It was a rowdy group tonight, brought on partly I think by the movie itself. The movie was so quirky and funny that the humor just carried over into the discussion. There was a strong theme during the discussion throughout many of the questions (Questions 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 11) about how much we care about and love ourselves, and how our feelings about ourselves are influenced by the criticism and commentary of others.
My favorite part of the evening occurred right at the end of the discussion, when we were talking about Question 3 (being adorable). One of the participants decided that she needed to reinforce the idea in her mind that she is in fact adorable, so she threw up her hands and said "I'm adorable!" Then she nudged the person to her left, to get her to do the same. She yelled "I'm adorable too!" That started a football-game-style "wave," where all of us threw up our hands one after the other and joyously claimed that we were also adorable. I enjoyed that feeling, powerful and alive.
We all got so much into the mood that after the discussion ended and everyone was milling around before going home, someone started practicing an "adorable walk," which was picked up by others until everyone was strutting their stuff across the floor, practicing how to act adorable. That's the first time anything like that has happened here, but I feel pretty confident that "adorable" will be a frequent word here at the Center for the next several weeks.
Here are the questions: