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Trails Youth Initiatives “Four Seasons, Four Years, For Life”
An organization based just outside Toronto, Ontario that works with youth over a period of four years. The program delivers outdoor experiential education to students on a year-round basis at an outdoor facility.
I see the world as a playground...
The world is our playground where we can communicate our existence through an unlimited range of feelings and experiences. In the playground, sometimes we are invited to participate with others and sometimes we are left out of groups. We share our experiences and hide our secrets, we risk and challenge within our environment, break and mend relationships, we scream, laugh and cry with breathless perseverance.
The playground of our world is for us to explore its inner workings that can affect our growth, create ourselves through developing ideas, symbols and objects and express ourselves by giving and receiving our feelings of experience and retreat to our inner self when we need relief from the excess of stimulation.
Two mice fall into a bucket of cream. The first mouse drowns. The second mouse fights for life so hard that he eventually churns the cream into butter and walks out of the bucket. (from the film "Catch Me If You Can")
This experience can be the glowing of growing but it can also be terrifying when things are not in our favour. The playground can be very stressful for us when dominated by anxiety and controlled by forces that influence our negative feelings. In the playground of life we can be identified with one or several communities. The community that I aspire to belong to is the resilient neighbourhood. This neighbourhood is the type that has been faced with adversity over a long period of time. The people in this neighbourhood are strong, bonded through hardships and embodied with spirit. The people in the resilient neighbourhood do not give up in the face of disaster and attract opportunities for other communities to extend a caring hand. The people of this neighbourhood can be described as the second mouse in the following parable.
Reflection
The art of reflecting on the experiences that impact our thought process is an important life challenge to understand with clarity. There are two types of reflective practices that I have thought about: experience-integrated and future-oriented. In the experience-integrated form of refection, a person goes through a process of reviewing loaded memories. These memories are either a clear storyboard of experience or are intense experiences with strong emotional overtones that linger. Integrated refection requires the person to ask key questions that will facilitate meaning to the experiences. They must ask themselves:
What exactly is it that has happened?
How do I feel about what happened?
What has changed about me or my thinking since this experience?
Future-oriented reflection is more complicated and involves knowledge of integrated reflection. It is when we are able to forwardly reflect on something we hope to or are planning to experience. Often when someone uses this form of reflection, they are aware of how the experience will affect them and with that knowledge they can set up the experience to benefit them in the most suitable way. This approach to reflection is often used by those who plan the welfare of a person’s life such as a social worker or case manager; however, it is much easier to orient reflection toward someone other than having to self-orient to reflective property to ourselves.
When we engage youth in outdoor experiential programs such as that of Project C.A.N.O.E. or Trails we are able to provide them with intense experiences that impact them in deeply profound ways and can have positive ripple effects for years after. The work that is done with these youth after an experience, say on a canoe trip, is critical to the giving them the power to transform their experience into life-long learning processes. The practice of reflection can be done through the ongoing mentoring of youth and creating opportunities for them to share their experience with others.
Pivotal People
Throughout our lives we meet people every day. Repetitive cycles of new and old friends and acquaintances passing through our looking glass. When we meet someone new, we experience excitement if we feel a “connection” with that person and are eager to explore the building of that relationship.
Excitement is also felt strongly when our path crosses that of an old forgotten friend where recollected emotions flood the memory and a warming extension reconnects us to that lost amigo. On the other hand meeting new and old friends can be anxiety-provoking and stressful if the person affects us in a negative way or reminds us of something we feel terrible about.
Out of the hundreds of people we will meet in our lives there appear to be a very small number of people who hold the power to inspire us to pivot in a new direction, perhaps a better one. A pivotal person can take on many guises and cannot be profiled in any one particular way. There are several characteristics that are common to a pivotal person such as compassion, empathy, mentorship and love, but most are quite unique offering the motivation for some kind of radical change. A pivotal person serves a very important function in the life of another. This person is instrumental when the other person is considering a life changing decision. A pivotal person is encouraging, challenging, suggesting, real and present in the life of the other person.
The main function that a pivotal person serves is to shift the other person’s direction, moving them closer to their better self. Pivotal people cannot be forced or planned for someone because that type of control removes the true force of synchronicity working un-orderly behind the scenes.
When a person reflects back on the pivotal experiences in their lives it seems odd as to how they met the people they needed to meet and strange the way things took their course.
Last thought
In the work that I have done with children, youth and families it has been essential to act as an intentional role model and I describe this role as being a pivotal person. A person who holds an innate influence on the most important decisions a young person is making. This role comes with a deep respect for the other person and an awareness of this power. The aim I have always had is to transfer that power to the young person by facilitating experiences for them and using reflective practice techniques with them. The world is a playground for all of us and we have the power to use experience as a method of gaining better health and well-being.
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Hello., Good Article. Very interesting, rewarding and courageous, You have grown into a fine young man Ashton, your work with youth of today is very inspiring. We need more young people like you in every community. Keep up the good work., God Bless., Enid Coelho
Incredible article Ash! You start off saying you are not a professional I healthcare; but personally I believe it's topics like these that are the secrets to our true well-being. I really think you've hit the nail on the head with your thoughts on reflection. As I sit here overseas, I can really identify with your concept of 'the world as a playground' and the questions you've posed for experience-integrated reflection. Your thoughts on pivotal people also struck a note with me since it really does seem odd the way we meet the people we need to meet and the impact they have on us. A connection that I see from your article is the inter-relatedness between experience and pivotal people. The more new experiences we take on, the more pivotal people enter our lives. Although, like you said, it's often very few that have the power to inspire us; I think back and reflect on how different the direction of my life could have been if I take away one of my past experiences, and the people met through it. I also very much agree with what Jenny has mentioned above. I would even further it to say the challenge also lies in how to create the environment for proper reflection. We are bombarded by so many distractions in our everyday life; a busy lifestyle; unlimited opportunities for impulse. To take the time out to reflect, is often thought of as a 'radical new age' thing to do these days. As for your question, I believe the self can be used in many different ways by different people, so there is definitely not one answer. Whatever the method chosen though, I feel that there must lie one common value… to lead by example. Whether it be helping someone reflect; giving advice; providing an opportunity for experience; it is vital that we ourselves ensure we are able to find value in being on the receiving end of such assistance. Once again, incredible writing! I believe it prompts us to find a way to 'Redefine Modernity' and create a culture where reflection & continuous learning are the 'new cool!' Not only am I proud to be part of the same 'neighborhood' as you… but the same bloodline as well! Ryan Coelho, Engineers Without Borders Canada, Overseas Volunteer (Ghana) ryanaroundtheworld.blogspot.com