Skip to main content

Positive Mental Attitude

This past week I was off on an adventure.  On Monday, in the darkness of an early morning, I boarded a charter bus full of 5th graders, teachers, and other chaperones headed to Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center in Finland, MN.  5 days and 4 nights together, with a schedule so intense that I wondered if I had made a mistake when I volunteered to go.

I was a veteran to Wolf Ridge, but my last trip was in ninth grade and my memory of the experience was very sketchy.  One thing that I did remember was a class called Winter Survival.  A three hour course in which you and your teammates were "stranded" in the woods and had to use the simple supplies provided to make shelter, build a fire, and make hot cocoa.  At the time I was scared of matches so starting a fire felt super daunting and I remember the COLD as we worked to build a shelter!  

This time around, the class fell on our last day.  I was prepared with hand warmers and many layers.  We met in the classroom for a quick discussion before we would head out to "survive."  The naturalist divided us into teams and gave each group laminated cards with the basic necessities printed on them.  Food, Water, Air, Shelter, PMA, Warmth.  We had to try to place them in order of priority.

We looked them over.  PMA was Positive Mental Attitude; something that I never heard listed as a basic need, but soon found out that it was the top priority, even over air.  When something goes wrong and you find yourself in a situation of peril, the first thing you have to do is decide that you want to take a breath, decide that you are going to try, decide that you can make it and want to live.  The kids were surprised and wanted to argue about the urgent need for air, but our leader was adamant that we would have to have PMA in order to make any of the other things happen. 

My team survived the class.  We worked together to build a shelter, gather firewood, and start a fire (to heat snow that eventually turned into cold cocoa-yuck!).  It was a lesson in patience and persistence.  Twice our fire went out and we had to restart.  I felt like giving up.  It was the last day of a long trip and even though my team was full of adults, none of us had much "fire master" experience.  It would have been easy to throw in the towel and pretend that we had made it through the challenge, but we didn't.  We finished with a hearty clink of our tin cups of cold cocoa and a sigh of relief that we had survived.

I was so grateful for this lesson.  I needed the reminder that I have a choice in how I want to enter each situation.  Negative or positive.  Sink or swim.  Each time I am presented with difficult news or circumstances, I get to decide if I am going to put PMA first on my priority list.  Can I muster the courage to dig in and say yes, this is worth it, I can and will make something happen?

I am so happy that our fifth graders got the message that attitude is everything.  It is a lesson that I hope they will carry with them for a long time.  I know I will.




Check in with your PMA?  What is your first reaction when adversity strikes?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Letting go & holding on- how you can do both at the same time

Everyday I am thinking about letting go.  My days are spent in sessions with clients, or reading about decluttering tips, or writing blog posts, all in an effort to support clients as they let go of clutter and unwanted habits.  Letting go is something that I have made into my life's work, but never is it more "in my face" than when I sit with my grandma at the nursing home.  My grandma has Dementia/Alzheimers.  I don't even know what or which or why or how, but I do know that it seems we have lost her to the disease and letting go & holding on are happening all at once. As I sit and watch her sleep, I can stroke her hand and feel the many memories of playing Go to the Dump or Crazy Eight on my days off of Kindergarten, getting a home perm in her kitchen in elementary school, and painting my nails at her kitchen nook in H.S.  I remember learning how to snap a dish towel with my cousins as we cleaned up from holiday gatherings & singing and dancing...
2 comments
Read more

Creativity

This summer has been a journey in the pursuit of my creative person!  It started with the desire to seek a new path, to try on some new ways of thinking, and to shift a bit from the usual patterns.  My soul was yearning to make more time for creativity, so I have been using the past two months to honor that spirit in me. I thought that I would start from the very beginning-try putting myself through an elementary art class.  That meant going through a step-by-step process of learning how to draw, watercolor, use oil pastels, paint, etc.  I got started with a kid's art book from the library and a trip to The Sketchy Artist.  I bought a few supplies and sat down to start my lessons. The lessons didn't last.  I am completely interested in playing around with all of the supplies and trying out techniques, but I found a rigid plan to "be creative" isn't what I need. What I am coming to understand is that creativity is more than an art class.  Creativity ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Knowing

After thinking about all of those old worn out tapes of my saboteur, I decided to take some time to find the cheerleader in me.  Unfortunately, it took some uncovering. For quite awhile, I tried hard to hear a voice that might shout "You can do it!  Believe in yourself! Yes, you are on the right track!"  But, no-I couldn't hear anything like that. I tried to locate where the voice was in my body.  Was it in my gut? Everyone always says, "listen to your gut," but mine wasn't telling me anything.  Not literally.  And what I thought I needed to look for was a voice that would whisper words to me.  I thought there must be something wrong since my little cheerleader, fairy godmother, voice of God, wasn't giving me any verbal reassurance. I needed to rethink this.  Maybe the old "trust your gut" advice is just meant to remind you that it's not your head that will guide you, but your body or heart? So, what are the cues my body gives me when ...
Post a Comment
Read more