Happiness & Inner peace
Our neighborhood is filled with the most fabulous trees and I can't help myself from commenting on each one of them as I walk everyday. The other day I commented on how fun it would be if we too could change colors and take on the characteristics of each season. This idea stayed with me as I walked back and reflected on the changing seasons we humans experience. It also inspired the free printable pages as a beautiful exercise of gratitude, appreciation, creativity, imagination, reflection, and learning how to make the most of each moment and season.
Suggestions:
- Use as a creative and fun activity to have the children draw themselves as if they embodied each season.
- Use as an activity to think about the lessons of each season.
- Use all at once or one per season.
- Use as an outdoor activity.
- Have fun with it!
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Ancient Hawaiian wisdom teaches us that we are all born with a Bowl of Light. This light is what helps us grow.
It inspires us and fuels our energy and life. You can think of it as an inner light bulb that helps you shine.
When we make good choices, our bowl is filled with light and we can share that light with others.
When we make poor choices, we fill our bowl with stones. These stones weigh our bowl down and hide the light
and it can no longer shine. We must then empty our bowl out so that we can let our light shine again.
Suggestions:
- Research more about the legend and talk about it
- Use as a way to talk about our inherent goodness and qualities.
- Use as a coloring page and discuss the questions together. Come up with your own examples.
- Use in workshops.
How do we help our children deal with the mental and emotional load they are carrying during this stressful time?
- We deal with our own mental and emotional loads first.
- We talk about it.
- We use tools to help facilitate these discussions.
Suggestions:
​- Use as a conversation tool to talk about the importance of examining what we may be carrying mentally and emotionally.
- Discuss the suggestions.
- Use the blank version to explore what we may be carrying and how we can put that load down. Blank version can be used in classrooms or in any language.
Teaching children about emotional well-being gets a little easier if we can use a concept that they may already be familiar with, like the piggy bank.
With this free printable, we can discuss the importance of taking care of our emotional well-being. We can come up with examples of what happens when we are running on empty, or always withdrawing, as well as what filling up looks like. This is a perfect way to demonstrate how small repetitive actions can have a big impact.
By placing these visuals where they can serve as daily reminders, we teach from a place of example.
Suggestions:
​- Use as a conversation tool to talk about the importance of filling up our emotional piggy bank.
- Write down examples of how we can add to our emotional bank.
- Use as needed.
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Imagine if we could teach our children the ability to quiet down and listen. Call it mindfulness or meditation, call it fishing for intuition or listening to your soul… It doesn’t matter what you call it, as long as you listen when it calls to you.
Here are examples of what this process might include:
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I find places that nourish my soul and spend time in nature.
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I spend time by myself.
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I plant my feet into the ground and imagine deep roots growing from them.
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I quiet my brain down. I imagine myself changing the radio station so that it can be tuned into a quieter station. I may still be hearing the noises, but I imagine it to be background noise and let it be.
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I breathe in and out.
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I imagine an open space inside me where answers, whispers of truth, guidance and intuition reside.
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I flow in the moment and open myself to hearing and listening.
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I am grateful for time spent in the quiet space.
Suggestions:
​- Use as part of a bigger discussion on the importance of listening to our inner voice and being able to quiet down so that we can hear.
Summer is almost here and my wish for all of us is to slow down a little and take the time to see each other. To declutter and simplify our lives so that we have more time for creating meaningful connections with our friends and community.
This free printable helps us set simple positive goals during the summer time to increase connection, self-care and mindfulness.
Suggestions:
​- Print one for each member of the family and post all the papers somewhere where they can be seen. Spend the summer supporting and encouraging each member to accomplish their goals.
- Make one for the family as a goal of increasing mindfulness and connection.
​- Use in the classroom to encourage your students to create meaningful goals and have connective experiences during the summer.
- Use as needed.
Three free printable to have conversations and explore strategies around stress triggers.
Suggestions:
​-Use with children and teenagers.
- Use as part of therapy.
