Always say ‘yes’ to the present moment… Surrender to what is. Say ‘yes’ to life – and see how life starts suddenly to start working for you rather than against you.
Eckhart Tolle (*1948)
German-Canadian spiritual teacher
Freeze! That’s what you do with a flashlight. You freeze a current moment of the workshop by doing a quick round of all the participants. In contrast to brainstorming, you don’t want to have new ideas but get an idea of the current emotion or opinion of the group on a certain topic. Everybody states, in just one or two sentences, what he thinks about the given question. Usually, the statements should start with ‘I’; e.g. ‘I think that’s a good idea. Let’s do it!’
In comparison to a simple yes/no voting, you can get a more nuanced picture. You can of course also use one of the feedback technique for getting response to the current situation and group process. However, for getting an idea of what the emotional state of the group is it’s better to let participants express it in their own words instead of sticking a dot.
Use the flashlight according to your judgement spontaneously: whenever you think it’s needed. Of course you should take the feedback seriously. If they are all tired, have a break. If everybody says that you advance too quickly go a step slower etc.