Social-Emotional Learning: Self-Awareness

Linking feelings, values, and thoughts is an important part of our self-awareness and well-being, regardless our age. 

Learning to understand the connections early makes our lives easier. Unfortunately, many of us may have experienced more of negative thoughts and feelings. The good part is: it is never too late to start focusing on the positive experiences. 

I am very fortunate because I get to travel to beautiful places like National Parks. But learning to look around to see something beautiful, something positive is a skill I have practiced for a long time. It is about choosing to see the positive (and this is very different from toxic positivity). 

As educators we CAN help our students to have positive learning experiences. For Early Learning there is HOPE - Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences. Here is a 2-pager about HOPE. 

We all can choose to decrease the impact of ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) by purposefully focusing on the positive and supporting our students' social-emotional growth with classroom interactions - regardless of the age of our students! My students are adults, and we still enjoy the SEL discussions. 

It is extremely important to invest in our relationships with our students, make sure they have a safe and equitable learning environment, and help every student to engage in their own learning process to link their feelings, values and thoughts to what they are learning.  

Here is more information about using Trauma-Informed Practices in education!

Social-Emotional Learning: Self-Management

 

Identifying and using stress management strategies is am important part of our own Social-Emotional Learning. It also relates to our self-compassion, which is basically about being kind to ourselves, and treating ourselves like our best friends. Compassion is not based on accomplishments - self-compassion cannot be based on that either. Feelings of inadequacy are a part of human experience.

One way of managing our stress is taking time off work, and using vacations to visit places we want to  see. It doesn't always have to be a far-away place - for me the visits within 30-minute drive are usually the easiest to do. But I would love to visit gorgeous places like the one in the picture! 

How are you going manage your stress? What helps you to find self-compassion?

Here is more information about Self-Compassion: https://self-compassion.org/