Between 7th – 12th May 2024 in Vilnius, Lituania I took part at the training Confident Youth Worker - The Assertive Approach. For four days a group of twenty youth workers from all the Europe dive deep in topics as assertivness, confidence, communication, boundaries, emotions, and conflicts.
Day 1
Getting to know each other, putting hands on assertiveness, me as an assertive youth worker, Lego creations of a confident youth worker, and guessing game of talents.
Tell your story:
Which situation effected your life and how?
With what element do you feel connected with?
What one thing you want to achieve in next 12 months?
How would you describe yourself?
Which good deed, or a volunteering you did?
Share a funny story from your school years?
What is your dream?
The picutre of me consisted from my proffessional backgound within youth work, my topics, my talents, various situations when I felt confident and assertive.
Assertivness is a confidently expressing your needs and opinions while respecting others. It is the sweet spot between being a pushover and being rude. ... It includes the ability to say "no" without sence of fear and guilt.
Which qualities I put in my backpack to work on over the week?
assertivness
prioritizing
embrace failure
courage
conflict resolution
courage
self-care
understanfing of limiting beliefs
personal support network
emotional regulation strategies
less complaining
Day 2
Nonverbal communication through walking, communication styles (earth, water, fire, wind), assertiveness through expressing feelings and needs, boundaries, improvisational theatre. Night out.
Non-verbal communiation:
We tried to embodying confident by slow and fast pace while walking, by hard and soft focus, and by shallow or deep breath.
Verbal communication styles:
In communication is 55 % information transfered via non-verbal, 35 % via vocal and only 20 % via verbal expression. People communicate in a form of an elemental like communication styles. Earth is passive and formal, strutural. Water is passive, emotional, unstructural. Fire is active, structural and dominant. And Wind is active, unstructured and energetic. But all can communicate assertively! Within internal communication we talk about habits and patterns, we express feelings and needs. Within external we say statemenets to express feelings, needs.
Boundaries:
physical
emotional
sexual
time
itellectual
material
Personal boundaries are the limits and rules we set for ourselves within relationships.
"I wish to find a courage to change the patterns of my behaviour in order to prevent other people in crossing my own boundaries."
Impro night:
Try to say:
No.
No, and explain...
Yes, but...
Yes, AND...
Answer proposition:
direct no with a talking repetitively as a broken record
reasoning
reflection
rain-check (will will return to this in XY days)
enquiring
Day 3
Conflicts (theatre sketches) and emotions, cognitive behaviour couching methods, guided tour around Vilnius, dinner in Grey.
Conflicts:
collaboration
compromising
imposing
pleasing
avoiding
Relatioship can be left, when my needs are not fulfilled. Everybody has a natural response, which can be changed by a practice.
Emotions:
"Some issues with a certain matter is not in the matter itself, but in our approach to it." Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"You feel as you think."
ABC model
activating situation - beliefs/thoughts - consequences; can be switched to A - C or B - C thinking
a peson canshift a focus for a what reason has the other person to behave this way
Cognitive behaviour
Cognitions - thoughts, images, memories, experiences
ANTs = Automative Negative Response
ABCD - Despute (act like a scientist)
Thinking errors
all or nothing
personalisation (only my fault)
discounting the positive (it is not true, he loves me)
emotional reasoning (I feel bad, so it must be truth)
labelling
shoulds, musts
magnification or minimalisation (I finished late, so I am a bad teacher; I won, but it was nothing)
fortune-telling (I already know, no point in trying)
catastrophising
mindreading (I already know you do not like it)
Day 4
Last day of the training. Giving and receiving feedback, future steps (vision boards), the assertive buddy, our takeaways and what we want to dive deeper in, evaluation, last picture together and goodbyes.
Relaxation techniqs:
Benson´s breathing - breath in and while breathing out say in your mind your chosen supportive word
Relax breath - breath in and say in your mind "relax" while breathing out
Box breathing - breath in on count 4. hold on count 4, breath out on count 4. hold on count 4
Feeedback:
Example, effect, change
example - describe the situation like a videocamera
effect - what impact did it have on you, a group, or a process
change - which change can be done
Hamburger
positive feedback
constructive criticism
positive feedback
Start, stop, continue
What to start doing?
What to stop doing?
What works great and should be kept done?
Situation, behavior, impact
situation - describe
behavior - specific behavior observed
impact - describe the impact on you, or a group (no suggestions)
I promise myself to be assertive. Always. To get angry when needed. To stay my ground. To disagree. To fight for my rights, and do not let my people-pleasing habit to stop me. I allow myself to feel confident, say "no", and express myself in words, or silence.
This event was co-financed by Erasmus+ program and my participation was supported by Dům zahraniční spolupráce.
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