Welcome to the crowdfunding and signup page for our 8-week online course called “I’m glad you interrupted PART IV.” This crowdfunding campaign ends December 21st. We want to start the course Sunday January 5, 2025 at 10am New York time, 4pm Amsterdam time and 830pm India time. We welcome 30 participants, first come first served.
€830 of €950 goal
9 Backers
4 Days to go
We choose crowdfunding, because we want to make this course freely accessible to people from around the world. You can now reserve a spot, also if you did not join earlier parts of this series.
Your guides for this journey
The guides from PART III will once again team up for this new adventure.
Laura Lee from Rochester
(click to read more)
Number of group facilitations: 15 years facilitating various in-person conversation circles around poetry, philosophy, social psychology, women’s circle, & restorative circles with young children.
On a bad day: Sensory overload, inflexibility, perfectionism, dissociated from surroundings, ruminating, migraine, sarcastic.
Learning edge in conversations:
Self-connection, presence, care over taking responsibility for others.
Learning edge in life:
Balance: between focus and shifting interest to learn new skills, between enthusiasm and rest.
Brings joy: Time outside together, singing together, making all sorts of things with my hands, sharing food, writing, community building, loving friendships.
Needs support from this crowdfunding: The financial support helps me to take better care of myself and move me from a red zone to a more yellow zone. With this money I can join some classes of my teachers and I can give this money to support someone to take care of my child every now and then, so I can replenish.
Inspired by the work of: Robin Wall Kimmerer, Akilah Richards, Terra Vance, Czesław Miłowsz.
One thing not a lot of people know about you: I grew up in a small hunting cabin in rural New York.
Yves from The Netherlands
(click to read more)
Number of group facilitations: 8 years of 200+ classes with many ups and downs.
On a bad day: Cold-hearted and demanding towards people close to me, feeling despair about the state of the world. Teach to people who didn’t ask for it 🙁
Learning edge in conversations:
Lightheartedness and transforming all tensions in the moment.
Learning edge in life:
Having enough financial support to treat myself with care. Enough emotional support to do the work I do with integrity and within capacity.
Brings joy: Making music together, singing, intimate conversations, physical intimacy, collaborating on projects that increase compassion, care and clarity in this world.
Needs support from this crowdfunding: This money goes to transportation, clothing, webhosting, Zoom and some food and shelter while traveling. I’m currently being supported by five people who give me food and shelter in exchange for working a couple of hours a day building, gardening and taking care of the property.
Inspired by the work of: The Buddha, Miki Kashtan, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and the people I meet every day 🙂
One thing not a lot of people know about you: I also have a need to be heard and understood.
What the 8 weeks will look like
There will be four pillars in our journey
- Sunday class
- Daily Practice
- Inspiration videos, stories and cartoons
- Buddy – optional
The first one is our Sunday class. We meet each other on Zoom for eight consecutive Sundays. Class takes 1 hour and 45 minutes. Here we take time to pause, reflect, get inspired by the topic of the week. After that, we go into breakout rooms to do the Pearl Diver’s exercise. To give you an idea, here are the six steps of this exercise:
The second pillar is our daily practice. Just like learning to play guitar, we’ve seen that a couple of minutes of practicing does wonders to your interrupting skills. We help each other ease into the practice by requiring one daily practice for class #2, two daily practices for class #3, et cetera. By the end of the course we will have integrated a daily practice into our lives, without having to “work hard”.
The third pillar is inspiration. Throughout the week you will receive videos, questions and answers, cartoons, stories, and poems from our guides. Delivered to your mailbox. Here are some examples.
The fourth pillar is optional, and highly recommended: a buddy. Don’t worry that you have to schedule meetings with your buddy or that you have to team up with someone you don’t like. How this buddy system works is that you ask a person you like if you want a buddy. Then, during the week, you leave each other voice messages with your daily practice. This can be very helpful because you have someone in mind when you practice by yourself. Another benefit is that you get reminded to do your practice when you see your buddy’s voice message come in. No need to listen to each message, but listening might help you to find more connection and inner peace yourself.
