Welcome to Mirrors and Windows Workshop
Created and facilitated by Scott Seldin
Six, two-hour sessions, held on six consecutive weeks
Introduction
People who participate in this workshop gain valuable self-knowledge by writing their most impactful true stories, a new story each week that they read aloud in the workshop’s six sessions. All workshop participants are supportive collaborators, discussing stories read, sharing insights that support their quest for greater self-awareness.
Mirrors and Windows Workshop is designed to give participants the practical knowledge of how to integrate into their everyday lives what they learn about themselves and others through their stories. The workshop is also designed with a larger purpose in mind.
Participants come to their first Mirrors and Windows Workshop session with a copy of a true story they’ve written, and a first draft of a description of the person they want to become. Then they’re asked to be that person, throughout the week, until the next workshop session when they’ll bring a second story they’re written and a more evolved second draft of the person they want to become, which they will immediately embody in their everyday life. Participants will follow this pattern for each of the six weeks of Mirrors and Windows Workshop.
Ideally, completing the six sessions will be the beginning of a lifelong practice of being the person they want to become.
To maximize the transformative nature and intention of this workshop, its size is limited to six people.
Purpose
Life stories are keys to self-development. This workshop is called Mirrors and Windows because our most life-shaping true stories, when fully understood, act as both a mirror and a window for participating writers.
Their stories are a mirror that reflects back to the writer a self-portrait composed of his or her character in action. Each story mirrors who they are, how they react to challenging situations, and the influence of their character, values and core beliefs on what happens in their stories.
Personal stories are also windows through which a story's writer can glimpse their future. Their stories give them an opportunity to understand who they have been and who they will continue to be if they don't make a sustained effort to be the unique person they want to become.
Mirrors and Windows Workshop is designed to be transformational.
How the Transformation Occurs
As the number of stories written by workshop participants increases with each completed session, the positive and negative personality traits that appear in their narratives are discussed, as are recurring patterns and themes that emerge. This allows the writer to better understand which of their traits contribute to harmonious outcomes and which contribute to regrettable ones.
Mirrors and Windows Workshop teaches how to use self-knowledge gained from their stories to create an everyday practice of expressing their more evolved self in all interactions. The result? Improved conflict resolutions and a quickening pace of their evolution as human beings.
The teachings of this workshop are challenging but possible to achieve. As Leonard Cohen once wrote, “Act the way you would like to be and soon you will be the way you act.”
Years ago, when Scott was director of Mountain View School on the adolescent psychiatric unit of St. Vincent Hospital in Santa Fe, he would ask patients, who were also students, to write or tell him the story of what led them to be where they were, on a locked psychiatric unit. Their true stories were among their best teachers. Scott believes that is true for all of us.
About the Workshop Sessions
When people participate in a Mirrors and Windows Workshop, they are given a story-writing assignment that they are to complete and bring to the workshop's first session. They are asked to “Write a story about a conflict you had with someone that got out of hand and led to hurtful consequences.” As you write your story, reveal your mood, attitude, thoughts, dialogue, emotions, decisions made, actions taken, and consequences.
At least two days before each of the six sessions, participants email their story to Scott as an attached document, nine or ten pages.
Beginning with the first workshop session, and for each of the five subsequent sessions, participants will bring to the workshop a digital or a hard copy of the story they wrote that week, which they will read to the workshop group.
Each workshop participant has about ten minutes to read their story. After they read, listeners and the story’s writer comment on a form Scott gives them, “In Search of the Writer’s Character.” The form focuses on the narrator’s character traits, values, and decision-making. Adjectives and phrases are jotted down by participants as they take notes when someone reads a story.
Following workshop discussion, the completed forms are passed to the story's writer for future reflection.
During the first fifteen to twenty minutes of each session, Scott discusses topics that are relevant to the workshop’s goals. Topics include: (first session), the importance of writing and learning about ourselves from our true stories; character traits, values, core beliefs; free will; discovering your life’s purpose; (second session), life-shaping influences; patterns and themes; the law of attraction; ego-triggered thoughts, emotions and actions; (third session), living holistically, mind, body and spirit; living mindfully; equality consciousness; (fourth session), non-violent communications; critical thinking; wise decision-making; (fifth session), improving relationships; the value of an apology and forgiveness; gratitude; awe and wonder; (sixth session), emotional intelligence; being an activist for your highest good; how your life has changed, living as the person you want to become.
The final assignment for workshop participants is to write a response to two questions:
- “What have your stories taught you about yourself?”; and,
- “What is your plan for using what you have learned from your stories to create future story outcomes that are in alignment with the person you have become?”
Additional Information
The tuition for a Mirrors and Windows Workshop, $875, is covered fully by the generosity of New Mexico sponsors. In fact, sponsorships are essential for the success of Mirrors and Windows Workshop, which will transform participants' lives in very positive and lifelong ways
Workshop participants will bring a notebook and pen to each of the six sessions. They’ll also bring a folder large enough to hold their stories, participants’ comments about their stories, and other papers from the workshop.
During the week after a session, in their notebook, they will write brief or extended remarks about the successes and setbacks they are experiencing, living in the present as the person they wanted to be in the future.
First names only are used during the workshop to protect the privacy of participants.
If requested, after completing all six workshop sessions, participants will receive a certificate of completion.
Each workshop participant owns the copyright to all of the stories that he or she writes for a Mirrors and Windows Workshop.
Participants agree to not talk with anyone outside of the workshop about the stories read in a Mirrors and Windows Workshop, without permission from the story's writer.
The number of participants in a Mirrors and Windows Workshop will range from three to six.
Mirrors and Windows Workshop will often be offered in the elegant Castle Room, upstairs from the lobby of the El Rey Court in Santa Fe, but will also be held at other locations.
To apply for a Mirrors and Windows Workshop Scholarship
Scott will send an email to you, letting you know if your application has been accepted.
Success!
To Sponsor Scholarships for Workshop Participants
The tuition for a Mirrors and Windows Workshop, $875, is covered fully by the generosity of New Mexico sponsors. In fact, sponsorships are essential for the success of Mirrors and Windows Workshop, which is supported by our caring New Mexico community. Clearly, the design and execution of this workshop will transform participants’ lives in very positive and lifelong ways.
If you or your business would like to support the important work that each Mirrors and Windows Workshop will accomplish, please sponsor scholarships for one, three, or six workshop participants, contributing $875, $2,500, or $5000. Smaller amounts are also welcomed.
Please click on the Donate button and contribute, using PayPal.
After a sponsored workshop has ended, the sponsor will be sent an email letting him or her know whether their scholarship participant or participants successfully completed all six workshop sessions. If any sessions were missed, a participant has an opportunity to make up the session in the next workshop, if space is available. If the missed session is not made up then, unused funds will be returned to the sponsor.
Anyone, or any business that gives one or more scholarships to workshop participants will be thanked with a 2”x 3” space on the Mirrors and Windows Workshop website’s Sponsors page, with their name or the name of their business and logo on it.
To schedule a meeting with Scott to discuss sponsoring scholarships for workshop participants, email: scott@mirrorsandwindowsworkshop.com. All workshop correspondence should use this email address.
Thank you!