Activity 2.5 The “Lego” exercise

ACT Processes:

• Self-As-Context

Objectives:

• Increase the awareness of the continuity and stability of a self while allowing a more flexible relationship with the contents and identities of the self
• Increase the awareness that despite numerous life changes, challenges, and adversity, the sense of self-as-context or the observer-self persists
• Expand the repertoire of behaviour that is less constricted by concepts of oneself

Participation Format:

• Participants sit in a large horseshoe; co-facilitators sit across from each other at the open end of the horseshoe.

Number of Facilitators:

• 2

Time Required:

• 30 mins

Materials Required:

• Bucket of small Lego building blocks – enough for about 10-15 pieces per participant
• Paper plates (one per participant)
• Water-based markers

Activities & Instructions

Instructions for participants

1. Introduction

Facilitator #1 describes the overall purpose of the exercise.

• As we have explored, oftentimes our thoughts are not what they seem. This may even apply to thoughts about ourselves. This exercise is called the Lego or Let-go Exercise. It will help us explore our sense of self – that is – our sense of who we are.

2. Distribute the materials for the exercise.

Facilitators pass out paper plates to each participant. Invite each participant to use a marker to write down their name on the inside surface of the plate. Pass around a bucket of Lego pieces, and allow participants to take some pieces and put them on their plate.

Facilitator #1:

• Please write down your name on the plate so you can identify which plate is yours.
• Have you played with these before? They are small construction blocks. Please grab a handful of them and put them on your plate.

3. Identify a memory from last summer.

Have participants become quiet and mindful of the present moment. Facilitator #1 directs participants to fully recall a memory of an event last summer. Ask them to note that there was a “self” that observed everything that was happening at the time – the same “self” that is here now recalling the memory.

• Please put down your plate. If you are willing, please close your eyes or fixate on a point in front of you. We will just spend a few moments to become aware of the present and our breath.
• Now let’s think back to something that happened to you last summer. It may be a good event or bad event – just something that comes to your mind now. See if you can recall that event as clearly as you can. Notice what you were seeing, hearing, doing, feeling, or thinking at the time. Notice where you were and who you were with. Notice that you were there observing all these things and experiencing all these things and check out that this is the same “you” that is here right now, recalling all of this.Note that “you” have been ‘you’ all this time.
• let us return to our breath and being here for a few moments. Whenever you are ready, you may open your eyes.

4. Recreate the memory with Lego pieces

Have participants recreate the scene with the Lego pieces they have on their plate.

• Now being fully here, see if you can recreate what happened last summer with your Lego pieces.”

5. Letting go and recreating a memory from younger years.

Have the participants reflect on this experience and their creation. Ask them to take the pieces apart. Then, ask them to recall another memory from younger years. Have them recreate the scene again with the Lego pieces.

• Please stop building if you have not already finished. Whatever stage you are at, take a moment to just observe the memory of that event from last year, and notice that you are here now observing this.You may take one last look at your creation.Now, let’s pull the pieces apart. notice anything that shows up for you when taking them apart…”
• “Looking at the pieces in front of you, recall another event from your younger years – as a teenager… Notice all that you were seeing, hearing, doing, thinking, and feeling… Notice that your role then may be quite different from your role now… Notice that your body may be quite different from now… Maybe every single cell in your body was different back then… Yet notice that the “you” that was then is the same “you” that is here now recalling all this, looking at these Lego pieces…”
• “… Now being fully here, see if you can recreate what happened in your teen years with your Lego pieces.”

6. Letting go and recreating a memory from childhood.

As before, have the participants reflect on this experience and their second creation. Ask them to take the pieces apart. Ask them to recall a memory from childhood. Have them recreate the scene again with the Lego pieces.

• Please stop building if you have not already finished. Whatever stage you are at, take a moment to just observe the memory of that event from your teenage years, and notice that you are here now observing this
• You may take one last look at your creation. Now, let’s pull the pieces apart. Notice anything that shows up for you when you take them apart.Looking at the pieces in front of you, recall another event from even farther back, when you were a child. Notice all that you were seeing, hearing, doing, thinking, and feeling. Notice that your role then was quite different from your role now. Notice that your little body was very different from what it is now. You did not know or experience a lot of things yet … still, notice that the “you” that was there back then is the same “you” that is here right now, recalling all this, looking at these Lego pieces. This “you” has never been me or someone else; “you” have been “you” your whole life. Now being fully here, see if you can recreate what happened in your childhood with your Lego pieces.”

7. Debrief and Sharing of the exercise.

Have the participants reflect back on the exercise and share their experiences.

• Please stop building if you have not already finished. Whatever stage you are at, take a moment to just observe the memory of that event from your childhood in front of you, and notice that the same “childhood you” is here now – observing all this as an adult.
• Let’s let these memories go and return to this room in the present moment with all of us ”
• “Would anyone like to share their experience of this exercise?”

Important points of discussion to draw out include:

1. Introduce Self as Perspective/Observer
   The sense of self as a perspective “I” (“not-you”) and the “observer-self” (the experience of the same “I” who is aware and observing) is continuously present throughout our lives.
   • “… notice that “you” have always been “you” throughout your whole life;“you” (pointing around) have not been “me” (pointing to self).Although everything else that is not our “selves” are ever changing, including our thoughts, feelings, body, social roles, just like our Lego pieces”
2. Persistence of “Self” through challenges of life
   • “…notice that “you” remain “you” throughout your life, through good times or bad times, from distant events to recent events…”
3. Being constricted by our own stories
   We can easily confuse our “selves” with ideas and concepts about ourselves, like our self-descriptions, stories, or social roles, and feel bound by these things
   • You may say to yourself, “I’m a man and I’m not a dancer” – so you may never have that experience and now what if you say to yourself “I’m a shy person and I’m someone who never speaks up against issues like stigma”?
4. Feeling loss of self when things change
   • When we feel defined by our self-descriptions, stories, and roles, we feel quite vulnerable. We may guard against such changes at a cost to us… When changes do occur, we may feel completely lost…”
   • “…You may say to yourself “I’m my ____ (job)” What happens if you cannot keep that job because of mental or physical illness? If you identify yourself as a mother, what happens if you lose your child to suicide?So even though knowing our roles and our values behind our roles help us function, our sense of self need not be tied to them in a suffocating way.

Take-home Metaphor

Ask if the participants can look at their plate of Lego pieces and find themselves in it. The metaphor of self-as-context, that we are the context of our experiences but not the content of our experiences, is that we are the plate. Participants can keep the paper plates to take home, while the facilitators can retrieve the Lego pieces for reuse.

• Looking at this (lift up your plate of Lego blocks) – where are you in this? Are you the blue piece or the red piece?
• You are the plate that contains the Lego pieces… not the pieces themselves, which have always been changing.The plate even has your name written on it.
• So whatever difficult experiences and memories we have seen depicted by the Lego blocks, we are still here, as is the plate.And we can be open and flexible to the ever-changing experiences of life and not hang on to past stories or other rigid beliefs.
• We are the container of our experiences.We have our thoughts but we are not our thoughts.We have our memories but we are not our memories. We can realize this when we are in touch with our observer self.

References & Sources

• Inspiration drawn from two exercises: Self-as-context Exercise and Chessboard Metaphor (Hayes et al, 2012, p 231-235).