Theme of the week and Skill Builder 

Today’s focus will be on how any change we want starts with us, not with others. 

Show & Share  (5-10 min)

Your most cherished achievements. What have you accomplished that you are so proud to have others know about. Share your memory of the moment you reached that achievement or knew you had. 

Next Week‘s Show & Share — Habits you want to shift. Are there things you do regularly that you know are making your life harder? Are there things other people are asking you to change that you really don’t want to, even though you would like to please the people who are asking?  

Covid Mitigation Moment (5 min)

PRESENTERS: Read and discuss the story. Guide the discussion toward the idea that inconvenience is worth it to keep the disease from spreading. 

Joseph's friend Emily tested postivie for Covid-19 just 3 days after he had run into her on his morning walk. They were wearing masks and stayed apart but she was probably contagious by then. Joseph's mother asks him to pick up some pills for her at the pharmacy. She still has some left but she doesn't want to wait two days for the pharmacy to mail them to her.  Should Joseph pick up the pills for his mom or convince her to use the mailing option? Why? 

Thematic Activity 01 (10 min)

Feelings and Habits

When the world is not going the way we would like, we often become self-critical. Why is that? Here's how it works.

Self-Critical Thinking-Slides

PRESENTERS: the slide show will fill the screen if you click the "PRESENT" button in the upper right corner.

Thematic Activity 02 (10-15 min)

Picking out achievable goals for 2021 that actually make you feel good about yourself today.

Here is the Big Goals into Tiny Habits activity we started earlier. 

PRESENTERS: The slides can open up a lot of discussion or a little. You can choose 1 or 2 of them to go over, or go through the whole deck. It depends on your group and what you want to talk about.

Skill Builder (10-15 min)

How to accept ALL of ourselves by using a method called RAIN by Tara Brach

When our critical thoughts, our Gremlin, make us feel bad we want to feel better right away. That often means we just do something to feel good in the moment. Remember those bad habits that feel good in the short term but give us results we don't want in the long term? RAIN is  a way to feel better right away naturally. 

This is a good 10-minute meditation that teaches how to use RAIN

R stands for Recognize 

Recognize and give a name to any bad feeling your are having

A stands for Acknowledge

Give the feeling respect. Remind yourself that you have feelings for a reason, that your body and mind are trying to keep you safe and they use emotions to try and talk to you.

I stands for Investigate

Be brave and calm and come closer to that feeling, think about where in your body you feel it, how it's affecting you

N stand for Nurture

Give the feeling kind, patient attention. Accept it and recognize that it is your body and mind trying to give you information. How can you give it kindness instead of just trying to get rid of it?

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What did we learn today?