Welcome to the crowdfunding and signup page for the eight-week online summer course “I’m glad you interrupted“. For every person that has been part of an earlier season, a new person to this series can join. This way we grow gradually and in integrity. The course starts Sunday June 1st 2025…if the crowdfunding succeeds 🤞
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Looking forward to meeting you! Questions? Signal/Whatsapp Yves: +31 614-189-776 or Laura Lee +1 585-754-3594.
Guides
Yves from Amsterdam
(click to read more)
Number of group facilitations: 10 years of 250+ classes with many ups and downs.
On a bad day: Cold-hearted and demanding towards people close to me, feeling despair about the state of the world. Teach to people who didn’t ask for it 🙁
Brings joy: Making music together, singing, intimate conversations, physical intimacy, collaborating on projects that increase compassion, care and clarity in this world.
Learning edge in conversations:
Lightheartedness and transforming all tensions in the moment.
Learning edge in life:
Taking enough rest to live and work in integrity. Show myself fully when I’m in a position of less structural power.
Needs support from this crowdfunding: This financial support goes to giving people money so I can have a roof over my head, food on the table, bus tickets, small gifts for people in need and for my loved ones, and an occasional treat for myself. I’m moving more towards a world where money is not an obstacle to what we truly need and what we truly want to give. So I also accept support in more physical ways, if there’s something you have to give that you don’t need any longer. More about this in my Giving-and-Receiving-Profile.
Inspired by the work of: The Buddha, Miki Kashtan, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and the people I meet every day 🙂
One thing not a lot of people know about you: I dropped out of law school when I was 20.
Laura Lee from Rochester
(Click to read more)
Number of group facilitations: 15 years facilitating various in-person conversation circles around poetry, philosophy, social psychology, women’s circle, & restorative circles with young children.
On a bad day: Sensory overload, inflexibility, perfectionism, dissociated from surroundings, ruminating, migraine, sarcastic.
Learning edge in conversations:
Self-connection, presence, care over taking responsibility for others.
Learning edge in life:
Balance: between focus and shifting interest to learn new skills, between enthusiasm and rest.
Brings joy: Time outside together, singing together, making all sorts of things with my hands, sharing food, writing, community building, loving friendships.
Needs support from this crowdfunding: I’d like to request financial support to help me purchase a newer used laptop to replace my current 15-year-old one, which is no longer able to support me fully. Also, this support helps me to support someone else to take care of my son every now and then, so I can replenish, while my partner is away for a month.
Inspired by the work of: Robin Wall Kimmerer, Akilah Richards, Terra Vance, Czesław Miłowsz.
One thing not a lot of people know about you: I grew up in a small hunting cabin in rural New York.
What the 8 weeks will look like
There will be three pillars on our journey: A Sunday class, a daily practice, and inspiration.
Sunday Class
We gather in our virtual studio on Zoom at 10am New York time, 4pm Amsterdam time and 730pm India time. We talk through the topic of the week, do exercises in pairs and celebrate our interruptions. Class takes about two hours.
Daily Practice
After each class you take your notes home and during your morning routine you dedicate 2-10 minutes to practicing what you’ve learned.
Inspiration
During the week you receive videos, cartoons, poems and even a small magazine in your e-mail box for inspiration. Video example #1, #2 and #3.
Our shared intention
To work well as a group we need a shared intention and a shared dedication. This will be our shared intention:
We treat ourselves and others with care, no matter what the other person does, says or thinks.
This means we want to come from the place of the green people.
To see more clearly when we’re on the see-saw and gently get off it, we dedicate ourselves to interrupting ourselves and others with care each time we sense more care and dignity is needed. The way we grow in this capacity we:
- See our habits that stand in the way of interrupting.
- See situations in which we would like to interrupt.
- Practice interruptions during the weekly class.
- Write our insights and sentences on a practice sheet.
- Practice at least 2 minutes every morning from the practice sheet.
What people say
Questions and answers
What is required to join this series?
No money is required to join this class. These five things are required:
1. Feeling a deep YES to practicing care towards yourself and others, regardless of what happens.
2. Attending a minimum of 6 out of 8 Sunday classes.
3. Meeting the morning out-loud practice requirement. We don’t expect you to integrate the practice in your morning routine right away, but support you to do so gradually.
4. Write a weekly reflection to the guides with one celebration, one downer, and one question you are pondering.
5. At least two years experience with a daily, spiritual practice like yoga asanas, breath meditation, journaling or prayer.
Will there be a recording available of the classes?
No, we want to stimulate people to come to the class to create a team spirit. Also it seems most people change their behavior when they know they are being recorded. We want to stimulate authenticity and belonging in our classes, and that seems to go better without recording.
What happens after the course?
After the course you’ll receive an invitation to join the group of card-carrying members. This is a group of people who dedicate themselves to coming from a place of care, no matter what. You could see this 8-week course as an orientation period, to see if you’d like to join this group of people. No money will be required after the class to join the club.
What skills do I need to join?
Having experience with meditation, yoga, nonviolent communication can be a help…and it can also be a hindrance 😉 What seems to help is some kind of dedication to a spiritual path, although we do not require that and all traditions and self developed paths are welcome.
How much does the journey cost?
The course will be free of charge for participants if the crowdfunding succeeds. This way we can give this class away freely, without money being an obstacle for people to join. This is an important value for us and helps us to live in line with the principle of giving and receiving freely.
What will happen to the money if the crowdfunding fails?
Then all donations will be refunded on June 1st 2025.
What is the history of this course?
Patricia, the co-founder of this series, sent an email in August 2023 to an email list that Yves was subscribed to. In this email Patricia requested support with interrupting, because Patricia wanted to get better at it. Yves replied enthusiastically because he had done 8 years of research on interrupting. Together they worked for four months to prepare for the first 8-week series called “I’m glad you interrupted.” Because the participants and the guides enjoyed the series so much, Yves decided to ask participant Laura Lee to join him for the second part, as Patricia had already committed to another course. Laura Lee and Yves developed, together with about 12 participants the material further. Together they have given four online series and developed the zine “The Daily Interrupter“.
What will the weekly topics be?
Each week we focus on a principle you can use in your conversations. The three main focus points for this season will be:
We want to be straightforward and gentle:
Can we ask for love, kindness and understanding? Can we straight-up ask for what we want, even if we think we won’t get it?
We promote distributed leadership:
How can we interrupt in a way that promotes power-with, without us becoming “dominant” in the process? How can we speak up for more care for the whole?
We’re neither masochistic nor sadistic: Understanding the cycle of self-blame and self-pity, to increase compassion for ourselves and others. We see how punishing and reward reap havoc in ourselves and others, and what to do to replace these dynamics.
The ten principles we used in the past version will be refreshed during the course. To give you a taste, these were the principles we covered in earlier parts of I’m glad you interrupted:
1. We treat ourselves and others with care, no matter what.
2. The response we get is a reflection of our own energy.
3. We don’t talk faster than we can feel.
4. The most used empathy request is stimulating our emotion in others.
5. The way through anger, helplessness and blame is grieving.
6. We don’t blame others for us not speaking up.
7. We end our sentences with a question instead of a period.
8. We fully accept the consequences of our choices.
9. We choose acceptance over reassurance.
10. We simply ask for what we need.
What is your vision with this journey, why are you doing this?
What we are co-creating is an interdependent, light-weight web of mutual support for people who want to cultivate thinking, speaking and acting with care, no matter who it is or what happens.
I have another question, concern or suggestion, are you open to hearing from me?
Yes, send a message to Yves.