With great gratitude comes great appreciation.

Thank you and have a wonderful summer!

Dear Richard D. James,

Thanks for all the nightmares.

Here is a bedroom beat inspired by the goodness of Aphex Twin.

Yours,

LMSolfeggio

5 of 10 ways to cultivate gratitude (join us for 6-10)

1. Create a Gratitude Ritual.

2. Send a thank-you note.

3. Give a free hug. (if that is appropriate and welcome)

4. Give thanks for today or just try to find the space to be thankful you’re alive!

5. Do someone a free favor.

6. Give a little gift.

7. Give someone a list of all they’ve done that you’re grateful for.

8. Acknowledge them publicly.

9. Surprise them with kindness.

10. Say thanks even for negative things in your life.

This month we will focus on gratitude as an essential SEL Skill. However, due to the most recent acts of gun violence we need to pause for a moment of reflection, and a venting of our own unpleasant emotion information, before we get into our work with gratitude.

Join us for this important work.

We are considering some of the traits of optimism. When bad things happen do you recognize a way to explain them as, general in life, specific in incident, and temporary overall? Join us for this!

When you explain the "why" something is bad when it is bad, do you make personal, permanent, and pervasive? What does that even mean?

Let's find out.

May is AAPI Heritage Month and we are considering the skills of Seattleite, Wing Luke. We do not know Wing Luke but we can look at his life and guess that he probably had the skills of using both pessimism and optimism in order to make positive change in our community. You can too! Join us!

Do you recognize a pattern in the way you explain to yourself the "why" behind the way things are? Did you know that you can learn to recognize how you explain things to yourself? Join us for this important learning!

Did you know that you can have a choice about how you look at things? Sometimes you may want to see things through a positive lens. Sometimes you may want to view things through a negative lens.

The choice can be yours, when you know how to use it. Join us!

Understanding your perspective (your point-of-view) and other people's perspective (their point-of-view) is one of the foundations of empathy. Empathy is an important Social Emotional Learning Skill. Join us for a short connection between perspective and empathy.