The Walnut Exercise
Vision Quest with a Walnut (or another thingy)
This is my master's exercise. It has been blowing people’s minds since 2003. I’ve been hosting this exercise in over six countries, and several organisations want me yearly back for this one.
And it is a cornerstone of a new kind of education. Here we help people to find their own answers, talents, missions. Forget the focus on expected, everyone the same, standardised replies. All the info is on the internet, except who you truly are. So how to help people find out who they truly are and what they essential have and want to add to the world? God knows we need inspired people living their new solutions for us all.
(Miniature) Vision Quest in a (literal) Nutshell
So can one nut help people find their own answers? Yes. How does it work in short? Everyone gets one nut, I prefer Walnuts. People play with this nut for ten minutes. Then they write a poem about themselves and the nut. Some other steps later they write their core learning question down. Then we sit in a circle and the surprise comes: “The answer to your question can be found in your own poem you wrote earlier.” And then the wonder begins, and the work to help some people see it.
Example. The Learning Question was: what would make me love myself more?
“Oh, you crazy nut. I look at your discolored shell, the bursts in it, the dark spots. Your broken wood is awesome. Your spots are art. Your story is magnificent. You are perfect as you are. In the palm of my hand, a treasure to behold. Nothing more is needed.”
The girl who wrote this poem didn’t see how this related to her question. Then I let a friend of hers read it to herself. Replacing the word nut with her name. The tears welled up in her eyes (and other people’s eyes too). Listening to this love poem on her own imperfections was all she needed.
It’s of course not always as beautiful or ‘easy to find like this. But often some tears, some flabbergasted, some deniers while everyone else sees it, happen.
Facilitating ‘the Walnut Exercise’
The next is the explanation for trainers and educators on how it essentially works. Mind you, getting all the steps right is not as easy as it seems. It may seem a simple trick. It is not. It’s natural magic. The magic can happen in two different orders, let’s start with the more natural one.
Out of the mind into the (playful) body
Start lighthearted, offer some physical play to get people in their bodies and more flexible in their heads. This version works when you have a full day, or a longer session with a break. The second version is actually mor exiting work also better suits shorter sessions.
The Learning Question
Ask the participants to write down their big learning question.
NOTE: Everyone has to have one. And it needs to be positively framed. Not: ‘What makes me fail every time?’ but: ‘What would make me successful/playful/attractive/etc?’ Make sure it’s good questions about personal learning steps. Avoid all practical stuff (Should I buy a house?) or non-personal (What is wisdom?). You may also forbid easy ‘how’ questions (The answer to how is yes. ‘How to play more? Yes, go play.’) The question should reveal information they don’t know yet, it often may offer some tension when spoken aloud. Good questions are like a miniature confession and open doors to the new.
Stuff in between
Then other ( meaningful, fun) exercises, stories, theory happens; not related to this in any way.
These in-between exercises are essential! These in-between steps blind the participants to not see the connection between the two parts of the quest! Focus on other meaningful topics and exercises. This is essential! When people realise the two are connected, and they wrote the question first, then they’ll answer in the poem consciously. This means they’ll write down their usual train of thought and not leave their usual mental box. This renders their answer useless! So they must NOT see any connection. Yes, masking is the game here. This also means this exercise can’t be offered twice to the same people, unless hidden and masked very very well in an unsuspected variation.
10 Minutes for You and Your Nut
Then, after a break, you may start like this: “Let’s open up your tunnels of creativity, or inner artist, or explorer (whatever fits the context best). Put phones and all other stuff away. We now will do an individual exercise. Find a personal place to sit.” Once they sit, hand out everyone a walnut, or small natural thingy you found outside, like an old leaf, little stone, seed, shrunk berry.
Then offer the exercise: “Here’s a walnut (or whatever ‘thingy’) and you have now 10 minutes for you and the walnut.”
BEWARE: don’t mention any goals, offer NO rules nor expectations. All choices are theirs, whether they lay with the nut on their belly, crack it open, throw it around, and observe it deeply. All is fine!
NOTE: How you say this, your tone of voice, comes very precise! Too serious and they know something is going on. Too lighthearted and they don’t take the exercise seriously enough. Keep it an individual excursion. Although as people happen to play with another, and it’s not disturbing I’ll let it go. As facilitator stay attentive, (not judgemental in any way!) so they stay focussed too. This is a matter of holding the space. Only once in a while, I’ll add, ‘this is an exercise to open up your creativity, play with perspectives.’ It must feel as a great exploration exercise not as fundamental step.
The shortest time to be given for this, when pressured for time, is 7 min.
Write a poem about you and the nut.
After the timer ends the time, hand out everyone a piece of new paper. “Now take the time to write a poem about you and the nut, about your time together.”
TIP: Hand out a new piece of paper so it doesn’t end up in their notebook next to the question! Sometimes you need to mention it may be modern poetry, it doesn’t need to rhyme or anything. Beware they still need to make some work of it. So don’t make them feel it doesn’t matter, because it does, quite a bit. Whoever finishes their poem may come to sit in the central circle.