​- Use to discuss what stress triggers are and what steps we can do to help ourselves
5 Love tokens a day! You decide what a love token represents for you. It could be a half hour of yoga, ten minutes of quiet time, meditation, reading a few pages in silence, having a special meal. The main element of love tokens is that they fill you up with positive energy and emotions.
Suggestions:
- Decide as a family (or classroom) how many love tokens you wish to add to your daily habits.
- Write down what each token will represent. Be specific.
- Assemble the box and place the tokens inside once they have been achieved.
- Repeat daily.
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Make your own inspirational and personalized bookmarks with the qualities/ways that help you share your light with others.
Suggestions:
- Discuss what sharing our light means to each one.
- Discuss whether or not we have a choice over our actions and words when faced with challenging situations.
- Print on cardboard and give each child one bookmark to finish.
- Use as reminders that we always have a choice in how we show and share our inner light with the world.
- Use to discuss consciousness and intention.
- Use with affirmations.
- Use as needed.
We know what kindness is supposed to look like and yet we often forget that we need to start with ourselves. Kindness towards ourselves can look like and mean something very different to each of us. Depending on when and where the question is asked, the answer will change. Whatever the answer is for you, it is a question worth asking.
Suggestions:
- Discuss how being kind to ourselves is the first step towards any other form of kindness.
- Discuss how depending on our needs, kindness can mean and look like something different each time.
- Print and keep as a visual reminder of the importance of kindness.
- Fill up when needed and see what comes up for you.
- Do as a family and have each person fill up a section.
- Use as part of therapy.
- Use as needed.
Little love notes to write ourselves in times of need. These notes can help us change our inner dialogue over time to something kinder and more in tune with our true selves. Write a few in advance and keep them in a secret place for you to access when needed or keep them blank and use to re-balance the negative thoughts into something more positive when necessary.
Suggestions:
- Discuss the importance of loving ourselves as an essential step towards happiness.
- Color and cut.
- Write little love notes, reminders that you are loved, short anecdotes that remind you that you are loved, or kind words to keep around for times when we forget.
- Write love notes for other family members or friends.
- Use as part of therapy.
- Use at needed.
A visual reminder that we can all take small steps to intentionally influence the direction of our day.
Suggestions:
- Place in front of your door at home and have each family member pick one paper strip before leaving the house or entering the classroom.
- Place in front of your classroom and have the students take one at the start of each week.
- Blank version available for you to make your own or have children write their own needs depending on the challenges they are facing.
- Keep papers as reminders.
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Summer is a time for new or different experiences. For giving ourselves time to finish something long overdue, or for filling up our inner emotional well with wonderful memories.
Suggestions:
- Use your list as a conversation starter to explore the benefits of different types of experiences.
- Use to explore nature and have fun.
- Add to or create your own list and try to do things that challenge you or push you beyond your own comfort level.
- Use to have conversations about living in the present moment and enjoying the gifts of each season.
- Use as you wish!
Bags of delight to increase those moments of laughter and joy!
Suggestions:
- Use in the classroom to lighten the mood on Friday afternoons. Give each child a few cards and have them write a couple of clean jokes to create a fun deck of cards.
- Use at home by challenging each other with funny things to do or keeping an idea bank of fun activities.
- Host a party where each family you invite has to bring a deck of delight and get ready to laugh!
- Come up with your own use for these cards!
A beautiful and simple reminder that all love starts with self-love. A great way to talk about the many facets of love with your child and how love relates to happiness. Print, cut, assemble and personalize by adding your own affirmations.
Suggestions:
- Talk about how loving ourselves is the first step towards happiness.
- Write your own words and keep as reminders for times when we forget.
- Share your finished product at school or with others.
Help children stay in the flow (or present) by sharing these focus and emotional re-alignment tools. A great way to help kids who have a hard
time letting go and moving past certain events.
Suggestions:
- Use as discussion tools when you see a child having a hard time with letting go of something that happened in the past.
- Make your own list of what works for you.
- Use with children who are always distracted as a way to help them come back to the present situation on their own.
