Social-Emotional Learning: Self-Awareness AND Self-Management

I have learned that these two #SEL skills are sometimes inseparable. We cannot manage something we do not notice or understand. So becoming self-aware of things we feel and do is a the first step. Also, sometimes we have patterns that have helped us in the past - maybe learning to ignore something, because we don't have the capacity to act on it right at the moment. But we need to learn how to manage those patterns. Just because emotions infrom our decisions.

Just look at this double rainbow!!! It is amazing! Rainbows are always amazing. :)

in reality, in our intermal and intentional lives, we need to understand that our emotions can inadvertently inform our decisions, unless we are very deliberate about it. It is like an automatic thing that happens, without asking permission from our rational selves. Maybe this is what is sometimes called the "gut reaction"?

So, when we are in the moment of awe, like seeing the double rainbows, we absolutely should look inwards and think what do we really, truly want. Just because the conscious answer may suprise ourselves.

The real question to ask yourself: what do you really, really want?

Then just listen.

I know that I want more time for my writing, more time with my family, more time to take care of myself, and also explore the gorgeous PNW. All the parks and beaches, the forests and the wilderness. It IS so amazing! 

Fun fact: one of my first SEL postings was about seeing a double rainbow in Hawaii - April 2022. 

Social-Emotional Learning: Self-Awareness

Learning can be a wonderful journey through the life, IF we can approach learning challenges as opportunities. The first, very important part of this is to approach learning as a process, not a product. 

It is also realizing that we want to have a personal engagement in deeper learning and understanding how what we learn applies to our lives and wok-lives, so that we can sustain our paths as life-long learners. Opening up to new ideas can feel stressful in the beginning, but also help  us to find different solutions and new paths. 

Some questions to ask ourselves are:

• How am I managing my thoughts in stressful situations?
• How can I find time for self-care when work gets too busy? 

I have found the Tiny Survival Guide to be an excellent resource:

Social-Emotional Learning: Self-Management

Sometimes taking initiative is just about collaborating with others. Other times it needs courage to take the risk. Explaining our insight is sometimes the hardest part of initiating something, especially for multilingual thinkers. (At times I can easily articulate or describe things in Finnish but trying to do the same in English becomes a struggle just because of the differences between the two languages.)  Still, initiating a discussion that might be harder than expected is a wonderful way to engage in collaborative problem-solving!

We can coach ourselves to prepare for harder discussions - like the ones where we likely need to disagree with someone. In disagreements it is very important to use Positive Regard to reframe our perception and detach the behavior from the person so that we can respond, not react. I think this is the basic rule for polite disagreements in general.

I was  excited to be in the forest and see this amazing mushroom. While others might think is is useless and proably poisonous (not really, but I still wouldn't eat it). I think it is very pretty and it just made me happy to see it as I had not seen one before. I am glad that a person in our mushroom hunting group showed it to me!  

Social-Emotional Learning: Responsible Decision-Making

I was reading about Solarpunk as a genre for hopeful stories and realized how important is it for me to think about the future in a positive way. It's way too easy to fall into the doom and gloom with the current state of the world, however, it IS possible to engage in hopeful Futuring, too. But choosing to think hopeful thoughts is not always easy. The good news is that we can practice it.

On the beach, I know fore sure that the tide is coming up and I need to be prepared (and also not to be too close to the surf, because it often throws big logs on the beach). Yet, I am optimistic there because I know how to stay safe, so that I can enjoy salty water spray in the air and the feeling of the ground shaking when big waves break. It's amazing!

Applying the same thinking in life and future is much harder! It looks and sounds so scary with the climate catastrophy and everything going on. I am learning to resist the negativity bias, but also have to keep on reminding myself of changing my thinking because imagining hopeful futures will help my wellbeing. It is easy to forget that we can choose what we think.

Initially, I considered using this content to explore self-management, but then realized the it really is about our own agency (our capacity to choose our responses to problematic situations), and choosing to think possible resilient and hopeful futures.

Social-Emotional Learning: Self-Awareness

I think it really is a life-long journey to truly understand our own values, as well as our thoughts and emotions. Our daily decisions, both big and small, are based on all these three aspects - whether we are aware of it or not - I guess that we could also call it intuition or gut instinct. I have learned to notice when  my thoughts are in a complex mess. At that moment I try to go for a walk on the beach because it is such a calming place (even when the ocean is roaring). It always clears my head.  So does a walk in the forest. The Western Cedar trees are so magnificent!

Our values become visible in our daily choices: how we talk, what we do, and the activities we want to participate. I am excited about October approaching, because here it is the Resilience Month  - lots of events focused on increasing awareness of trauma and resilience, fostering collaboration and also educating people and organizations about trauma-sensitive practices. I think most of this learning begins with awareness: self-awareness to know who we really are, the awareness of others and their possible struggles, so that together we can build better societies.

Social-Emotional Learning: Responsible Decision-Making

As adults we are facing so many decisions every day! When my kids were growing up we were joking about "adulting" but already in early 2000's there was a saying "aikuisten oikeesti" meaning that it was seriously for real. And in many ways being an adult means that we need to evaluate the impacts of our decisions, like the safety concerns or benefits of our actions - or inactions. 

While walking or playing on the beach, my family has the rule of knowing where the wet sand begins - simply because sometimes there can be a wave that is much bigger than the others. Sometimes the waves carry big logs - huge, really - so the first rule on the beach is being safe.

This sand castle had been built during the low tide. Where I live the difference between low time and high tide can easily be 7-8 ft. (I often use this page to check the tides). Sometimes it is not safe to go to the beach. Other impacts (like the climate catastrophe) are so collective that it may feel daunting to even think about making "good decisions."  Still, we can choose to reuse, reduce, repurpose and recycle and make responsible decisions, big and small.  

Social-Emotional Learning: Self-Management

Managing our emotions and stress is a huge part of adult SEL. I think I will never be able to say: "Now I have learned everything I need  to learn about it," simply because different situations require different strategies. I spent last week attending a conference, and while I loved it (so much!!) by the end of the week I was completely "peopled out" even though I enjoyed the company and what I was learning. 

So, I had to figure out the best possible stress management strategies to use: walking on the beach and in the forest, finding the beauty in the nature, and  bringing some wild flowers into my room.

Many events are built by extroverts (I think because they like to do that and are good at doing it) and for extroverts. I am very grateful for their work. And I hope we can start communicating about the needs to have quiet time, or a quiet room and take a break, because learning becomes hard or impossible when we get "peopled out". Meanwhile, I hope we all can find self-management strategies that will work for our own needs!

Also, there is a great article in AEON publication Psyche article about the exclusion of introverts and suggestions to meet the needs of this approximately one third of the population.