The Practice
As with any soft skill, gratitude is something that we can cultivate, stoke, and reinforce through practice. And actually, science shows us that spending time doing so is correlated with increased happiness, decreased depressive systems, and increased optimism. But telling kids that they should be grateful only seems useful if what we want to cultivate is eye rolls. Instead, it can be useful to create a simple format, structure, game, or challenge in which this skill can be expressed.
There is no time like the present (or Thanksgiving week) to start incorporating gratitude practice into your routine! Below you’ll find some helpful language linked to various gratitude activities that can help frame the powerful act of appreciation.
The Language
Here is some sample language to engage your students in a mindful gratitude practice:
It can feel good to slow down and think about what we are thankful—or grateful—for. Let’s do a scavenger hunt in the classroom/living room to find things or people that make us each feel happy. Then we will each share something we noticed and why we feel grateful for it.
I love to hear about your day and what is important to you! Will you practice noticing a few things each day that you are grateful for—in other words, things that make you feel happy or loved or safe? Then at night, you can tell me what you noticed and why it is important to you.
When stress is high and it feels like everything is going wrong, it can be helpful to pause and reflect on what is going “right.” This doesn’t make the stressful situations magically go away of course, but zooming out and noticing the many things we can feel grateful for, even when stressed, can help shift our perspective. Let’s take the next 3 minutes to each independently write down what we feel grateful for.
This is a great time of year to pause and reflect on the many things in our lives that we feel grateful for. Let’s go around the room and each share 3 things we feel grateful for. Notice what emotions come up as you reflect on your gratitudes and also hear about others’. Where do you feel gratitude in your body? How might you tap into those feelings at other times in your day or year?
(For MS): Sometimes it can feel like everything is going wrong, and we can start to see the world through negative lenses. But we can remove those lenses by engaging in a, “What Isn’t Awful Right Now?” meditation. All we have to do is sit here and make note of anything that arises that isn’t totally awful. For example, the sound of the wind isn’t awful…the feeling of the breath isn’t awful…the relaxation we might feel by doing this practice isn’t awful…What else do you notice that might help us attune to the neutral or interesting aspects of this moment?
Thanks for reading another edition of The Toolkit!
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