(It’s been now over eight years that I’ve been actively and centrally using Liberating Structures (LS). Now that LS is firmly in my practice, I’m finding ways to share it with everyone else. This blog series (Structuring our liberation – LS under the lens), looks at some of the not-so-common structures from the LS repertoire).
“I’ll be right here, I have no fear” said a jungle tune that I used to like.
But that’s music, not the reality!
The reality is: we do have fears, insecurities, improvables we don’t feel good about. I even believe that this lack of self confidence is the biggest reason behind a lot of macro ‘human society’ issues.
In any case, among the limiting beliefs we experience, our fears are among the most powerful drivers of ‘no change’. Whether these fears are directed at the outside, or – more to the point – at ourselves, they disarm us and prevent us from taking useful steps because we have already given up the fight.
This particular structure has a peculiar way of dealing with that issue. It takes care of our fears and ‘inner saboteurs’ with fun and grace.
Let’s check it out!
What is the purpose of Tiny Demons?
The tagline of tiny demons is ‘face down fears with playfulness’ and indeed that’s exactly what it does.
Exactly like half of the job after making a mistake is to recognise it (and apologise perhaps), at least half of the power of fears is that it’s diffuse. Fears tend to impress us most when they’re unveiled, when it feels like they are lurking around and we don’t dare actually facing them.
Tiny Demons forces you to plainly look at your fears, and disarm them with ridicule and even a degree of gentle affection.
Once the fears are disarmed, options become much clearer, and our confidence grows tremendously.
Isn’t it worth it?
What if we lived in a world where we didn’t have any fears – at least about ourselves? It would be a RADICALLY different world, methinks!
How does it work?
Tiny Demons (also called ‘tiny monsters‘ or ‘uhuglettes’ sometimes) start with a blank sheet of paper.
Here are the steps and generic options with it:
- (3-4 mins) On a notepad, or sheet of paper, make a list of 3, 4 or 6 fears and insecurities you have about a given topic (or even in general). These fears could even be extrinsic, ie. related to the context in which you are, not related to you. TIP: However, focusing on fears that relate directly to what you think, say or do are most helpfully addressed by Tiny Demons.
- (1 min) On a (other) blank sheet of paper, divide your sheet in 3, 4 or 6 boxes and draw 3, 4 or 6 figures e.g. typically a rectangle, a circle, a triangle, a squiggle (any shape of your choosing), a line, a star…
- (4-6 mins) Turn each of these drawings into tiny monsters by adding claws, teeth, beaks, wings, hair, feathers, dart etc.
- (2-3 mins) Pair each of your fear with one of your drawings, and give them a name. It could be a descriptive name (e.g. ‘the time waster’) or an imaginary name (e.g. ‘Robatrok’, ‘Eddy’ etc.)
- (3-8 mins) Share in a pair or trio some / all of your fears in a breakout group.
- (optional step of 3-6 mins) On another sheet of paper, redraw one of your demons and illustrate it dancing. Then with the plenary group, hold your drawing of the dancing demon and dance as if you were that demon dancing. This is meant to both add to the ridicule of the demon and to ‘tire out’ the demon.
Quite simple, and fun activity. With guaranteed effects further down the line…
Who could really benefit from Tiny demons?
Well, basically anyone. Everyone (pretty much) has fears, right?
Even if you focus on extrinsic fears, you can have a productive exchange within a team about the concerns they have and how these concerns may not be so justified as they first thought.
What is liberating about it?
Tiny demons is liberating at various levels:
- Listing the fears is a first liberating step. You open Pandora’s box and actually get the courage to look at your fears in the eyes.
- Drawing them in this way turns them usually into rather silly demons. Even when you make them look nasty, they tend to keep an air of stupidity and irrelevance.
- Giving them a name is another step to disarm the power of these fears. The sillier the name, the better.
- The dance stretch is yet another step into making these demons silly and harmless.
- And all that disarming, and the child-like feel of the drawing can sometimes even conjure up some empathy and protective affection for these fears. If you find yourself consoling your fears, it says a lot about the power of those fears 😉
- And just the fact of sharing your fears with each other, and finding solace and courage in the fact that we all face fears is deeply grounding and invigorating.
- The fact that you draw them helps you remember these fears in the future, not as something diffuse but as a clear picture with all its silliness, which again helps disarm their longer term power over you.
How can it be stretched even further?
The dance twist is already a stretch.
Here are other ideas to stretch it further:
- Use colour pens, or even stickers to enrich your demons. And if you work online, make sure to use color markers rather than pencils, which don’t show much on screen.
- Run a gallery of these demons so everyone can have some fun looking at this crazy silly army of misjudged demons;
- If your group has a feel for everyone’s one (dancing?) demon, you can impersonate that demon or call it out when/if it crops in the conversation and take that opportunity to have fun with it once again…
- You could organise a conversation with these demons or among them, in fact that’s something I’ll be organising with my friend Linda (see at the bottom of this post).
- Maybe like the Pokemon have different ‘evolved’ stages, you may also represent some demons at baby stage, adult stage, full power stage, dwindling stage. And you could inquire about what gives power to these demons and what neutralises them.
- If you focus on a team’s extrinsic demons, you could together with the group agree which demons are at play, cut them out and put them on your visualisations whenever they crop up, to get a sense of a specific attention to give to them (either to recognise them, embrace them or get rid of them)…
- My friend Ruben Klerkx explains on this post (in Dutch) how tiny demons can be strung with other structures to find closure with them.
I’m sure you can come up with more variations of this structure yourself 😉
So what now?
Together with my Never Done Before (#NDB) co-worker Linda Howard I will be hosting an NDB ‘Friction Lab‘ session on the 6th of December on the topic of facing our demons/saboteurs. It will not focus on Tiny demons but will draw from it for sure.
Let me know if you would like to join and I can perhaps organise it 😉
In any case, I’d love to hear how you navigate your fears, and how this structure resonates with you (or not)…
Related stories
See other post in this ‘LS under the lens‘ blog series. And also:
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