The Practice
Action urges—the urge to act in a certain way when we feel a particular emotion—are a universal human experience. Sometimes these action urges work for us and fit the demands of the situation, such as jumping up to grab a rebound during a basketball game. Other times, acting on our urges can get us into a sticky situation, such as screaming at a friend in frustration or avoiding an anxiety-provoking project.
Learning how to “surf” our urges—in other words, to let them rise and fall without acting on them—is a very helpful tool to cultivate. To help your student learn this skill, first briefly teach them about action urges and then practice “surfing” them.
The Language
Here are some sample ways to introduce and practice urge surfing with your students:
Sometimes when we feel mad, we really want to yell and stomp! But that can get us in trouble. Let’s learn a new tool to try. Instead of yelling and stomping, we’re going to take a few breaths and notice how the urge to yell and stomp slowly gets smaller if we don’t act on it. When we “surf” our urges and don’t act on them, we usually feel proud of ourselves and are less likely to make a poor choice.
Have you ever seen waves at the beach? They get big and then small again, big and then small again. Our urges—or the things we want to do when we have a big feeling—are like waves. They might start off very big, but if we wait and don’t do anything, they will eventually get small again. Let’s practice “surfing” our urges and watching how they get big and then small like the waves. It can be helpful to use another tool like taking a few slow breaths while you wait for your “wave” to get small.
Humans are all programmed to act a certain way when we have particular emotions. For example, we are all hard-wired to want to withdraw and isolate ourselves when we’re sad. Sometimes it makes sense to act on that urge, but other times it doesn’t fit the situation—like if you’re in class trying to participate in a group project! In those times, it’s really helpful to be able to notice the urge and then mindfully decide not to act on it. It turns out that if we can just “surf” our urge instead of acting, the urge rises and falls like a wave and will eventually get smaller.
A good way to practice urge surfing is to practice resisting a simple, biological urge for a minute or two. Some ideas:
Put a piece of sour candy on your tongue and resist the urge to swallow
Hold your arms out at your sides and resist the urge to drop them
Hold a tasty treat next to your lips and resist the urge to eat it
Thanks for checking out The Toolkit! Hang loose, friends, and we'll catch you on the next wave!
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