Meetup : Comfort Zone Expansion outing - London

LW London will be running a Comfort Zone Expansion (CoZE) outing on 1st September.

A lot of things seem scarier than, on reflection, they should do. CoZE is a technique to recalibrate our fears, especially related to social situations. The way to expand one's comfort zone is to do things that are just on the edge of it, so that's what we'll be doing. In an imitation of part of the CFAR workshops, we'll be heading to a mall to split up, do slightly scary things, and then meet back together to debrief and discuss.

Prior to the mall, we'll be meeting somewhere to discuss CoZE in more depth: what we're trying to do, why we're trying to do it, some things we're absolutely not trying to do, etc. Safety briefing.

We'll meet at 11am, but I haven't yet worked out exactly where that will be; if anyone has suggestions for a somewhat-private space near the mall we can go to, please let me know. (Basically we want to be able to discuss things that make us uncomfortable, and the fewer people nearby, the better. For people who've been coming to the social meetups, somewhere like the dungeons in the Old Star would probably be fine. If the weather's nice then Shepherds Bush Common might work, but I can't rely on that.) I'll work somewhere out this week and update before the day of the outing.

[Update: The weather for tomorrow looks good, so we'll meet somewhere on Shepherds Bush Common: map. If we're not easy to find, give me a call and I can be more specific.

In the event that the weather does fail, we'll meet in the Defector's Weld, which is right on the north-west corner of the common.]

After that, hopefully we'll be able to play some improv games as a warm-up. This depends on time and whether or not we're likely to annoy lots of people if we play.

In any case, we'll head to the mall no later than 1.30pm. (Probably sooner; I'm keeping times flexible because I don't really know how long the discussion will take.) Then we'll split up for the outing itself. We'll meet back up after an hour and a half, and head somewhere else to debrief: success stories, things that didn't work, anything that seems relevant.

Please bring a mobile phone so I can get in touch with everyone if necessary.

If you feel nervous, that's understandable. Remember you'll never have to do anything you don't want to; and feel free to contact me privately, by PM, text message or facebook.

RSVPs are appreciated, so that I have some idea of numbers; if you don't know whether or not you're coming, feel free to say that, optionally with a probability estimate; but if you want to come and haven't RSVPed, please come anyway.

My phone number is 07792009646.