Learning to Perceive · What you learn

What is practiced in the workshop

Please note: the workshops are currently held in German only. I plan to offer workshops in English at a later date. If you would like to learn this and organize a workshop in English yourself, you are welcome to send an inquiry to [email protected].

One round with five steps: a question, writing it down, two minutes with yourself, questioning, asking again. Plus an example of how a yes-or-no question becomes a precise answer, and what is added on the second day.

The round, always the same

You sit opposite another person. You practice in pairs, and the sequence repeats several times.

First you ask a single question about the other person. You write down what you perceive, in the other person, not in yourself. Then you are with yourself for two minutes, without thinking about what you perceived. After that you look at what you wrote down and question it.

The fifth step is what makes the exercise. You don’t check whether the old answer still holds. You take a new sheet and ask the question again.

Rico’s words

That means not checking whether what you saw is still the same, but asking yourselves the question anew.

Rico Brunner, workshop

That way you see whether your view has changed, stayed the same, or whether something has been added. I didn’t invent this technique for the workshop. It came about with me when I noticed that I wasn’t getting any further with perceiving alone. Since then I keep asking again from the start: What haven’t I thought of?

The question we practice

Rico’s words

The question is: How happy is someone? Or where are they unhappy? And then also to try, if there’s time, to find out: Are they responsible for their happiness themselves or not? Limit yourselves to these questions.

Rico Brunner, workshop

Behind this lies the first fork in every analysis: self-caused or from outside? Is someone happy because they have learned to be happy, or because they are in love right now? More on this under Learning to distinguish.

It is not about going deep into what is difficult for someone. You stay with the question. That isn’t as easy as it sounds. What is asked for isn’t your reasoned thinking either, but your gut feeling. When an answer comes that you have worked out in your head, I often say in the workshop: That is a rational answer. The question is emotional.

How a yes-or-no question becomes a precise answer

I once demonstrated this with one participant. A second participant answered from her perception. The question was simple: Is it good for her to go jogging this evening?

First we refine the duration, step by step. Then the kind: intense or light? Then comes the question you most easily leave out: Can she stick to thirty minutes, or will she end up doing more? A duration that fits is of little use if the person doesn’t keep to it.

Rico’s words

And that is: Is it good for her? Yes, no? Okay, if no, why not? What can she do So that it’s good for her anyway.

Rico Brunner, workshop

At the end there was no longer a yes-or-no answer. The answer was: yes, but only a light jog, one that doesn’t overtax her. What matters to me here: We don’t tell the other person what to do. It is an exercise in asking questions and refining them.

Why you write things down

Whatever you want to remember takes up room in your head. Then less is left for perception. That is why you write down what you see. It takes the load off you, and you get further faster. I do it this way myself: in every session I draw a simple stick figure and note on it what I see.

What is added on the second day

On the second day we go through an energy field the way I do in every session: from top to bottom. First a look at the whole. Then the head, the heart, the belly, the knees and finally the feet, where the foundation is visible.

On top of that come three questions about the other person. Where are there areas that are torn or blocked? How resilient is the field, on a scale from 1 to 10? And how does it react to change? This time you don’t keep what you perceive to yourself. The others tell the other person what they saw and ask for their feedback. More on this under When to say what you perceive.

A scheme helps with putting things in order. It mustn’t become too strict. If you go through every person in exactly the same way, you get wrong results, because every person is different.

When nothing comes while you practice

Then that’s fine. Don’t put yourself under pressure, don’t strain. Two things often help. If the perception is there but blurry, use a scale from 1 to 10: 1 means barely there, 10 means very strong. And if you are trying to see something or work it out logically, close your eyes and pay attention to how it feels. More under When you don’t perceive anything.

Checking afterwards

The checking doesn’t happen during the exercise, but afterwards. We practice that too over the two days.

Rico’s words

that after the perception analysis you think about it afterwards: Was that right or not? And if it wasn’t right, not to say: Then I’m bad, but to ask yourself: “Why? And that’s actually how a learning process takes place.

Rico Brunner, workshop

With my own mistakes, what interested me most was never how it would have been right. What interested me was why I had interpreted wrongly.

The same exercise for every situation

The exercise is the same for everyone, whether you are going through a hard time right now, want to hold on to what you have found, or would like to develop your perception further. Anyone who comes for the second or third time does the same rounds and understands them differently each time. The basic exercise between the rounds is described under Being with yourself.

Questions that come up often

What if my answer is wrong?

Then you have practiced anyway. The exercise asks no more than that. Afterwards you ask why it wasn’t right, and you learn from it.

Why only one question?

So that you see how your view of this one question changes from round to round. In the workshop I say: Limit yourselves to this question.

Why shouldn’t I check whether the first answer still holds?

Because then you confirm instead of looking anew. If you ask the question again, you are more likely to find what you missed the first time.

Do I tell the other person what I perceived?

Not on the first day. On the second day, for three questions, yes, with feedback. More under When to say what you perceive.

Do I need a special sheet or a template?

No. A blank sheet is enough. On the second day you get a sheet with the top-to-bottom sequence.

What disrupts the exercises most often is described under Why even good perception can be wrong.