Making a connection

I ran an experimental workshop in January, and the success we experienced instructs me to make it a regular event. The idea was to stimulate the neurons that people with Asperger’s find it hard to enliven, and which neuro typical people engage automatically. I have written before about ‘Social Intelligence’ by Daniel Goleman – in it he describes how mirror neurons work to give neuro typical (but not Asperger’s?) people a shadow experience of another’s emotional state. So I figured that a crash course in accelerated friendship would stimulate these neurons to a point that could not be ignored. I enrolled eight neuro typical people and eight Aspies and invited them to spend the weekend with me seeing what happens when you do things that connect people.

To cut to the chase – having done this workshop in January, we met a month later in a pub in Paddington and recreated an extraordinary experience. People relaxed, remembered and re-connected and enjoyed spending an afternoon together. I can see that we have created the beginnings of a real extended community in which people enjoy each other for what they are, choose to spend time together and grow by enjoying the connected feeling. We had a lovely afternoon – there was very little stress, and what I noticed was that we all seemed to accept each other as we were. There was no feeling of us and them, no professional do-goodery going on, no martyrs to the cause of integration. What there was was a very real sense of enjoyment in being together, and a lot of laughter.

So I now have a schedule. Every month I have an evening booked for graduates to share their experience with potential participants; every month we have a date booked for graduates to meet up and enjoy each other’s company. I also have other weekend workshops scheduled in April and November (dates below – let me know if you want to know more: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ).

Looking ahead, I want to run a residential course in Devon for maybe 10 days in which we really get down to the mechanics of changing your life. It may also be possible to take this abroad as a further challenge, a deeper experience, and it may happen that we link up with other organisations to enable those who take this connection work to its further boundaries to make both a real contribution and extend their own experience and view of themselves.

Of course it will also be that I can make space for others to find out how to make this process happen, so for those who want to (neuro typical or diverse) I will create a leadership course so they can extend themselves in to the experience of leading others into uncharted territory.

Let me know if you are interested!!