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Exercises/Relationship Mapping/The Vulnerability Equation
Relationship Mapping

The Vulnerability Equation

Vulnerability is an uncomfortable emotion that is a powerful driver of bonds, connections, and belonging. Without being silly, shed your defenses and embrace yourself and your colleagues in a an exercise guaranteed to drive relationships to last for decades.

5 to 15 minutesTIME
Pairs, Small group (4-8)GROUP SIZE
ActiveENERGY
In person, RemoteSETTING
Medium cognitive loadCOGNITIVE LOAD
Strengthens Network Design This relationship mapping exercise strengthens Network Design, one of the eight Gathering Effectiveness pillars.

How to run it

  1. This exercise helps to guide the focus on embracing your vulnerability and being to share it with those around you
  2. As a large group, create a guiding principle statement about vulnerability and confidentiality
  3. to share, what isn't?
  4. In pairs, have participants sit knee-to-knee with prolonged eye contact 3 minutes
  5. When the 3 minutes are up, have one person spend 5 minutes sharing a story on the topic of love that
  6. they have experienced
Live facilitator

Run this exercise live

The facilitator console stays in this browser. Its QR handoff is a short-lived participant snapshot containing only public exercise instructions, phase, prompt, and timer state.

Prompts to use +

This exercise helps to guide the focus on embracing your vulnerability and being to share it with those around you

As a large group, create a guiding principle statement about vulnerability and confidentiality

In pairs, have participants sit knee-to-knee with prolonged eye contact 3 minutes

When the 3 minutes are up, have one person spend 5 minutes sharing a story on the topic of love that

Run this with your AI assistant +

Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or your own local model: paste this prompt and your AI will co-facilitate this exercise with you.

Adapt this exercise for my exact room. Exercise: The Vulnerability Equation. Readiness: Publishable Draft. Core moves: This exercise helps to guide the focus on embracing your vulnerability and being to share it with those around you; As a large group, create a guiding principle statement about vulnerability and confidentiality; In pairs, have participants sit knee-to-knee with prolonged eye contact 3 minutes; When the 3 minutes are up, have one person spend 5 minutes sharing a story on the topic of love that. Return a concise facilitator script with timing, wording, safety notes, and remote/in-person adjustments.

Origin unverified

  • Where we observed it: The strongest current observations come from Relationship Makers Handbook; aggregators are listed as additional observations, not origin proof. (1 source observed, including Relationship Makers Handbook.)
  • What that means: we track where an exercise has been observed in public sources. We do not claim to know who created it, or how popular it is.
  • No efficacy claims: appearing in this library is not a claim that the exercise is proven effective. Facilitator judgment and context decide whether it works for a given room.
  • Corrections: if you have evidence of an earlier or more accurate source, read our methodology and trust boundary and tell us.

Pairs well with