This week at the Board of Education meeting the building principals, Mr. Kriesch, and I were asked to give an update on how the start of the school year was going. As I listened to my colleagues discuss all of the things that are going well, I was so proud of our whole HBR community and all of the stakeholders that have come together to make a hybrid learning plan work well for our students. There are some things that we continue to work on improving, but the focus was on the good that is happening. I was also reminded that while our learning plan isn’t perfect and living through a worldwide pandemic isn’t fun, I can choose the lens through which I view life. Growing up, my mom always reminded me to look at the world as though the “glass is half-full”. Recently, I told my 8th grade daughter as she was complaining about something that she was sounding a little “glass half-empty” and needed to shift her thinking. My daughter told me that the familiar saying doesn’t make any sense. She explained herself by saying, “if you poured the glass half-way up, then it’s half full. If it was full and you drank part of it, then now it’s half empty”. I suppose she’s right in a very literal and realist way.
What I took away from that conversation with her is a reminder that not everything is “positive” or “negative”, sometimes it just “is”. We don’t have control over these things and that lack of control can cause us to feel angst, anxiety, or worry. Those are real feelings and we should acknowledge them and then find ways to move past them. We call this the “name it to tame it” process.
If we let those feelings continue to grow, they can take over and cause us to move into a stress brain loop. The stress brain loop can keep us focused on all that’s happening that is wrong, hard, or negative and make it challenging to see the good or positive things happening around us. When we let our worry, fear, anxiety take over for a long time, our physical health is impacted. We can become fatigued, feel worn down, and unwell. Choosing gratitude and celebrating the good makes us feel more energized and alert. There are many beautiful, positive, amazing things to celebrate. Our perception makes a big difference in how we feel. I challenge you to focus on the good and see how your mental and physical health begin to shift.
Jessica Sonntag
Director of Student Services