It was Tuesday night, The Huddle, our mens’ meeting.
The subject of the meeting was acceptance.
There were many good comments. But one member nailed it.
“When I was in treatment,” he began, “we were in group sessions every day. One of the counsellors used toys and props in his presentations. It was clever; he emphasized points with rubber ducks, play hammers, hand puppets, and puzzles.”
“Amongst the props, he had a hula hoop. We had been there several days, and he had still not used the hula hoop. It just sat there.”
“Then one day, a fellow was complaining about the state of the world, politics, and the universe as he saw it. The counsellor reached for the hula hoop and put it on the floor. He called the fellow up, ‘stand in the center of the circle,’ he said. ‘Now, pick it up.’ The complainer stood holding the hula hoop at waist height.”
“Standing back, the counsellor said, ‘inside the hula hoop is all you can deal with; everything outside the hula hoop is out of your control. You better learn to accept it.’ We laughed. And the point was made.”
At the meeting, our Huddle member continued, “for me, if it is outside my hula hoop, it is out of my hands. All that I can deal with is inside the hula hoop. The rest I accept or ignore.”
At the meeting, most of us nodded in agreement; it was a great visual.
However, some of the younger members were puzzled. The next guy to share, with prominent earrings and tattoos, asked, “What’s a hula hoop?”
We tried to explain. We did our best. But I was not sure we succeeded. The skateboard generation had never seen a hula hoop.
The member who shared his hula hoop story, decided to show the younger members what a hula hoop looked like. He brought one to the next meeting and donated it to the group.
Now we have a prop; our hula hoop is at the front of the room. If someone is complaining about this, that, or the other thing, we toss him the hoop and remind him of the importance of acceptance.
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