How long can you hold an ice cube in a closed fist? If you haven’t tried it yet, go ahead and give it a shot, then read on.
From head into the body and back again
So, how was that? You probably noticed, alongside the uncomfortable feeling of cold, how quickly you moved from your head into your body. The cold triggered stress. And because you wanted to endure it for as long as possible, you likely did something intuitively to distract yourself from that unpleasant sensation. If resilience experts Katina Kuhn and Ineke Eilers had been there, they would have commented on your feelings and encouraged you to look around the room or shift your attention to other parts of your body.
If you take an ice cube in your hand every day, you will find that you can hold it for longer and learn mechanisms that help you cope better with stress. You will become more resilient to it. And this brings us right into the theme of the recent co:lab X event:
Doing Resilience
“Get out of your head. Get into your feelings. Back into the body—where your resources are.” This is printed on the back of the postcard that Katina Kuhn and Ineke Eilers distributed to the participants of the co
X event on April 24. On the front, the two women from Lüneburg provided three concise instructions for exercises: to pause and calm down, to activate, and to ground and stabilize. The two women guided the participants through their segment of the event just as concretely. The space in the bUm winter garden in Berlin-Kreuzberg was well filled. Some chairs even had to be brought in—for sitting on and, importantly, for getting up again and again. Because the latter was definitely part of the program—walking around the room, moving to music, and above all, shaking it out thoroughly.
We all know that shaking it out feels good. It has been proven that children, just like animals, shake off after situations that challenge the nervous system, thereby relieving excess stress. Unfortunately, most adults have unlearned this behavior. Whether one shakes it out or, as Professor Gerald Hüther recommends, quickly traces a mental figure eight on the ground is up to each individual. The use of gender-neutral language here is not entirely common, as it can be assumed that such events are typically attended by few, if any, individuals identified as male. It’s a pity, really, because stress-relief tools would surely benefit everyone.
From body back to head
Whether people work in non-profit organizations or for-profit companies, the personal resilience of individual employees does not automatically create a resilient organization. Josefa Kny made this clear right at the beginning of her presentation, where she introduced the findings of the study “Nicht kleinzukrisen!” (Not to be Undermined!). In the study, she and her colleagues identified 25 resources for resilient organizations based on survey results and expert interviews, categorizing them into five clusters: “Meaning and Values,” “Social Bonds,” “Leadership and Structure,” “Anticipation and Learning Culture,” and “Material Resources.” Josefa presented each cluster in detail and provided a specific tip for each—these can be found in the brief start-up guide to the study.
After her engaging presentation, she encouraged the participants to align themselves with the clusters laid out on the floor of the winter garden and to exchange ideas about how these relate to their own organizations within the resulting groups. This way, even in the more theoretical part of the evening, there was movement in the room, and participants engaged in conversation with one another.
The evening concluded in a large circle—overall, it was a well-rounded event, as many guests expressed during the closing round. When participants of an evening event on a weekday state that they leave with more energy than they arrived with, that’s certainly one of the best pieces of feedback. It’s also interesting to note that at the beginning, the stress levels of those present were surveyed on a scale from 1 to 10, with almost everyone placing themselves in the middle range, indicating they were by no means deeply relaxed. Some attendees have committed to bringing the tools into their teams and incorporating more body exercises into their meetings. There’s still room for improvement in the meeting processes of the betterplace lab as well…
Want to know more about the speakers? You can find further information in the event announcement. Additional information about the betterplace co:lab program can be found here.
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