Turning Thanksgiving into ThanksLiving

Tomorrow is my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving. For me, it is not about eating a lot of turkey or watching football, although those are both fun. Thanksgiving is about being with family and being Thankful, being profoundly grateful for all we have and all we are. If we embrace gratitude and make it part of our daily lives, we turn it into ThanksLiving, enjoying it every day of the year.

Here is a fun activity for Thanksgiving a student just gave me. She said her family will celebrate Thanksgiving by writing down a gratitude on a piece of paper. Then, they put them in a jar and mix them up. Finally, each person picks one out and tries to guess who wrote the gratitude.

Another Thanksgiving activity I am going to take part in tomorrow is writing a gratitude letter to someone I never properly thanked and then delivering it. Calling them or mailing the letter works well, if you won’t see them face to face. I have a wonderful sister who consistently writes these kinds of letters and reminds us all how powerful a hand written letter can be.

Read this report from the Harvard Health Publication on the happiness this act will bring for up to month after Thanksgiving:

”Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, tested the impact of various positive psychology interventions on 411 people, each compared with a control assignment of writing about early memories. When their week's assignment was to write and personally deliver a letter of gratitude to someone who had never been properly thanked for his or her kindness, participants immediately exhibited a huge increase in happiness scores. This impact was greater than that from any other intervention, with benefits lasting for a month.”

Check out the entire article at:

http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletters/Harvard_Mental_Health_Letter/2011/November/in-praise-of-gratitude

Last, here are 30 Gratitude Activities from www.gratefulness.org to turn Thanksgiving into ThanksLiving. My son and I just picked out an activity from this list and sent our first Thanksgiving E-card to my wife.

Daily Grateful Living Practice Ideas

Here are 30 Daily Grateful Living Practices for you to try. These practices range from actions that will take you only a moment to those that will take a larger commitment of your time. If there is one practice on this list that you would like to try every day, do so. Or try a new one each day. Or switch it up. What matters is that you do something every day to build the habit of intentionally directing your attention to notice and appreciate the gifts of your life.

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1. Close your eyes. Take a few, very deep breaths – all the way out and all the way in. Notice how your breathing so often takes care of itself…just breath moving itself through you – keeping you alive – just keeping you alive. Commit to NOT taking this miracle for granted. 
2. Every night before you go to sleep, take an inventory of the things for which for which you are grateful. Let them percolate through your mind and calm your body. Write down at least five things that matter to you.
3. Engage in an act of kindness today. Notice if you are pulled toward kindness for a stranger more than someone close to you, or vice-versa. Either way, offer your kindness with no strings attached and no need for recognition. Truly. Notice the completeness and fullness of letting go of needing something back.
4. Bring to mind someone for whom you are grateful. Savor this image or memory. Try to allow the image to be held by all the cells of your body, not just in your mind. Notice what happens in your emotions and body when you do this.
5. At any point during the day, reflect upon one important thing that you have learned in this day. Write down what you have learned.
6. Send an e-card or card letting someone know that you are thinking of them today. Expect nothing in return. Just share appreciation and acknowledgement.
7. Sit quietly and allow a sense of peace to enter your heart. From this place, light a (virtual) candle or a candle in your space. Create a grateful intention and settle into the peace of residing in gratefulness for a few, precious moments.
8. Start your day with an intention to show up absolutely whole-heartedly to everything you do today. Notice at the end of the day if anything changed because of this intention.
9. Send an e-card or written message of peace and well-wishes to someone.
10. Make the decision to see your most challenging moments today as opportunities. What might be making itself known or available to you in hard times? How can you cultivate even small sentiments of gratefulness for the gifts that come from struggle? Reflect on this at the beginning and the end of the day. 
11. Turn all of the “waiting” moments of the day into moments of heightened awareness. Try to be fully present in these moments to what might be blessings in disguise. Notice that time “between” things is a huge gift. Enjoy the gift.
12. If you share a meal with others today, before or while you eat, ask each person to share something for which they are grateful. If eating alone, bring to mind something for which you are grateful and dedicate your meal to that “great fullness.”
13. Choose a poem that speaks to you and read it a few times in a day. Let it awaken a new experience each time you read it. Notice how no poem is the same poem twice if you read it with true presence. Share the poem with someone.
14. Notice your hands. Think of all they do for you. Can you imagine what it would be like to offer them your true appreciation at a host of moments each day? Notice how much they help to facilitate what you love in life. Take care of them.
15. Reach out to someone you know is going through a difficult time. You do not have to have the right things to say, just connect in a meaningful way. 
16. Send an e-card thanking someone for simply being in your life.
17. Watch Br. David’s video “A Good Day.” Share it with a friend.
18. Enter the meditative space of a labyrinth, or walk a short path meditatively somewhere near you. If you move as a mindfulness practice, you can go back and forth on the same path and it will always generate new horizons. Notice how amazing it is to move – no matter how you do that.
19. Before you eat, take a moment to feel grateful to all those who contributed to creating your meal. The farmer who grew the vegetables, the hens that laid the eggs, the workers who harvested the wheat and stocked the food, etc. 
20. While racing somewhere, take 30 seconds to stop, take a breath, and look at the sky, or at the environment around you. What was begging for your attention?
21. Do something truly generous for someone else today. Expand into your most full-blown expression of generosity. Give as if your life depended on it, and then try giving a little more. Stretch into your capacity. Seek nothing in return.
22. Each time you turn on the tap, pause to feel grateful that you have access to running water, unlike so many in the world today. 
23. Tell someone whom you love that you love them – and offer that comment a larger context by spelling out some of the reasons why you are grateful for them.
24. Ask someone a sincere question. There is hardly a more precious gift than true inquiry and deep listening. Where is gratefulness in this?
25. Make a financial contribution to a non-profit organization doing work that you value. Accompany that gift with a note of appreciation for how hard people are working to advance missions in which you believe. Feel interconnected. 
26. Ask “What is the opportunity for gratefulness in this moment?” Try this when things are not going as you had planned. 
27. Give someone a grateful hug. Actually give the hug – don’t take a hug. Ask first. 
28. Pick out five things that you do not need anymore, and give them away with joy.
29. Put a bag in your pocket, go for a walk, and make a corner of the world more beautiful by picking up the litter along the way. Your appreciation of the earth will be contagious to others. 
30. 775 million people in the world are illiterate. Feel your good fortune as you read this sentence, and as you read anything today.

