Ah Ha Empathy Card Games and Activities:
One Person:
Hold a situation that you have feelings around in your mind. Read each card in turn and keep in front of you the ones that resonate or seem to reflect your needs/values around the situation. When all have been read, choose 1 or 2 cards that most resonate. Notice how you feel now. Do you have new ideas arising to support you?
Hold a situation that you have feelings around in your mind. Read each card in turn and keep in front of you the ones that resonate or seem to reflect your needs/values around the situation. When all have been read, choose 1 or 2 cards that most resonate. Notice how you feel now. Do you have new ideas arising to support you?
Express Peace: Ah Ha Card Activities and Games
Appreciation:
What needs of yours are met right now? Take time to consider each Ah Ha Card and ways that quality or need has been met in your life recently. Celebrate this with reflection.
It may also stir mourning and sadness around unfulfilled needs. Connect with this also and allow these feelings, be with them, appreciating the insight.
Clinging Koala:
Are you disappointed about something that did not go the way you had hoped?
Do you reflect back on a situation and replay scenarios in your mind, of how you wished it had unfolded?
Are you upset that something in your life is not going the way you would like?
Are you annoyed because someone wants to do things differently to you?
In any of these cases, go through the Ah Ha Cards and identify the values/needs/qualities associated.
Compassionate Communication points out that attachment to a particular strategy to meet a particular need/value often results in frustration or distress as people resist what is perceived as "persuasion", choosing to preserve their autonomy.
Consider loosening that "Koala Grip/ Hug" and ask yourself: "Am I willing to open to other possible ways to meet that need or manifest that value in my life?"
You may find the free flow of possibilities refreshing, creative and fun as you open to the many strategies to meet your need.
Gratitude:
Consider some situations where others have contributed to you.
Is there someone to whom you might wish to express gratitude?
Go through the Ah Ha Cards and identify the needs or values met through what they did.
How might you express your gratitude to them?
Kangaroo Decision Making:
Do you have a decision to make around which you are torn or undecided? Are you bouncing from one possibility to another ?
Use the Ah Ha Cards to help you identify the needs and qualities you are seeking to fulfil in each option.
Record the options you are considering. Taking each in turn go through the Ah Ha Cards and identify the needs met in each. Then review the Ah Ha Cards and identify the needs NOT met in each option.
Is there an option that looks more appealing now?
Which needs are most important to you in this situation?
The resulting clarity usually supports well considered choices.
If the choice later goes differently than you wanted, you might do the next activity.
Compassionate Regret:
Compassionately review a situation around which you hold regret.. Listen to / write down your thoughts of blame and judgement of yourself signalling distress around these unmet values or needs.
Using the Ah Ha cards, identify the values or needs unmet by the course of events. Review each blaming thought and the unmet need it points to. Record these needs or values.
Now recall the needs you were hoping to meet when you made your decision.
Acknowledge that you made the decision based on the information available and you did the best you could at the time. In this way hold awareness of your humanness.
Take the time to sit with the mix of feelings: disappointment, sadness, grief. . . with an acknowledgement of their existence, free of judgement.
Allow their expression as tears if they come.
After the feelings have moved through you, your mind may organically move to consideration of other ways to meet the unmet needs, or how you may do things differently in the future.
Do you have deeper understanding or acceptance of yourself as a human being, despite your mistakes?
Random Reality Check:
Periodically shuffle the cards and pull out a card randomly.
Notice any feelings that arise in you and where in your body you feel these as you consider the presence or absence of that quality in your life.
What needs of yours are met right now? Take time to consider each Ah Ha Card and ways that quality or need has been met in your life recently. Celebrate this with reflection.
It may also stir mourning and sadness around unfulfilled needs. Connect with this also and allow these feelings, be with them, appreciating the insight.
Clinging Koala:
Are you disappointed about something that did not go the way you had hoped?
Do you reflect back on a situation and replay scenarios in your mind, of how you wished it had unfolded?
Are you upset that something in your life is not going the way you would like?
Are you annoyed because someone wants to do things differently to you?
In any of these cases, go through the Ah Ha Cards and identify the values/needs/qualities associated.
Compassionate Communication points out that attachment to a particular strategy to meet a particular need/value often results in frustration or distress as people resist what is perceived as "persuasion", choosing to preserve their autonomy.
Consider loosening that "Koala Grip/ Hug" and ask yourself: "Am I willing to open to other possible ways to meet that need or manifest that value in my life?"
You may find the free flow of possibilities refreshing, creative and fun as you open to the many strategies to meet your need.
Gratitude:
Consider some situations where others have contributed to you.
Is there someone to whom you might wish to express gratitude?
Go through the Ah Ha Cards and identify the needs or values met through what they did.
How might you express your gratitude to them?
Kangaroo Decision Making:
Do you have a decision to make around which you are torn or undecided? Are you bouncing from one possibility to another ?
Use the Ah Ha Cards to help you identify the needs and qualities you are seeking to fulfil in each option.
Record the options you are considering. Taking each in turn go through the Ah Ha Cards and identify the needs met in each. Then review the Ah Ha Cards and identify the needs NOT met in each option.
Is there an option that looks more appealing now?
Which needs are most important to you in this situation?
The resulting clarity usually supports well considered choices.
If the choice later goes differently than you wanted, you might do the next activity.
Compassionate Regret:
Compassionately review a situation around which you hold regret.. Listen to / write down your thoughts of blame and judgement of yourself signalling distress around these unmet values or needs.
Using the Ah Ha cards, identify the values or needs unmet by the course of events. Review each blaming thought and the unmet need it points to. Record these needs or values.
Now recall the needs you were hoping to meet when you made your decision.
Acknowledge that you made the decision based on the information available and you did the best you could at the time. In this way hold awareness of your humanness.
Take the time to sit with the mix of feelings: disappointment, sadness, grief. . . with an acknowledgement of their existence, free of judgement.
Allow their expression as tears if they come.
After the feelings have moved through you, your mind may organically move to consideration of other ways to meet the unmet needs, or how you may do things differently in the future.
Do you have deeper understanding or acceptance of yourself as a human being, despite your mistakes?
Random Reality Check:
Periodically shuffle the cards and pull out a card randomly.
Notice any feelings that arise in you and where in your body you feel these as you consider the presence or absence of that quality in your life.
