Emotions & spring - February Family Program

For February's in-person Family Program, the children celebrated Valentine's Day and the coming of Spring, while exploring the many emotions we experience in our hearts/minds/bodies. 

We began by sharing changes we had been noticing in the natural world, such as the longer and brighter days, warmer weather, melting snow, and the many active animals, including red squirrels, chickadees and blue jays. We then learned about finding our pulse on our necks or wrists. We practiced running/jumping/moving in place to elevate our heart rates, and then mindfully felt how long it took for our pulses to return to baseline. 

We discussed the wide variety of emotions that we can experience as humans, such as anger, fear, joy, sadness, annoyance, and love, and how each of these emotions changes our bodies in various ways, including heart rate, breathing, muscle tension, and temperature. We explored various ways to work with particularly strong or difficult emotions by first feeling the emotions in our bodies, then exercising or moving our bodies to use up excess stress hormones, and finally considering ways to resolve whatever situation may have caused the strong emotion, if possible. Next, we sat quietly holding hands (or pinkies) and passed a pulse around the circle as a group. 

After snack we went outside and created a giant heart pathway in the snow in front of the Temple entrance. The adults joined us in our heart/circle, while Kenzan guided us in a lovingkindness meditation. We closed with the children ringing the outside bell to send lovingkindness throughout the valley and to all beings everywhere.