The Surprise
Then, when everyone has finished writing their poem, it’s time for the surprise. Take with a group of 12–16 people about an hour for this. With larger groups, you can give some central examples and then let people explore them by themselves in subgroups.
You can ask: “Who knows what’s coming?” Of course, people will say the reading of the poems. You can admit and then add the extra.
“People will read their learning question, they made earlier, first; then read the answer, which is in the poem!” (As said, if anyone guessed this part, their answers mostly don’t work!) “Together we will listen for the answers and help other find it.”
Then comes the test for the trainer, can you help see this answer when they can’t? But best let the writer go first and ask them, “How are you answering your question in the poem?” Let others help when they need it. Check if this works for the questioner. Sometimes people give brilliant one-on-one answers to their questions. With others, it can be much harder. Let people reread their poems, or parts of it, and or the question as often as needed.
How to find the answer in the poem?
In beautiful easy cases, it’s very directly there. First try to find it, without using the ‘tricks’. What is this person saying to him or herself? How did she made her time with the nut fun, meaningful. Is there a change of perspective in the poem. What effect did it have? Explore.
If not, here are some tricks and suggestions.
- The most essential trick is to replace the word nut for the dominant word/aspect in the question. If one word or term doesn’t work try another, or even ‘me and myself’. Example: “What makes me wise?” turns in the poem “me and my nut” into “me and my wisdom”. Then let them reread their whole poem with that in mind. If that doesn’t work for the reader, then you could try “Me and my work to become wise” and see if that fits better.
- Another trick that sometimes hits home, is to let someone else (preferably a friend) read the poem to the poet.
- Sometimes one may find the answer in how someone writes, or only in two lines. Or in the perspective they chose. Whatever stands out to the listeners holds information.
WARNING: The quality of guidance and being able to see the ‘answer’ within the poem is essential. Not everyone can do this. Or of that they didn’t get clarity because the writer didn’t go for it enough, often short sloppy, I don’t care poems. Then either participants were send to the workshop, or I wasn’t precise enough, see above. I learned to do this very well, and it may take a few times to get the tone right.
Not all have that gift to explain the peoms! You need to have it. If you haven’t, collaborate with someone who can, or don’t do this! And listen to the participants too, for in most groups there’s 1 or 2 who have a talent for this, let alone dare to explore and try and ask questions.
Nuttier Variation With a Different Order.
Even crazier can be when you change the order. Here the poem comes first, rather close to the beginning. I like this actually much After some physical landing in your body and loosening exercises, you do the nut and poem exercise part.
Then they’ll often want to do something with that. I either ignore this (“Hey, this was to open your creativity channel, not for the result”). Or I let them read their poems to each other in groups of three or four. Then I ask on the count of three to point who wrote the most beautiful poem. Then I wonder why so few point to themselves. I learned this is, because other people’s poem sound a bit magical, and people tend to see their own, as just a ‘thingy’ they did. Then I offer them, that often we aren’t aware enough that: our own normal is often what is our magic or gift to others. An important insight. And then let them put the poems away, or even collect them.
Then once again follow up with whatever crazy or serious stuff so they forget the poem. Then after some time, say after lunch, or in short workshops about 40' minutes before the end you let them formulate the personal learning question. (see framing a good one above)
And then the surprise comes: “The answer to your question, you’ve already given. It’s in your poems!” In quite a few workshop this was how I ended the day, with the circle of reading the question and then find the answer in the poem. In groups of say 12 we might do all of them central, certainly when the participants are a team. When they are more and or don’t work together I might do 2 or 3 centrally, and then split up in smaller groups and let them help each other. I’ll be on standby and making rounds.
In this case, the selling of not doing anything with the poems and asking for the questions late in the training is slightly more difficult. Yet the surprise they already answered the question before they asked it, it worth the wonder on the faces, if you get it right.
Why and How Does It Work?
I call this natural magic. Why? Whatever we do, we are present in it. In the nut exercise, not having been given any structure, objectives, only freedom, people tend to become more natural after a while. They may start trying to be clever, cracking the exercise, being a good student with careful observations, or play around not caring. Yet after a while that starts to bore. And since no one cares what they do, they have to make it interesting for themselves from a deeper layer; read, a much more natural layer, closer to who they really are.
When they write a poem also from this state of deeper freedom less care for the outcome, then it will come more from their subconsciousness than their usual trains, or circles, of thought. Yes, like in dreams, our subconsciousness knows, what our mind often hides from us. And this exercise lets it speak quite straightforward. I’ve done this exercise so many times, with so many different groups, from teenagers to CEO’s and it worked every time, with very few exceptions. If exceptions happen, most likely only with a few people, my tone may have been slightly off, I may have made a mistake, or there’s still some fear of others in the group or whatever. The concept itself stands like a rock. It’s up to the perfection of the facilitator to make it work. Good luck!
Thank you: Salvatore Cantore, Ine Heijs for being a few of the teachers who helped this come alive. Bert van der Neut, daring to offer this to 50 CEOs being the first try out of the complete exercise. Knowmads for making this a standard in the school and Georg Bulmer for having me finally put it on paper..eh internet.
