Let Gratitude Grow

November is our month of gratitude. There is not a better time to put into practice some mindful gratitude.

Much like mindfulness, gratitude can help our students with neuroplasticity (the ability for the brain to change and improve).

Remembering back to our beginning mindful education, we know that the prefrontal cortex in our brain is not fully formed until our early 20s. This means that our students biologically will struggle with filtering our negative thoughts and replacing them with positive thoughts. 

This is where our mindfulness comes in, helping our students work on growing and building up their prefrontal cortex.  Mindfulness is training our brain to be aware, without judgment, and then learning to let go of negative and create more positive.

A daily practice of gratitude can help remap connections in our brains. Much like mindfulness gratitude is a practice to help build up our prefrontal cortex.

Gratitude can help heal childhood wounds.

We have been exploring the reality that our classes are filled with high ACEs scores and students who do not know how to be courageous due to limited vulnerability.

Practicing mindful gratitude is a task that involves 3 Es. Emote, Express, Exercise. Take time to pause each day, bring to mind at least three things you are grateful for, note these things, and then embrace the feeling of gratitude toward these things.

Emote means to feel with great passion or to theatrically feel the emotions.

Express means to let others know what you are grateful for, share your gratitude with others, say it out loud, or write it down.

Exercise means to practice your gratitude and make a commitment to daily add to your gratitude list.

For the month of November as we focus on gratitude, I encourage you to take time to practice mindful gratitude with your class.

I challenge you to create a list, journal, or your own gratitude garden and have students list daily a gratitude.

I also encourage everyone to work on a flower for the school Gratitude Garden.

Let’s help gratitude grow in our students and ourselves.