“The Walnut”
Miniature Vision Quest to find your own answers.
This exercise might be a showcase for a new kind of education. I’ve been using it since 2003 in training and education. This one helps people to find their own answers, talents, missions. Forget the focus on everyone being able to give the same, standardized replies. Hey, all the info is on the internet, except who you truly are. So teach critical analyzation of information they find there. And learn people to find who they are and what they essential have and want to add to the world. God knows, we need inspired people living their new solutions for us all.
Vision Quest in a literal Nutshell
So can one nut help people find their own answers? Yes. How does it work in short? People play with a nut for then minutes. Then write a poem about themselves and the nut. Some other steps later, or way earlier in the variation below, they write their core learning question down. Then we sit in a circle and the surprise comes: “The answer to your question can be found in your own poem you wrote earlier.” And then the wonder begins, and the work to help some people see it.
Example. Question is: what would make me love myself more?
Poem: “Oh, you crazy nut. I look at your discolored shell, the bursts in it, the dark spots. Your broken wood is awesome. Your spots are art. Your story is magnificent. You are perfect as you are. In the palm of my hand, a treasure to behold. Nothing more is needed.”
The girl who wrote this poem, didn’t see how this related to her question. Then I let a friend of hers read it to herself. Replacing the word nut with her name. The tears welled up in her eyes (and other people’s eyes too). Listening to this love poem on her own imperfection was all she needed.
It’s of course not always as beautiful or ‘easy’ to find as this. But often some tears, some flabbergasted, some deniers while everyone else sees it, happen.
Facilitating the Walnut exercise.
The next is the explanation for trainers and educators on how it essentially works. Mind you, getting all the steps right is not as easy as it seems. It may seem a simple trick. It is not. It’s natural magic.
Out of the mind into the (playful) body
Start lighthearted, offer some physical play to get people in their bodies and more flexible in their heads.
The Learning Question
Then (or much later, we’ll come back to that) you ask them to write down their big learning question. Everyone has to have one. And it needs to be positively framed. Not: ‘What makes me fail every time?’ but: ‘What would make me successful/playful/attractive/etc?’ Make sure it’s good questions about personal learning, not practical stuff (Should I buy a house?) or non personal (What is wisdom?) You may also forbid easy ‘how’ questions (The answer to how is yes. ‘How to play more? Yes, go play.’) The question should reveal information they don’t know yet, it often may offer some tension when spoken aloud. Good questions are like a miniature confession and open doors to the new.
Stuff in between
Then other exercises, stories, theory happens. Not related to this in any way. These in betweens are essential to make them not see the connection between the two parts of the quest! Focus on other meaningful topics and exercises. When people realize the two are connected, and they wrote the question first, then they’ll answer in the poem consciously. This means they’ll write down their usual train of thought and not leave their usual mental box. This renders their answer useless. So they must NOT see any connection. Yes, masking is the game here. This also means this exercise can’t be offered twice to the same people, unless hidden and masked very very well in an unsuspected variation.
You now have 10 minutes for your and your Nut
Then like after a break you may start like this: “Let’s open up your tunnels of creativity, or inner artist, or explorer (whatever fits the context best). Put phones and all other stuff away. We now will do an individual exercise. Find a personal place to sit.” Once they sit, hand out everyone a walnut, or small natural thingy you found outside, like an old leaf, little stone, seed, shrunk berry. Then offer the exercise: “Here’s a walnut (or thingy) and you have now 10 minutes (shortest is 7 min) for you and the walnut.” (Beware: don’t mention any goals, offer NO rules nor expectations. All choices are theirs, whether the lay with the nut on their belly, crack it open, throw it around and observe it deeply. All is fine!) How you say that comes very precise. Too serious and they know something is going on. Too lighthearted and they don’t take the exercise serious enough. Keep it an individual excursion and stay attentive, (not judgemental in any way!) so they stay focussed too. This is a matter of holding the space.