Seven Tips for Staying Out of Survival Mode

How do people get in survival mode? Well, life is demanding. With all the responsibilities and demands on our time and energy, it is easy to feel like you do not have any energy left for anyone including yourself.

People in survival mode are just barely getting by day-to-day. We do the minimum because we do not feel like they have the energy to do more. There seems to be no joy and not much gratitude, light or laughter in our lives. As a teacher, when I am in survival mode, not only do I affect myself but my 28 students. 

We all get run down and slip into survival mode sometimes. If you are going through a major change, like having a baby, or if you are sick or have a major family crisis, you may enter survival mode. That is OK. But, it is not OK to stay there. The next question is, “How do you we get out of survival mode?” 

When we are in survival mode, we may look at our life and try to make new priorities, taking care of ourselves in new ways. Here are some tips to change:

1.  Try New Experiences/ Welcome Mistakes as Learning Experiences

Don’t let yourself get caught in a rut. Survival mode is one of the worst ruts of all. The only difference between a rut and a grave is how deep it is. Make opportunities to be spontaneous, adventurous and playful every day. My 6 year old and my 4^th grade students give me lessons in this daily. Get out of your comfort zone. Remember that the worst that can happen is that you will make a new mistake instead of repeating the same one that didn't work for you in the past.
Don’t listen to the lie that you don’t have enough time or energy. New experiences create energy and allow us more time for everything. I know myself how can be paralyzing and I fight it daily. I keep in mind what a wise boss told me, “I know you are not trying new things because you aren't making mistakes.” Fearlessly try new things and learn from those mistakes as you grow out of survival mode.

2.  Be Aware of Your Internal Dialogue

Listen to what you are saying to yourself.  Some of that internal dialogue may be keeping you stuck. You may have a tape recording going on in your head you are not even aware of, like “You will never find someone to love you” or “You are not good looking enough” or “You can’t make anything work in your life.” Maybe you have even convinced yourselves that you need to stay in survival mode for some reason. First, be aware of these negative messages, and then start to say the opposite to yourself, like “I am a beautiful child of God” or “I will keep working on myself and love will become abundant in my life,” or “I will make a difference in someone else’s life today and improve myself.” Start writing your own script for your future.

3.  Practice Gratitude 

Survival mode blocks us from seeing all the positive things in our lives. Cultivate an awareness the many gifts in your life. If you are reading this, you are fortunate to have a computer, a connection to the internet and the ability to read.  Realize that a vast majority of the population of the planet would change places with you in an instant. 

Start a gratitude list to increase your awareness of the things in your life that are going right. Let yourself be surprised by the good things that were there but just out of view. What we focus on in life contributes to how we feel about ourselves and life. Thus, focus on all that you have and watch it all grow. Take more action; write a gratitude letter to someone who has helped you. Deliver it in person and let that person know how much they mean to you and feel yourself growing out of survival mode.

4.  Exercise/Get into Nature/Try Yoga

Exercise helps generate positive neurotransmitters that can help catapult you out of survival mode. Recent studies have shown that when someone is in nature, positive neurotransmitters are released in the brain. Interestingly, in a prison in Oregon, they painted a realistic mural of a forest on the exercise yard wall and noticed that the violence among prisoners went down dramatically. Get into nature, try yoga or find something that you enjoy and find someone to do it with for support. Survival mode is a form of a prison, so bring some real nature or exercise into your life and feel the positive effects. I love to ride my mountain bike and find it always get me out of whatever rut I may have fallen into.

5.  Help Others/Give of Yourself

When you help others in big and small ways, you are helping yourself get out of survival mode. You can feel the profound joy of giving freely with no expectations. It all comes back to you in countless ways. Altruistic giving has been shown to increase positive neurotransmitters in the giver, receiver and anyone observing the act of giving. People who volunteer or care for others consistently are happier and less depressed. So, give to someone close to you and also practice those random acts of kindness. A simple suggestion is to tell someone you love how much you love them and why you treasure them in your life. Do someone a good turn today and don’t get found out. 

