Mary Robinson Reynolds' Column This Week
The Top 7 Reasons why we MUST make Acknowledging one another a priority:
causing a NEW SOCIAL TREND
Excerpt from Make A Difference with the Power of Acknowledgment UTRAIN® Program for Education
1. To Celebrate connection, successes, authentically.
2. To learn how to "find the words to express acknowledgment" is a success! You can't see something great in someone else if that greatness does not already exist within you! So, it's essentially as if you are acknowledging yourself... too!
3. To practice "doing what's in front of us to do." Embracing opportunities!
4. You cannot ever know just how much that person may in fact need your acknowledgment.
5. "It will lose its importance or impact" is like saying Chocolate is never enjoyed if eaten daily!
6. Learn to face our fears; no ONE can reject or abandon you except for yourself. So what if you are blown off! Make a decision right now that you will SEE with eyes of understanding; learning that it has nothing to do with you, that it may be their personality style; it may be their life circumstances, and it may be that they don't like you... so what? YOU can own that you made a difference; you planted a seed; you made a difference, regardless of whether you get to see it grow and blossom today or not.
7. You don't have to "belong" to their clique to make a difference, one acknowledgment at a time, with the person in front of you that needs it the most.
How can the largest percentage of the faculty, staff and student population out of their comfort zones long enough to practice this?
The STOP LOOK LISTEN Technique:
Put STOP LOOK LISTEN signs around the school. Explain in class and in your next faculty meeting that there are many today who do not feel loved, supported, nor have ever been acknowledged. So it is something that we can do for ourselves by doing for others.
That's right: When you feel sad, depressed, angry, upset, mad, desiring affection, support and love, broken hearted about how you are being treated by someone Notice what you are feeling and ...
STOP right where you are! The FASTEST way out of that bad feeling state is to OPEN YOUR FOCUS and look all the way around you.
LOOK up and down the hallways, streets, school bus, grocery store, fast food place for someone who needs a simple act of kindness. Who is next or near to you who you could say something nice to? Acknowledge? Praise? Appreciate? Help and/or Be nice to?
LISTEN to what they are feeling or have to say. Be interested in them and you'll feel better about yourself more quickly than you can believe right now.
Life has a funny guarantee: No matter HOW BAD YOU THINK YOU'VE GOT IT... somebody else has it worse!
PLAN NOW to get Make A Positive Difference WEEK Program on your school's agenda for the very first part of this new year and you WILL see a calming effect over the entire population. |