Write a poem about you and the nut.
After the timer ends the time, hand out everyone a piece of new paper and let let them write a poem about them and their nut. (A new piece of paper so it doesn’t end up in their notebook next to the question!) Whomever finishes their poem may come sit in the central circle. Sometimes you need to mention it may be modern poetry, it doesn’t need to rhyme or anything. Beware they still need to make some work of it. So don’t make them feel it doesn’t matter, because it does, quite a bit.
The Surprise
Then, when everyone has finished writing their poem, it’s time for the surprise. Take with a group of 12–16 people about an hour for this. With larger groups you can give some central examples and then let people explore it by themselves in subgroups.
You can ask: “Who knows what’s coming?” Of course people will say reading of the poems. You can admit and then add the extra. “People will read their learning question, they made earlier, first; then read the answer, which is in the poem!” (As said, if anyone guessed this part, their answers mostly don’t work)
Then comes the test for the trainer, can you help see this answer when they can’t? Feel very free to let the writer go first and ask them, “How are you answering your question in the poem?” Let others help when they need it. Check if this works for the questioner. Sometimes people give marvelous one on one answers to their question. With others it is harder. Let people reread their poem and or question as needed.
How to find the answer in the poem?
The most essential trick is to replace the word nut for the dominant word/aspect in the question. “What makes me wise?” turns in the poem “me and my nut” into “me and my wisdom”. Then let them reread their whole poem with that in mind. If that doesn’t work for the reader, then you may try “Me and my work to become wise” and see if that fits better. Another trick that sometimes hits home, is to let someone else read the poem to the poet.
Sometimes it’s how someone writes, or only two lines, of that they didn’t get clarity, because they didn’t go for it enough. So here quality of guidance and being able to see the ‘answer’ within the poem is essential. Not all have that gift! You need to have it. If you haven’t, collaborate with someone who can, or don’t do this! And listen to the participants too, for in most groups there’s 1 or 2 who get the sense of this.
Variation with different order.
Even crazier can be when you change the order. Let them first do the nut and poem exercise part right after the physical opening. Then they’ll want to do something with that. Either ignore (“Hey this was to open your creativity channel, not for the result”) or have them like, read the poems to only one other person (without comments) and then let them put the poems away, or even collect them.Then follow up with whatever crazy or serious stuff so they forget the poem. Then after some time, say after lunch, you let them formulate the question. And then the surprise comes: “The answer to your question, you’ve already given. It’s in your poems!”
In this case the selling of not doing anything with the poems and asking for the questions late in the training is slightly more difficult. Yet the surprise they already answered the question before they asked it, it worth the wonder on the faces, if you get it right.
Why does it work?
I call this natural magic. Why? Whatever we do, we are present in it. In the nut exercise, not having been given any structure, objectives, only freedom, people tend to become more natural after a while. They may start trying to be clever, cracking the exercise, being a good student with careful observations, or play around not caring. Yet after a while that starts to bore. And since no one cares what they do, they they have to make it interesting for themselves from a deeper layer; read a much more natural layer, closer to who they really are. When they write a poem also from this state of deeper freedom less care for outcome, then it will come more from their subconsciousness then their usual trains of thought. Yes, like in dreams, our subconsciousness knows, what our mind often hides from us. And this exercise let’s it speak quite straightforward. I’ve done this exercise so many times, with so many different groups, from teenagers to CEO’s and it worked every time, with very few exceptions. If exceptions happen, my tone may have been slightly of, I may have made a mistake, or there’s still some fear of others in the group or whatever. The concept stands as a rock. It’s up to the perfection of the facilitator to make it work. Good luck!
Thank you: Salvatore Cantore, Ine Heijs for being few of the teachers who helped this approach come alive. Bert van der Neut, daring to offer this to 50 directors as first try out of the complete exercise. Knowmads for making this a standard in the school and Georg Bulmer for having me finally put it on pape..eh internet.
