Loving Life Blog

Have you ever gotten a Love Shower? It is a pretty nice experience. I guess you could give it different names. Appreciation Shower. Acknowledgement Shower. You can do it one-on-one, or in group. Privately or publicly. You can do it in different occasions. Situations I have seen it in are:

1. During a personal growth workshop
2. At the end of a group project
3. At birthdays
4. During a relationship
5. At a wedding
6. By the deathbed
7. During a funeral

It is like the absolute feel good movie Validation (do you remember – did you see it?) – but more focused and concentrated and times 10. Or times 100.

Imagine sitting in a circle with 10 people who you know to a more or less extent. Your task is to sit quietly and receive while looking into the eyes of the person who speaks. The others task is to one by one express what they love and appreciate about you. The strengths they see. How you have contributed. How you impact them. The gifts you have.

It can be extremely powerful. It can be quite surprising. They can call on things you were absolutely not aware of. They can call on things that are totally contradictory to your own inner critic. (Inner gremlins in life coach terms). It can make a positive mark for life that you can forever lean on.

Imagine standing in a circle of 100 students with whom you have participated in a global international conference. Your task is to write on three different pieces of paper a message to three different people, fold it and walk over and give it to them, so that they can bring with them home to their country as a memorable takeaway.

You can make a friend for life.  Maybe someone feels like they have a friend for life.

I can give many more examples. Bottom line: you touch people deeply. You make people feel good. Appreciate themselves more. Be more aware of their strengths and their impact.

What if you, or we, do that more often. What if we by doing that shift a “bottom low” situation to “raise to the top”. Maybe leaving on a high.

Bring this ritual to that set of situations:

1. Relationship breakup
2. Divorce
3. Lay-off

What if you would leave something that could be very sad and heavy, with a high head and warm heart, knowing that this past epoch had many valuable memories, made a difference to someone or something and you were part of it. And it is something you can bring with you and do again.

What if the mandatory SOX procedure in HR for all companies was to have a Team Power Shower annually in addition to the occasion of anyone leaving, for any reason.

I think I just came up with another business idea. I know – it sounds a little flower power and out there. But I live in California after all. And why do we do these things? Because we can. And because it has great impact.

Who are you going to give a loving power shower next?

I would like to end with the expression that Tim Nichols at the Hub Soma (where change to to work) uses in the member distributed emails:

Of everyone who read this, I like you the best.

With love,

Johanna