Our shared intention
To work well as a group we need enough shared intention. The basic formula we work with is:
We treat ourselves and others with care, even when we don’t have a sense the other person is treating us with care.
We grow our capacity to come from this intention by focusing on interrupting ourselves and others in the following way:
We want to cultivate our skills and awareness when it comes to interrupting with care. We want to acquire and improve the skill to interrupt in such a way that the other person responds with “I’m glad you interrupted”. By the end of this course we want to interrupt others 50% of the situations where we previously didn’t interrupt and lost an openhearted connection. The way we want to realize this goal:
- Seeing our habits that stand in the way of interrupting.
- Seeing situations in which we would like to interrupt.
- Practicing interruptions during the weekly class.
- Writing our insights and sentences on a practice sheet.
- Practicing 2 minutes every morning from the practice sheet.
What people say
Questions and Answers
What is required to join this series?
No money is required to join this class. These three things are required:
– Feeling a deep YES to practicing care towards yourself and others, regardless of what happens.
– Attending a minimum of 6 out of 8 Sunday classes.
– Meeting the daily 2 minute, out-loud practice requirement. One daily practice for class #2, two daily practices for class #3, three daily practices for class #4, four daily practices for class #5, five daily practices for class #6 and six daily practices for class #7 and #8. So by the end of the journey you will have integrated a daily practice into your life.
Will there be a recording available of the classes?
No, we want to stimulate people from coming to the class to create a team spirit. Also it seems most people change their behavior when they know they are being recorded. We want to stimulate authenticity and belonging in our classes, and that seems to go better without recording.
What physical requirement do I need to join?
A laptop, phone or tablet with access to stable internet for Sunday’s classes, and to receive the inspiration during the week.
What skills do I need to join?
Having experience with meditation, yoga, nonviolent communication can be a help…and it can also be a hindrance 🙂 What seems to help is some kind of dedication to a spiritual path, although we do not require that and all traditions and self developed paths are welcome.
How much does the journey cost?
The course will be free of charge for participants if the crowdfunding succeeds. This way we can give this class away freely, without money being an obstacle for people to join. This is an important value for us and helps us to live in line with the principle of giving and receiving freely.
Why is this called PART 4?
Patricia sent an email in August 2023 to an email list that Yves was subscribed to. In this email Patricia requested support with interrupting, because Patricia wanted to get better at it. Yves replied enthusiasticly because he had done 8 years of research on interrupting. Together they worked for four months to prepare for the first 8-week series called “I’m glad you interrupted.” Because the participants and the guides enjoyed the series so much, Yves decided to ask participant Laura to join him for the second part, as Patricia had already commited to another course. Laura and Yves developed, together with about 12 participants the material further. Now we’re ready to take what we’ve learned deeper. Both with people who have experienced and people who are new to the interrupting game.
What will the weekly topics be?
Each week we focus on a simple principle you can use in your conversations AND we take on the challenge of interrupting a familiar habit in our society. Like “toxic independence”, “savior syndrome” and “mansplaining”. The ten principles we used in the past version will be refreshed during the course. To give you a taste, these were the principles we covered in PART III of I’m glad you interrupted:
1. We treat ourselves and others with care, no matter what.
2. The response we get is a reflection of our own energy.
3. The most used empathy request is stimulating our emotion in others.
4. The way through anger, helplessness and blame is grieving.
5. Instead of blaming others, we take personal power from knowing and asking for what we need.
6. End your sentences with a question mark.
7. Don’t answer a lonely question before you know the need.
8. How were these 8 weeks for you?
What is your vision with this journey, why are you doing this?
What we are co-creating is a practice group of people who want to cultivate thinking, speaking and acting with care, no matter who it is or what happens.
I have another question, concern or suggestion, are you open to hearing from me?
Yes, send a message to Laura or Yves.