What is the Transformation Game? This was a question that exercised my mind considerably this summer as I had signed up to a weekend of ‘transformation’ in July.
My life had been a bit chaotic since I’d moved out of my house at the end of March It was being extended so that my partner and I would be able to live together, at last. Although I would be moving back into a bigger and, hopefully, better house when the building work was finished, it certainly felt like a loss at the moment. I felt unsettled and tense.
Usually, when I’m tense I go climbing. Focusing on one move at a time, placing one piece of protection at a time, keeps me in the ‘now’ for an extended period - a bit like meditation; and holding my partner’s ropes when it’s his turn to lead, means sitting, surrounded by rocks and mountains, with nothing to do, but pay out the rope – a bit like contemplation. Only at the same time that I was moving out of my house, an old knee injury flared up. Suddenly, I was struggling just to do my work as an outdoor education teacher, never mind climbing for fun. I saw a knee specialist who recommended keyhole surgery at the end of July followed by several weeks convalescence and I wasn’t looking forward to it. All in all, I felt stuck, in limbo, in need of psychological transformation so that I could move forward again.
The weekend was held at the Snowdonia Retreat near Dolwyddelan. In a past life, this was a dilapidated old hill farm, but it has been lovingly restored and now boasts very comfortable accommodation, a beautiful garden to relax in, and fantastic food. The game was to begin on the Friday evening and finish Saturday afternoon. When I arrived, I felt hassled, exhausted and tearful, but the warm welcome from Annette (who runs the Retreat) and the other game players, followed by a lovely meal, soon had me feeling much better.
I’ve known Annette for years and have been amazed and impressed by the way in which tragedies that would have crushed a lesser person, have been used by her as a springboard for personal development. She facilitated the game, with the other two players being a retired banking executive and a club owner.
So, to answer the question that I posed at the start of this article, the Transformation Game is a mixture of monopoly, tarot, and co-counselling; at least that was my experience of it. Like monopoly it is played on a board using a counter chosen by you for its significance, and moves are governed by the role of a dice. Instead of moving around the board and buying property, the aim of this game is to move through four different levels – the physical, the emotional, the mental and the spiritual until you have completed your ‘transformation. The transformation relates to an issue that you decide upon at the beginning of the game.
The Game has cards picked up by chance just like the ‘chance’ and ‘community chest cards in Monopoly. For me, this leads into the tarot connection. Just as tarot cards allow us to tune into stuff we don’t consciously know we know (if you see what I mean), the cards picked up on our journey round the board seemed to speak to us in quite an uncanny way, and gave us insights into the issues we were exploring and factors that might help us to resolve them. Some of the insights were uncomfortable, or not immediately accessible to the conscious mind, and this is where the co-counselling came in.
Having an experienced facilitator of the game is important and, at intervals throughout the game, Annette encouraged players to talk about their interpretations of the cards if they wanted to. When they were ‘stuck’, questions from other players often prompted further insights and the whole experience felt very supportive.
So, I arrived hassled, exhausted and tearful. I left having shed quite a lot more tears and feeling very tired, but these were tears of release, insight and transformation, and the tiredness was the sort that comes with a job well done. We also shared some laughs along the way!
Lun Roberts