3. Regarding Helping

Good Morning Families, today is Thursday March 19th 2020 and it’s now time for our moment of SEL.

How are you feeling today? What thoughts are you thinking? How are you feeling in your body? How do you want to express yourself? How can you express yourself?

What you find when you ask these questions will vary depending on the context you lay these questions on. For example, if you ask yourself these questions in the context of playing a basketball you will likely recognize different thoughts/feelings/behavior choices then if you ask yourself these questions in the context of fishing, reading in the library, or staying home for social distancing reasons.  It is fortunate that you have a multiplicity of thinking and feeling selves inside you AND that SEL skills are adaptable across a wide range of contexts.

The context I’d like you place some attention on today is the idea of “helping”. Here’s the Mr. Roger’s quote about what his mom shared with him as support for when he felt scared about things in society, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people helping.”

Helping others would fall under the SEL domain of Social Engagement. Social Engagement supports students in developing the ability to consider others and the desire to contribute to the well-being of a social group or a community. Sometimes helping your community might mean organizing, attending a meeting, giving comfort after a disaster, packing food bags, going to a rally, participating in a march, or working in a public service profession. Those are familiar, highly visible ways to help, and those things are appropriate responses to the context in which help like that is needed. Right now, help is needed in a different way. The context for help during this time is much more private and patient and calm. Helping your community now may be staying home, giving people space, connecting through digital media, writing letters, or waving from windows.

Check-in with yourself and try to recognize how you feel about helping in this context? What thoughts are you thinking? How do you feel in your body? How do you want to express yourself? How can you express yourself? Give yourself the permission to feel your emotions with as little judgement as possible. Same thing for your thoughts.

I wish you the very best and look forward to connecting in whatever way we can, tomorrow.

Until tomorrow, best wishes,

Manzo