$120.00 USD

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Welcome & Terms of Service

Our practices involve looking at and being intimate with the structures of one’s personal reality, including how we make sense of experience, individually and collectively. Carrying over assumptions from other practices can lead to misunderstandings. Read over the following statements to determine whether or not our practice will be a good fit for you.

Self-Responsibility
We see you as a free agent capable of honest self-assessment and responsible choice. This is an invitation to take responsibility for yourself and your experience, including a willingness to set and maintain appropriate boundaries. By attending our events you take responsibility for your own safety and comfort, choosing to leave the practice or participate in any given moment.

Not Psychotherapy
We do not follow a therapeutic model of diagnosis and treatment. Our method is educational. Our emphasis is relating. Our facilitators and coaches are guides. Our practices are practices of connection and meditation whose aim is to reveal more presence. We do not prescribe choices or actions. We are not psychotherapists; we do not see you as being in a therapeutic relationship with our facilitators. Participants are welcome to speak and explore developmental intentions such as “getting somewhere,” growing, and evolving, but we do not presume these are the drivers of experience. We work in the present moment, assuming wholeness moving to greater wholeness.

The Expectations of Leadership
Our facilitators act in service of better relating through bringing more presence to what’s happening in the here and now. This may not follow typical expectations of a “group leader,” such as telling people the “right way” to act or making sure everyone gets along. We include the internal experiences of the leaders as part of the process. We invite you to listen to your own inner direction for leadership, and consider others’ responses as feedback to you in the context of the moment.

Is this Right for You?
Our workshops can be intense. We explore the unknown, the volatile, the ambiguous, as well as welcome emotions many deem as “negative” or “inappropriate” such as feelings of inadequacy, anger, sexuality, and joy. We often explore multiple sides of seeming opposites at once, and believe this can reveal an underlying unity of the immediacy of experience. We see bringing awareness to intense feelings as distinct from acting upon these feelings—we may ask you to pause or leave if we determine certain expressions risk leaving the practice of relational presence.

If the above description of our workshops sounds potentially overwhelming or destabilizing for you, if you have mental illness or significant emotional challenges that you feel may be exacerbated by this type of transformational environment, or if you are not sure that you can be self-directed in taking care of your needs during the event, then we advise you not to enroll. Finally, you must be at least 18 years old to attend.

By participating you acknowledge that you have read and agree to abide by these Terms of Service.

Relateful Storytelling Group

Once upon a time, there was a book, forgotten in the attic of an old house.

It was as broad as a monarch’s throne, and as heavy as a chest of gold.

Underneath the dust, the front cover was blue with yellow stars.

One day a new family moved into the house, and as they were unloading their furniture, their youngest child began to explore….

This March, you are warmly invited to join a four week adventure into the world of Relateful Storytelling.

We will meet to imagine, to play and to create together, and to listen for the stories that want to emerge through us. This will be a space of myth and fantasy, heroes and villains, towering castles and creaking pirate ships.

At the heart of every session will be space to improvise short stories together, one sentence at a time. After each story arrives, we will ask: What was it like to create together? What do we experience as we reflect on the story? What does the story reveal about us?

We will be weaving the practices of Relatefulness (relational mindfulness) and improvised storytelling. How can awareness enrich our creativity? And how can creativity enrich our awareness?

Perhaps our time together will inspire you with fresh imagery and metaphors to guide a life transition that you are going through. Perhaps you will find new inspiration for what is possible in collaboration. As the course unfolds, you may find yourself feeling the delight of creativity spread throughout your days.

The course will run online, for 4 x 2 hour sessions, taking place on Tuesdays.

The course will start on Tuesday 4 March, and run weekly through to Tuesday 25 March.
The sessions will take place at 6-8pm UK time, 7-9pm Central European Time. Please note: for US participants, the first session on 4 March will be at 12-2pm (CT), then after the clock change, the remaining sessions will be at 1-3pm (CT).
The group size is capped at 10.

The group is open to all, regardless of your prior experience with either Relatefulness (relational mindfulness) or with improvisational storytelling. If you find making things up on the spot daunting, you are not alone, and you are especially encouraged to attend.

Please note: On Sunday 16 March (11-2pm CT), Anja-Sophie Boorsma is hosting a Relateful Improv workshop! This is another great opportunity to explore Relateful Creativity. If you buy both offerings together, you get a $30 discount! (If you buy one, you will receive an offer code in your email receipt that you can use to get a discount on the other one).

What people are saying about previous groups that Will has run:

“The sessions were a cauldron of inspiration, surrender and trust. The other participants were wondrous and every session brought more love and magic out of us. I'm infatuated and I want more!” - Elsa May
“Humble, brilliant, and wildly creative, Will invites us to sit together in the unknowing, and to wonder together. The spaces between his sentences are as imbued with presence and transmission as his words.” - Valerie
“I love being in the spaces that Will creates and inhabits, where it feels like anything is possible. I have a deep and growing trust in Will’s loving intention as a human and a facilitator. I remember coming out of Will’s sessions feeling amazing, alive and transformed!” - Christine

The typical activities in a session will include:

Fun and accessible pair activities to practice spontaneity, enliven the imagination and deepen collaboration.
Plentiful space to improvise short stories together as a group, one sentence at a time, before reflecting on the stories we have created, on how they impact us, and on what it was like to create them.
Regular invitations to pause, and to notice what we are experiencing from moment to moment as we are in the midst of our explorations.
Opportunities to practice tools and techniques for crafting compelling stories.

In the course of our explorations, some themes that may arise include:

The truth in fiction: Listening for how stories communicate something about who we are and what we are experiencing (perhaps something that only stories could communicate?). Where do we see ourselves in a story? Which characters do we identify with? What significance do we find in objects (the forgotten book) and locations (the attic of the new house)?
Stories as connection: Getting to know each other through reflecting on how we are moved and inspired by stories. What are our favourite stories? What do they touch in us? What role do stories play in our lives?
The stories of our lives: Reflecting on how we tell stories about ourselves and our pasts. What are the stories we have been telling? What might be some different ways of telling those stories? Can living itself be seen as a practice of improvising the story of our lives (individually and collectively)?
The art of co-creation: Practicing skills that can be used both in storytelling and in all forms of relationship. When are we called to lead, and when to follow? What are the forms of leadership and following that are most helpful? What is the healthy balance between order and chaos, predictability and surprise?

About the facilitator -

Will Jefferson is a philosopher, a facilitator and a theatrical improviser. He leads Relational Mindfulness (Relatefulness) with The Relateful Company, and offers 1:1 sessions to individuals to develop their skills in mindfulness, communication and creativity. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Oxford, and wrote his dissertation on the moral significance of empathy. His love for improvising stories was sparked when he became a founding member of an improv comedy group in Oxford, and he has performed in more than 40 shows. In 2019 he co-directed an improvised play called Family Secrets at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. During the COVID years, he devised and directed an improvised fantasy radio play called A Quest on Request.