Cuddle Party Welcome Circle - why is it so long?
August 4, 2019

I facilitated a Cuddle Party on Friday night with 33 people in attendance. I may have done one other that had as many people, but this is right up there as the most people I've ever had. As you might guess at a connection event, going through that many people adds quite a bit of time to the Welcome Circle. All I can say is, be careful what you wish for, because I've been getting groups of 8-15 at my Cuddle Parties for about the last two years and lamenting the time when I regularly had more than 20 attendees. By the accounts of everyone who gave me feedback, the Cuddle Party was a rousing success. I actually put out some feedback surveys and 8 were returned. All of them were marked 'Very Satisfied' with the overall experience. Which is wonderful! The only comment some of them had on how to improve was to tighten up the pace of the Welcome Circle or to shorten it to essentials when there is such a big group. With that many people, it took almost an hour and a half to get through the Welcome Circle and they were restless. Several got up to get snacks while we were still talking, but they were listening so I kept plowing through.

I did add a little exercise of my own that added more time to the Welcome Circle, but it got people up and moving around, so I thought it would help. It was an egg matching exercise to show a new way to consider it when we ask others for connection. If you are a blue star and I'm a red circle, I would really just like to hear your No so I can move on and find my fellow red circle to match with. Also, there may be times your match is just not in the room. I did a second round where they are supposed to hide their egg and just tell people what they are. In that round, a few people are told to lie about their egg and say they are a match when they are not. Then we talk about how it feels to think you have a match until it is time to show your true colors (or your egg) and you see that it was a lie. Betrayal!

You can see a better explanation of this in my article on Reframing Rejection. // I just went to the article to pull a link from it and the egg matching game is not in there. I realized I added it for my book. So I just had to digress and go get the text for the egg matching game from my book into my Reframing Rejection article so I can link to it for my blog. So much drama. // After searching, now I realize I don't have the text from my book on my google sheets where I saved most of my work for the book. It was one of those things I added to my Word document near the end of the writing process and I don't have the Word document saved on my new laptop. Life is hard. Normally I wouldn't give you all this back story of what is going on, but since this is a blog, I feel like sharing it all.

You know those people who present a total polished package to the world? Not that I am one of those people, I definitely am not. But this is what they all go through too. Since I am being so honest, I also had to just take a break to go scrub down the cuddle mat that was soaking in vinegar to try to get the glitter slime off it from Friday night. There was glitter slime in the carpet at our host house that we thought was solidified, but it wasn't. Ah, the glamorous life of a Cuddle Party facilitator.

So, if you want more detail on the egg matching game, you'll just have to go get a copy of my book or just talk to me.

Anyway, the matching took less than 10 minutes, but it wasn't flowing well. I decided to get right back in to the Welcome Circle without discussing all the possible lessons learned from the matching game because everyone seemed ready to get to the connecting. So I didn't tell everyone that stuff. What I learned was the matching game works for 10-20 people, but too many and it just doesn't come off. I won't be doing that again with so many.

Here's the meat of what I've been thinking about, though. The Welcome Circle needs to be long. I've been with a facilitator that just read the rules and delivered it as a pretty one way lecture and as a participant, I didn't feel as good as I do when the Welcome Circle is a community experience.

The purpose of the Welcome Circle is not only to deliver the rules (or as I like to call them, the Agreements). It is to create a shared experience for the people to relate to together. It is to build a framework for community that only comes through shared experiences. If you do it well, the open cuddle time can flow freely based on the understanding and seeds of getting to know each other that were laid out during the Circle time. I feel like some people don't get that. They think the Welcome Circle is tedious. Or they have heard it all before. I know you've heard it before, but you haven't heard it in this time and place with these people. I like to call them Agreements because that is what they are. We are agreeing with each other to follow the framework set out for a safe space. The Welcome Circle is there to establish those Agreements between us.

Another reason for the Welcome Circle is to start getting to know each other. When you spend time with someone, even sitting in Circle saying nothing, you start to know them. The biggest concern people have when they hear about Cuddle Party is 'I would never cuddle a stranger'. The Welcome Circle helps you get to know people so you are no longer strangers and then when the open cuddle time is upon us, you can talk to that person who said in their introduction that they love Red Dwarf too and pretty soon you are no longer strangers and comfortable enough to ask if they would like to hold hands while you discuss the different actresses who played Kochanski. Oh wait, that is just my cuddle dream -

Anyway, the point is that I am not asking you to cuddle a stranger. I am creating a social opportunity for you to meet like minded people and spend time together so that you are no longer strangers. Then, only when you are comfortable, you have a safe space if you do want to share a touch a connection.

Well, this blog is pretty much a very rough disaster. I am doing an experiment here and not really editing much so I can share some of my vulnerabilities with you. I hope you can see a difference between my free blogging and my finished writings.

So here are the points that I will probably write up into an actual article for my website.
1. Cuddle Party Welcome Circle is not meant to be a one way lecture on the rules.
2. Welcome Circle allows us time together and shared experiences in order to create community.
3. Welcome Circle creates the foundation or structure of understanding that allows the free cuddle time to work so well.

If you have ever watched a professional doing their job and thought - wow that is so easy for them. They can do that in five minutes, why am I paying hundreds of dollars? I'm thinking of a carpenter right now, measuring and cutting and putting pieces together to create something beautiful, but it applies to a locksmith, a plumber, an artist, an athlete. Anyone who has spent a lot of time on their craft can now do some of it effortlessly. Because they have the foundation knowledge and experience in place. It is measure twice, cut once. They know how to make a plan and they know how to execute it. That is what the Welcome Circle provides us that is different from any other social gathering where we are just set loose to figure it out on our own.

The framework or the structure and the understanding established in the Welcome Circle is what allows the free cuddle time to work as well as it does. It allows people to feel safe with each other because we all have the same basic understanding and we know we have all agreed to the structure. If we don't take the time to establish that framework, we might be able to assume it or stumble on it ourselves and still have a good time, but it won't be as easy or as polished as when we set it up right from the beginning.