YAAS: Attitude of Gratitude

I entered today's Young Adult Action Society meeting still on the high of 21 participants last week, but also incredibly stressed about technology. I was counting on our big screen and projector to show videos on tonight's topic because I am not a scientist, and the AV equipment was incredibly difficult. It ended up taking six people an hour and a half to figure it out or fix whatever was wrong, so I was very short on prep time for this program. Even so, it turned out great and I think some of the kids really took the content to heart.

If you want to learn about the original conception and mission of this program, read my What is YAAS? post. TL;DR: It's a weekly group for youth age 14-24 where we'll be doing community service work, library programs, hosting guest presenters, and making connections with peers in a safe and welcoming environment.

Tonight, the program was called "Attitude of Gratitude." It was very instruction-based, and centered around the scientific fact that anxiety and gratitude cannot simultaneously exist in your brain. If you purposefully rewire your brain to regularly remember the things you're thankful for, it might lower your anxiety levels if you're prone to panic attacks, have Generalized Anxiety Disorder, or just get nervous sometimes. I did feel compelled to announce that I'm not a scientist or mental health professional, and none of the program contents should be taken as medical advice.

So, I started out the program by going around the room and having each participant say one thing in their life that they're thankful for. A lot said friends and family, some said their pets, one said memes. After everyone had a turn, we watched the first video:

This video, "Why Are You Anxious," does a better job of explaining the scientific side of anxiety and panic attacks than I ever could. After it was over, we had a brief group discussion on what we learned from the video. I also posted a short summary for the visual learners.

After that discussion we watched our second video, "The Gratitude Experiment."

This one is clearly just one video in a series on a health and wellness channel, but it did a pretty good job explaining what we'd be doing for our hands-on activity to go along with the lesson. After viewing, I asked everyone to recall what they said earlier as something they're grateful for. Then, I asked if they take that person or thing for granted; almost all of them admitted that they do. That was when I saw the turning point in a few pairs of eyes, from "Why are they telling me this" to "Wow, maybe this does apply to me after all." 

Finally, we explored the societal myth that it takes 21 days to form a habit with this video, "Can Habits be Formed in Only 21 Days?"

As it turns out, habits CAN form in 21 days, but the average is 66. It can even take eight or nine months to form a habit! Each person's brain works differently, and how long it takes is no reflection on an individual's intelligence or willpower. 

This was a long half hour or so of instruction, so the group took a fruit snack break. When we reconvened, my fantastic volunteer Sebastian passed out the gratitude journals I made for the group. To make them, I used a simple quarter-fold template on Publisher so each one was just a single sheet of paper folded in fourths.

I left them with these final challenges:

I told the group that if they wanted to share their finished journal with me in three weeks, I would love to see it. They are equally welcome to keep it private. It seemed like a handful of the participants really got something positive out of the workshop! Others were clearly yearning for something less instructional, which they will get next week when we make origami star jars.

The best part of the night came right at the end. A very shy teen who is new to me (tonight's program was the second time we've met) coming up to tell me the following: "I just stayed behind to tell you that I think you're really cool, and I think I want to be a librarian now because you make it look really awesome. I've been thinking about what I want to do, like for a job, and it was basically down to undertaker or [I don't remember her other option], but now I'm seriously thinking librarian." SO TO RECAP, I INSPIRED A CHILD'S FUTURE CAREER CHOICE BECAUSE I'M COOL. This was one of the moments you keep inside your locket, so you can snap it open and admire it when the world around you is crumbling into dust. I was so incredibly touched and honored that she overcame her natural quietness and got up the courage to come up to me, a relative stranger, and say that. I told her how much it meant to me, and offered to help her out in any way I can as she moves along in discovering what all it means to be a librarian. Even if the program had been a total failure, this moment would have saved the whole night.

But the program wasn't a failure, we had 20 participants and an empty fruit snack box by the end of the night. I am loving everything about this program.