6.  Be in the Moment/Embrace Silence

All we have is this moment, but much of the time we waste it by ruminating over the past or stressing over the future. This keeps us in survival mode. We can cultivate mindfulness by giving attention to whatever we are doing. When you feel your mind wandering, take a deep breath and gently bring it back to the moment. If you are washing the dishes, be present washing the dishes and enjoy the warm water and the slick feel of soap. More importantly, be present to those around you by really listening. To get a better perspective on life, take time to sit quietly every day without electronic distractions. Even just a few moments of pure silence can refresh a stressed soul

7.  Forgive/ Let Go of the Past/ Be Responsible for Yourself

Harboring resentment only hurts you and keeps you stuck in survival mode. I like the saying that resentments are like stray cats: if you don’t feed them, they go away. Don’t let others rent free space in your head. Forgive and let go.  If you let go a little, you get a little relief.  If you let go a lot, you get a lot of relief, and if you let go completely, you are FREE.

Don’t blame others for things lacking in your life. Don’t give them that power. Take responsibility and take action and help yourself get out of survival mode. We are not victims, we are volunteers. I tell my students we control 3 things and they all start with the letter A: attitude, action and awareness. Let go of those things you do not control. Blaming others and harboring self-pity steals your energy and joy. Be the change you want to see in your world. 


Finally, the list may seem daunting but you don’t have to change everything at once. To get started, choose the easiest of these tips for you and see how you can get unstuck from whatever is holding you back in life. Then go to the next step until you feel back in control. One mistake is not a failure but a step to learning. You can do this. 

Spiritual Wisdom from My Students

One of the first “Aha” moments I experienced in the classroom was when I realized that I could learn as much from the students as they could learn from me.  The entire teacher/student paradigm gets flipped as I watch, listen and try to understand my students.  After 10 years of teaching, I still remind myself of this.  This awareness brings a wonder back into my classroom.  As the school year goes on and the “Groundhog Days” happen, where the days can seem the same, this idea keeps me excited about the many gifts my students bring to the classroom every day.

As I reflect on this, I realize that some of the most inspiring and memorable moments are the spiritual lessons I learn from my students.  I will briefly relate two of these stories in this post and more later.  If you have any stories to share, please put them in the comments section or email them to me if you want to share them privately.

1.       Rose was a student who was extremely bright.  When the school year started, every day she would diligently complete her work and come to me and ask for extra math work.  I would give her math drills, word problems and enrichment exercises and she would happily smile. Then, one day I looked at her and said, “Rose, it is so good to see how much you love math.”  She looked surprised and said, “On no, math is my weakest subject.  So this summer, I told myself I would work really hard on math, taking every chance I got, so I could turn it into my best subject.”  She succeeded and it did not take long.  She was soon the best math student I had. 

In life, I find that I shy away from things that I do not think that I am good at.  But Rose demonstrated that by diving in and putting some extra effort into an area where I need to grow, I will succeed.  I still need to remind myself of this when I am confronted, almost daily, with areas in life that I shy away from instead of embracing.  Yesterday, my son said, “Daddy, come draw with me.”  I said, “I am not a good artist, I am more of a musician.”  But, I have said this a thousand times and I caught myself this time.  Instead, I sat down, grabbed a crayon and completed a self-portrait, enjoying every second.

One friend talks about “leaning into the pain.”  This is not a masochistic notion, it simply means realizing that when we do not want to do something and go ahead and do it anyway, we get stronger by working through the pain and taking action.

2.      One day in class, I overheard two students talking and one said, “I only got a 96 on that test, but you got a 100.”  The other student said, “My Dad always says, ‘Compare equals despair.’ So, let’s both be happy we got A’s.”  I loved that and asked the student to share that with the class.  After he shared, another student said, “I get it, if I tell another student what grade I got on a test, either I am going to feel bad or they will.”  I thought about this concept as it applies to our adult lives. 

Here is an example: I can be in a good mood and pull up to a red light and see a new, shiny car next to me.  Sometime I catch myself thinking, “That car looks so good, I wish I had that car.  That person looks so happy in that car.  They have it so much better than me.”  This thinking can snowball and go on and so on until my mood is not so great anymore, unless I aware of it and gently remind myself that “Compare does equal despair.”

This works on many levels. When I compare my insides with your outsides, I always lose.  I also realize that I don’t necessarily want that new, shiny car, but I want the feeling I think the new car will bring me.   It will only bring that feeling temporarily.  When I make this realization, I can then let it go and maybe even do a quick gratitude list about what I am grateful I have, like having an older car that is paid off. 

I once read, “Most unhappiness comes from comparing yourself to others.”  I do agree.  This week, my students had the spelling word, priceless.  When I was asked to explain it, I said, “Peace of mind is priceless.”  When I don’t compare myself to others, I do have much more peace of mind.

Here is a quote to end this blog:

“If you are depressed you are living in the past.

If you are anxious you are living in the future. 
If you are at peace you are living in the present.”

- Lao Tzu