Hey everyone, Katherine and Makenna here! Today was our first day meeting with the entire group at Furman and we're excited to share what we did today. We focused on these three important questions for the day:
1) Who am I most authentically?
2) What do I believe most deeply?
3) What does the world need from me?
First, we introduced ourselves with a few personal items in our cup. You can check these out on our personal blogs! Then, we met our third leader, Jonny, who introduced us to journaling over zoom. We did a few activities with him that included writing one hope and one worry for the trip as well as asking a question we might ask if we were to meet another peer in Greece.
After that, we discussed our Enneagram types in small groups to see what we had in common with each other and what we had different. It was interesting to see how even people of the same type can be different from each other. We also talked about our top five Clifton Strengths. Surprisingly, we all had strengths regarding relationship building which was almost half the class (48%) yet only 4 people of the group have an influencing strength (6%). Before we went to lunch, we watched a Brene Brown TED talk video on shame and vulnerability.
One of the founders of the Cothran Center (formerly known as the Lilly Center), Dr. Elaine Nocks, led an exercise on "Credo" to help us answer the second important question. We each wrote in our journal the answer to why we decided to go on this trip. We were then asked to reflect on our answers by doing an exercise called the five why's. We asked ourself why we answered that way and did it four more times after that answering each new question. This exercise was important because it helped us explore further into our reasoning for doing the program and what we wish to gain from it. I (Makenna) personally enjoyed doing this exercise the most because the deeper I got, the more I understood the underlying reasons I think the way that I do. The more I asked myself why, the more I had to think and really dive deep to figure out why I personally believe happiness equals success rather than income equals success. Knowing this will then help me on the trip to realize my goals and listen to my inner self as I try to figure out what my calling truly is. So, answering the five why's has helped me understand that once I feel an overwhelming sense of joy from within, it will be a part of my calling and purpose.
That exercise also led us into the next exercise using 4 concentric circles. The outer circle stood for external/cultural. Then, as you go towards the center of the circle, you get to personal/familial, then self, and the very center circle is the Credo, which is latin for "I believe." Everyone has their own set of personal beliefs and recognizing how we prioritize them differently is important in understanding one's true self. For me (Katherine), the Credo exercise was one of the most impactful exercises that we did today. It allowed me to delve deeper into what my own personal beliefs are and the order of how I currently structure my beliefs. Being able to visualize how I structure my beliefs and whether or not they were cultural/ external, personal/familial, self, or Credo was very beneficial in realizing what my own personal Credo is. Being able to listen to other people’s beliefs when we worked through each circle and being able to see that their ranking of importance was different than mine was also very impactful. This exercise helped put into perspective that everyone is unique and no one has the exact same set or order of beliefs as someone else.
Lastly, we discussed a reading called "The Power of Meaning" by Emily Esfahani-Smith that was about two different people finding their vocation. Vocation means one's calling for how they want to live their life and it comes from within. The two stories were very different but both showed that it's never too late to discover your purpose that the world needs from you.
We ended with small groups answering different questions from a deck of conversation cards about engaging with the world. This allowed us to gain new perspectives and listen to what our peers think. It was a great activity to get to know ourselves and each other better.
We are so excited for the rest of the trip and hope you enjoy the many blogs to come!
Makenna and Katherine signing off :)
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