Living Streets Association | 2023 January
How much power does our thoughts, words and intentions really hold? How much impact can positivity or negativity have on ourselves and others?
These were the questions the Living Streets Youth discussed at the December youth meeting. Through heartfelt sharing and listening to one another, we concluded that they have a huge impact, and we should be careful to practice positivity in our lives to benefit ourselves and others.
And so wanted to share these ideas with the community, and designed this year’s holiday program to the theme: the power of thoughts, words, and intentions. We focused on ways we can practice having positive thoughts and using encouraging words towards others.
Our program began the day with a rice experiment to show children how our words can affect even non-living things. The simple experiment is to put rice in three separate containers, seal them, and over the next month do the following; say loving, positive things to 1 container, say hateful, negative things to another, and ignore the last container. The rate of mould growth and how fast the rice goes bad is supposed to demonstrate the impact of our words. While the results have varied on the internet and it is not the most scientific process, we found it was still a good way for children to become aware of the impact of our words. We brainstormed positive things to say and challenged the kids to use positive language at home with their families over the next month while conducting the experiment.
Yoga and meditation were next, where we did breathing exercises to become aware of our surroundings and clear our minds. We did some simple stretches and some not-so-simple yoga poses. It seems the children were much more flexible than others!
Lots of teamwork games were played to practice the positive words we had just brainstormed. The older kids demonstrated kind actions and words, and the younger ones were very receptive and picked up this behaviour very quickly. It was a fun time with lovely positive vibes all around!
Finally, we did a 6-legged challenge! Do you think these guys can make it all the way to the oval as a team? Go to our Instagram page story highlights “Holidays!” to see if they made it!
Living Streets Association 