bit opposing or different to mine. The discussions continued and I eased into it. We all come from different walks of life, and experiences, and have different backgrounds and different goals in life. Those define the actions we take. Sometimes we may not understand the behaviour of people around us, led by their values. However, by talking about our values and understanding each of our points of view, we may reach a deeper understanding of others, and ourselves. So let´s talk about values more.
Letting out our (positive) emotions
It is a fact that we humans tend to suppress our emotions. Suppression happens when we actively push uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, or memories out of our consciousness. It is because we don’t know what to do with them. Some people call suppression shutting down.
During the training course, we went through a variety of activities that made us feel extremely emotional. I experienced a lot, from sadness, confusion, anger, and insecurity to euphoria, joy, happiness, compassion and more.
The trainers always encouraged us to let our emotions fully out – using a sound, dancing, shaking our body, crying or anyhow we felt.
One could think that suppressing emotions is connected only to our negative feelings. But have you ever realised that we tend to suppress our positive feelings? The truth is that avoidance of positive emotion is not all that unusual. Many people do bury their feelings, even their most rewarding ones.
After the training course, I decided to start paying more attention to my emotions and identify what is happening inside of me. It was a surprise for me when I realize that I tend to suppress not just negative emotions but also positive ones. It is now my little challenge to pay attention to ALL emotions and let them out. I invite you to do the same.
To conclude, I would like to emphasise that the training course had been designed and led using experiential and non-formal learning methods, therefore, one´s learnings might be different from others.
Eager to learn more about yourself? Do the next step and apply for one of the training courses with MOVE to Be You. I can recommend it!
