SEP MANDALA
Act your emotions out
Our emotions are often nestled deep within us because we suppress them. All these suppressed emotions, eventually, become like lava, waiting to erupt violently in unguarded moments.
Psychodrama is an active and creative therapeutic approach that uses guided drama and role-playing to work through problems. Rashmi Datt, one of India’s three certified psychodramatists, uses this powerful method to help the participants delve into the depths of their minds and gain new insights to resolve problems and negative behaviour. This modality of emotional therapy is an action-learning method for exploring problems and conflicts by enacting relevant events instead of simply talking about them.
According to Rashmi, “There is no particular procedure for psychodrama apart from a few things. We follow the vibe of the session, wherever it flows. In every little activity, something new—realisations, perspective, knowledge—comes up for the participants, which helps the director take the group forward and a little closer towards emotional freedom.” In various researches of neurobiology, it has been proven that emotions are experienced and processed by the mind and body. This experiential mind-body approach aids in transformation.
This group activity brings the practices of theatre to the process where the participants enact a real-life scenario. Participants from the session are selected to play different parts in a person’s drama (lead), which is followed by interaction based on the description given by the lead. The interactions are spontaneous and allow for improvisation and thinking of alternate scenarios that offer new insights to the lead. By shifting roles and points of view, the expressions of hidden motives surface to a conscious level, making them accessible for bringing about change.
The power of psychodrama lies in the fact that it enables participants to enact the roles of various characters whereby one can have an actual but safe conversation, creating neutral ways of responding to a difficult scenario. For example, a person can be asked to talk to their ‘father’ and say things that bother them without confronting their real-life father. It is the acting out of psychological problems that offers a way for healing to take place. For those who are interested, Rashmi Datt, drawing on her experience of 26 years, is offering a training course in Psychodrama, certified by Psychotherapeutisches Institute Bergerhausen (PIB) Germany and Vedadrama India.
Psychodrama was developed by Dr Jacob Moreno, Romanian-American psychiatrist and psychosocialogist, to explore personal and professional problems creatively and build ‘emotional regulators’ to manage conflicts, achieve excellence, and keep the big picture in mind.
Coffee in your shoes
Did you know that your morning cup of steaming coffee has your favourite footwear hidden in it? Recently, a sustainable footwear start-up, RENS, introduced fashionable sneakers made from coffee grounds! The Finnish company states on its website: “Each pair of RENS uses the waste from 21 cups of coffee and six plastic bottles. Additionally, our minimalist design allows our manufacturing process to use fewer resources and generate less waste. RENS has 80 per cent less impact on the environment than leather shoes and 60 per cent less than textile ones.”
The idea came upon the duo Son Chu and Jesse Tran, co-founders of RENS and self-confessed sneaker obsessives, as they were looking for eco-friendly and affordable sneakers. Concerned about the impact created by their consumption of footwear, they took it upon themselves to provide this generation with sustainable, comfortable, trendy, vegan, and affordable shoes—all in one. Originally from Vietnam, the duo has experienced the environmental impact of the footwear industry first-hand. Jesse Tran, CEO, stated, “It’s unbelievable how giant companies churn out millions of unsustainable products, using unsustainable materials and doing very little to mitigate their impact.”
Coffee is a universal beverage consumed by billions each day. Imagine the amount of waste generated, which eventually finds its place in landfills, contributing to the food waste problem worldwide. Well, according to their website, it accounts for 23 million tons of organic waste per year! Only 10 per cent of this is composted and reused; the rest, in landfills, emits methane, a greenhouse gas that is 30 per cent more potent than carbon dioxide. A hundred pairs of the ‘coffee-made sneakers’ are manufactured by recycling 66 pounds of spent coffee grounds and six hundred plastic bottles! What can be more eco-friendly?
Coffee is naturally odour-proof and antibacterial. A blog on their website states, “The process of making RENS sneakers starts with infusing coffee ground into plastic pellets and spinning that mixture into a polymer yarn. That yarn is then knitted on a waterproof membrane, ensuring that your feet will stay dry in all conditions.”
It is amazing how New Age innovations are offering more sustainable options to customers so that they won’t have to compromise on style for the environment.
Skills to be treasured
In today’s competitive world, our education system focuses on preparing students for pursuing specific careers. But is it what life is all about? How good are our children at decision-making? Are they emotionally grounded? Is our system enabling our children to handle common problems of life effectively?
Lack of life skills among individuals is the root cause of most of the failings in their life, and this can only be overcome if our system includes ‘life skills’ in their curriculum.
Giving this idea a kick-start, Skillizen Learning Foundation, a Singapore-based global socio-educational company, announces the launch of registrations for International Life Skills Olympiad (ILSO) 2019.
It is the world’s first and only Olympiad that tests young children’s Life Skills Aptitude, a global test specifically designed for school children (including home-schooled ones) from Class III to XII. The test will primarily focus on evaluating real-world skills and competencies that are critical for young children to manage and thus succeed in their personal, professional, and social lives. The most unique thing about this Olympiad is that it gives participants an opportunity to make decisions about real-life situations by applying critical life skills such as leadership, ethics, teamwork, communication, empathy, goal- setting, etc.
Talking about the vision behind holding this Life Skills Olympiad, Mr Sidharth Tripathy, chief convener of Skillizen Olympiad Foundation, said, “Our motive is to prepare young children for real-world challenges. While preparing for ILSO, participants will not only acquire new life skills but will also get an opportunity to match their skills at a global level against children from 100 plus countries. Life skills empower the younger generation to live their lives to the fullest potential and help them overcome the hurdles of everyday life, be it at school, work, or as global citizens. Hence it is important for parents and schools to encourage children to participate in the Life Skills Olympiad.”
So, get your children enrolled and enable them to make the most of life.
For more information or to enrol, go to http://www.lifeskillsolympiad.org