Video Explorations

 
Video Explorations is likely different from anything you've ever experienced. Think of it this way: If you go to a lecture, you get to hear what the lecturer thinks about the topic the lecturer chose. Instead, if you go to our Video Explorations you get to discover what you and others feel about the topics that are at the absolute growing tip of your personal growth journey.

That's because as we watch a movie as a group, everyone keeps track of the points in the movie that grab them most emotionally -- that make them happy, sad, irritated, delighted, angry, whatever. Those points in the movie grab us exactly because those issues are at our growing tip emotionally. So we take those issues and use them to build questions that invite us to explore our growing tip, and then finally do our best to answer those questions. Some of my most profound insights in my life have come to me while eating popcorn and discussing a movie at our Saturday Video Explorations.

We would love to have you attend. Videos take place on the first three Saturdays of most months. You are welcome to join either in-person or via Zoom. And they're free.

Upcoming videos

To find out what movies we have in store for the near future, simply take a look at the upcoming calendars.

Movies we've watched

Here are some of the videos we've viewed recently, along with the questions we developed for each video and a synopsis of each discussion.

What we do

We watch a recent, popular movie almost every Saturday night, and afterwards we have a lively discussion about what we can learn from the video about human potential. So it isn't a "Siskel and Ebert" kind of event; rather, it's a chance to discuss personal-growth themes like love, courage, hope, family, career and relationships. During the discussion, we put particular emphasis on how these personal-growth themes show up in our lives and how we've handled them, since that's more meaningful to each of us personally than generic discussions about the condition of society in general.

Benefits

  • Meet and connect on a deep level with "real" people in a relaxed, comfortable atmosphere.
  • Discuss your growth in a caring, playful way with others who also want to learn and grow.
  • Discover what others have learned from their own personal experiences in the wide range of personal-growth topics suggested by the video.

Structure

After introducing the Center and giving participants a chance to introduce themselves in a fun, low-stress way, we enjoy popcorn and the popular film for the evening. In the discussion following the movie, we discuss ourselves and our own personal growth, not the film. Here's how we do that: First, someone in the group suggests a theme that stood out for them from the movie. Then as a group we build a question around that theme, using the following four guidelines in developing the questions. We try to create questions that
  • have something to do with human potential,
  • have something to do with the movie,
  • have something to do with ourselves, and
  • are open-ended or "essay questions."

(By the way, the easiest way to develop a question that satisfies guideline #3 is to include the words "I," "me" or "my" in it, and the easiest way to develop a question that satisfies guideline #4 is to start it with the words "How" or "What.") Then another person suggests another theme and the group develops a question around it, and so on until we have 8 or 10 questions. These question serve as a "diving board" into our feelings and experiences about our personal growth.

Please do

  • Feel free to express yourself and your feelings, and to hear and respect the feelings of others.
  • Use I-Statements.

Please don't

  • Impose your values, beliefs and feelings on others.
  • Invalidate your own values, beliefs or feelings just because someone (or even everyone) in the group feels differently.
  • Use You-Statements.