To You but from Who?

Objective

For group members to affirm one another in an indirect, fun manner.

Group Size

4 to 15 participants is ideal

Materials

1 envelope per person

Paper

Pens or pencils

Description

Give each person an envelope, pen or pencil, and several small slips of paper. Ask everyone

to put their name on an envelope and then pass their envelope to the person sitting next to them.

Once you receive your neighbor’s envelope, you write down an attribute that you admire

about that person on a slip of paper. Add your name and then place the paper in the envelope. Continue passing the envelopes around until everyone has written down a comment for everyone else in the group.

Once all of the envelopes are full, they should be passed to the leader. The leader then selects one of the envelopes and selects a comment to read out loud to that person, without reading the name of the person who wrote it. The person whom the comment was written about will then try to guess who wrote the comment, and if they guess correctly, they receive a point. The object is to be the one with the most points in the end.

Go around the circle reading one comment from each envelope before starting over with the

first person. Continue in this manner until all the comments are read from each person’s

envelope. After the game is finished, each person may collect their own envelope and keep it as a reminder of all their good qualities.

Discussion Prompts

1. How do you feel after hearing all those positive things about yourself?

2. Do you often hear positive things from others? How does this affect you? How does it affect the group?

3. Will you keep this envelope? Why or why not?

4. Why is it important for group members to affirm one another?

Variation

After everyone has written attributes down and filled the envelopes, redistribute the envelopes among the group members, so that each person takes turns reading a comment from the envelope that they have. This is simply a way to get everyone more involved in the process.