We Build Better Humans - Issue #10: LIFE CHALLENGE
This issue features: 1. Blueprints to STOP yelling || 2. Tools of the Trade: Trauma-informed SEL || 3. Big Life Journal-ing
Challenge is a noun and a verb. We can face a challenge in life (& we do!) or we can challenge the rules of life. If you don’t have a little of each in your own life, well, you aren’t really living.
When my sons were wee ones—a toddler & an infant apiece—I hit a new challenge in my own life: Figuring out how to parent gently … on almost zero sleep! My progress was hit or miss. And those misses had heart-rending consequences, particularly for the toddler. I started a 60-day challenge for myself: to practice “mini-mindfulness” every day over those two months. #challengeaccepted
Holding myself accountable by putting my goals out there to the world—first on Facebook & then by adding at least part of my experiences in blog form on my communications coaching website—helped shift me into more resourceful thinking. The final piece was getting some expert insight from therapist-turned-parenting coach Amanda Reuter of Messy Motherhood. I enrolled in her course, Mama’s Anger Management, & stepped up my mom game.
You can do the same by joining her (free!) Stop Yelling Challenge.
(Pssst! If you like 5-day challenges, look for more details on the Merc Retro Challenge exclusively for We Build Better Humans readers.)
The graphic above, sharing goals & strategies of social-emotional learning curriculum*, comes from my Substack colleague Nick Woolfe who writes the monthly newsletter SEL in 5. His thought-provoking article “Why All SEL Must Be Trauma-Informed as We Transition Back to School” challenges our thinking as parents & educators by taking us out of the comfort of denial: The pandemic did harm our children, collectively & individually, & we need to accommodate them. Check out his informative newsletter to peep how the teachers who care the most are making an impact.
*Social-emotional learning, or SEL, is a parenting/teaching concept that prioritizes feelings as integral to learning. It can be taught/modeled as stand-alone. But it works best with a spiral approach, in practical application.
Journaling is one of my favorite ways to grow. Big Life Journal has a variety of SEL curriculum for school or home & also journaling tools to teach everything you ever wanted to know about feelings that no one ever taught you—including this amazing starter journal for grownups (that you can tell from my personal pic here that I especially love to pair with my SensaCalm weighted blanket).
Our Tune In podcast has several episodes uploaded right here at our Substack newsletter. You can also subscribe at Anchor (or your fave podcast listener platform) for direct content, including our latest episode, the personal story of childhood trauma survivor and “Cycle Breaker” Melina Stock. Follow her on Instagram @daughterofthenorthstar.