Over the course of our month of gratitude we have been working on our mindful gratitude.
We have made a list of 100 things we can be grateful for, we have created a gratitude garden, and we have talked about how to hold one gratitude in our minds for 20 seconds.
Hopefully by this point in our month you and your class have begun a gratitude routine.
Hopefully you are daily journaling, talking about, or holding in your mind at least 3 things you are grateful for in your lives.
The next mindful step is to think about a person with whom we would like to write a gratitude note.
The video attached is from Soul Pancake. If you want to show your class some of it, I recommend previewing, there are a couple words to watch out for around 5 minutes 15 seconds. It is a great video that shows an experiment in extending gratitude. This takes us back to our first lesson with the 3E.
We need to emote: feel our gratitude, then we need to exercise it: hold the thought in our head and then show with our actions we are grateful, and then we need to express our gratitude: we need to let others know we are grateful for them and the things they do.
If you watched the whole video, then you have learned that the during the experiment the person who was the least happy at the start was the happiest at the end.
What if you took time this week to have your students write out gratitude notes and then you helped them make phone calls, walk to another class, or mail a letter out? What if the least happy student in your class could mindfully learn to be happier?
I know that it seems impossible to take a few minutes out of a tightly scheduled day, but what if 30 minutes of a gratitude lesson made your class happier? What if those 30 minutes you took out of your time one day helped you later in the week…or later that day? What if kindness spread in your class and those 30-minute stopped six, five minute arguments? What if you got the time back in peaceful and caring ways?
You can start small and help your students work on a SmileGram to share with someone. (I made some and have attached a copy in an email to all!)
I challenge us all to help warm the school with kindness and gratitude. I challenge us all to mindfully think of one person we are grateful for, write them a note, and the give it to them...or better yet, read it to them.
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