Hey Fast Llamas!
Somebody shared with me this Saturday that they could not believe how the month of November seems to be flying, I agreed, September took what seemed like 2 years to get through and now we are making our grocery lists for Thanksgiving! I have "Friendsgiving" with my neighbors next Saturday!
Here is a quick reminder to avoid "counting down" to the holiday and how this thinking can send a message to others and to our brain to not "make the most of every moment." Why is this detrimental? Let's break it down...
All learning and thinking is as Eric Jensen says, "is state dependent". Three states that we encounter daily (and hourly) is our cognitive, emotional and physical state. (in Quantum Learning, we call it a "congruence") What's interesting is that when one is changed, all three change as they are interwoven in our brain's neural networks. Here's an example, you are working on a task, you start feeling sleepy and droopy, so you sit up, take a deep breath, raise your eyebrows, turn on some music or even get up and get a drink. This changes your physical state, and thus, your cognitive and emotional one too. (you become more capable of thinking and your emotional state gets fed with a favorite song and in my case, a Diet Coke, which makes me happy). Our state is our frame of mind or our mood and we do have control of it.
What does this have to do with "counting down" to a break? Well, our words and thoughts influence us tremendously and they have the power to inspire us in negative and positive ways. When we count down, we are sending a message to our brains that where we are and what we are doing is equated with something bad. I know I am teetering in the "toxic positivity" realm that is super popular right now, so I will be mindful about it. I am not saying to tell your brain to avoid negativity or squash it down or ignore it. What I am saying that we have tough roles and careers right now and we embrace it everyday. We need to tell others when we are hurting, tired and needing help, that's the only way others know to step in and be helpful. But, counting down the time that we are at work so that we can spend time away from it, just reinforces those connections in our brain toward negative feelings. We already know it's tough, why send another message reinforcing it?
No way am I telling to you to "turn your frown upside down" which actually makes be blech just typing it.
We don't have to be happy or peppy all day long, but the time we are at school is what is it, time that we are together with our colleagues, our students, and our friends. They are opportunities to be a shining light in someone's bad day, to find a new way of doing something that makes it easier for you or someone else or share a laugh with others. We don't silence our feelings when they are negative, but, seek out others for help and vice versa. This is the good that have for each other.
A person I admire at school posted an article about "toxic positivity" on social media and I am very mindful of it... here is something I found that frames responses to avoid it.
Our words and actions also influence our students too, they are watching and listening. What message about our learning and our classrooms do you want to send? Do we want to send a message to our students that we don't like the time we spend together with them? I don't think so. We have control of the messages we send to students about the learning that goes on in their classrooms. We also have the opportunity to instill this life-long skill of making the most of every moment. That the time we have together is just as fun and important as the time we spend out of school. School is not a place to avoid, but a place where they belong. And we belong there to for each other.
So in bringing it all together, we can do things to change our state of mind in the moment to get through tough times. We can also support one another during the day to help our work colleagues (and students) get through those tough times too.
https://thepsychologygroup.com/toxic-positivity/
