The Power of Family Traditions
This time of year is a wonderful time to create special traditions for just your family. Below is an excerpt from our December newsletter written by Rose Neal.
May your holidays be filled with light, love and connection!
Every Monday since September, the elementary students have been joining together for a morning sharing time, the inner joy circle. We spend about 30 minutes together with the intention of connecting with one another and sharing in practices that raise our consciousness as a group and facilitate a child’s personal growth.
This last week we talked about our favorite things during Thanksgiving. Almost all of the hands raised wanted to share something about their family traditions, not only for Thanksgiving but for the upcoming holidays as well. Traditions convey warm, security and self-identity for kids and how eager they are to tell you about this important part of them! It was a great reminder, to keep those rituals alive in my own household and to be more thoughtful in carrying them out.
“Rituals are the lenses through which we see our emotional connections to each other, to a culture, and to a higher power. They are symbolic expressions of our most sacred values.” Becky Bailey
************************************************************
Here’s how one Living Wisdom family has created a special tradition just for their family:
We have a jar which sits on our kitchen table, year round, with a small pad of paper and pen next to it. It is our family Gratitude Jar. Throughout the year we jot down experiences which brought us joy, situations which left us feeling inspired and uplifted, random acts of kindness which were offered to us and ways we decided to “pay it forward”. We write about simple things that make us smile. It is an intentional gratitude practice that fosters the type of environment that I want our home to embody. Our New Years Eve is spent on the floor, in front of the fireplace, reading over our many blessings from the year. On January 1st, the jar is empty and we begin again, with new thoughts and fresh experiences.
