During the summer holidays on the 23rd August 2019, the Resilience Revolution supported a group of young people to build up their confidence before starting high school. A week before beginning their high school journey nerves began to build up. As a group we worked on the Resilient Move ‘instil a sense of hope’ to minimise the nerves and to focus on a more positive mindset.
Starting high school can be a scary process for a lot of young people and can be a time of uncertainty and change. As human beings a lot of us struggle to cope with change. To empower the young people through this uncertain time we focused on ‘instilling a sense of hope’. We began by brain storming different positive quotes that we can tell ourselves when we are feeling anxious, unsure or in a place of doubt.
For a big event such as starting high school, changing the mindset to try and start this in a positive way can impact the whole experience. If we allow ourselves to build up negative thoughts for example – older children might say something to me, teachers might shout at me – we register this as a negative emotion, such as fear. By shifting our thoughts to be hopeful and positive it can build up positive emotions such as excitement. We often tend to focus on negative aspects of our lives, sometimes we need support from others to instil that hope.
This is then what we decided to do as a group that day. We decorated pebbles in bright colours where each young person wrote a positive message on them. We discussed how one small positive message can make someone feel better and brighten up their day. We then wanted to pass this hope on for other people, spreading the positive message further than just our group. We decided to hide these positivity pebbles in Stanley Park.
Someone may go for a walk in the park and see these positive messages which in turn may instil a sense of hope for them. You never know the battles other people may be facing so a kind message can go a long way.
By completing this activity, the positivity pebbles allowed young people to gain a greater understanding of other people’s feelings. It has allowed them to not only use the Resilient Move ‘instil a sense of hope’ for themselves, but how to use this with others and to share their messages in spreading happiness within the wider community. This promotes the finders of the pebbles to focus on the good things in their life and have a positive outlook.
