Activities - Tumblr Posts

ACCEPTS

A DBT skill for Distress Tolerance

Use this skill to help you get through moments of crisis

*The best way to utilize this skill is, when you're calm and not feeling any distress, make yourself a list of specific things you can do that correspond with each of these steps. Thinking of something to distract you when you're in the midst of an emotional storm is incredibly hard, so preparing a reference guide for yourself ahead of time is a way to show up for yourself.

*Corresponding worksheet to help you plan ahead*

A - Activities: Watch a comforting tv show or movie, clean, do a puzzle, any task that requires most of your attention so you can focus mindfully on it rather than your emotional spiral.

C - Contributing: Talk to a friend or family member, help someone with a task like cooking or cleaning.The goal being to focus on being with someone rather than being alone in your thoughts.*This obviously would not be a go-to if the person would further trigger you.

C - Comparisons: Compare this emotional storm to a past, worse experience as a way to remind yourself that you've survived before, and you can do it again. *Again, the point of this is not to further trigger yourself, but to prove to yourself that you're strong enough to get through this moment of distress.

E - Emotions: Activate opposite emotions by watching a funny video or recalling a happy memory.

P - Push Away: Mentally push away the triggering thoughts or situation until you are calmer and more regulated and able to deal with the emotions. Commit, for a few minutes, to picturing your problems going into a small box, closing them in it, shoving the box deep in the back of a closet and closing the door. This exercise is a very short term way to remove the weight from your shoulders.

T - Thoughts: Actively think about something completely unrelated to your triggers. Sing your favorite song from memory, do a crossword puzzle or a math problem.

S - Sensations: Interact with your 5 senses mindfully; hug a stuffed animal or a pet, hold ice in your hand and feel it melt, lay flat on the floor and feel your body pressing into the hard surface.

*The best way to utilize this skill is, when you're calm and not feeling any distress, make yourself a list of specific things you can do that correspond with each of these steps. Thinking of something to distract you when you're in the midst of an emotional storm is incredibly hard, so preparing a reference guide for yourself ahead of time is a way to show up for yourself.

*More DBT Skills Here*

From here to there

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Life has been kind.

Kinda strange? I like how steady it feels now. Proven its true as one age, (Why do I sound forty there?) solace/peace of mind is far more important than any other thing this universe could ever offer. Okay with no fuss. 

Literally simple.

Anyway, I would share some of the things that has been going on in my own tiny quiet world. Plus, the activities I’m sweetly looking forward to.

I’ll be having my very first out-of-town museum exhibit this summer. Been working on my paintings, the deadline’s getting closer and I’m only half-way through my first piece. I need to do four by the way. Eep.

I got painting projects for a home/condo redesign. *Internal yay*

Day job’s been pretty swabe.

Got an invite for a creative writing/blogging talk happening this week. Here’s to another first for me! Ok, hello powerpoint.

My online mug/design business is a bit on a lie-low due to my availability. Gotta remind myself about the dreams/goals daily. Focus & time management? Ugh, here goes me acting all super again. Send help.

Been sulking in good healthy dates. I like the feels.

Thinking about going back to univ but my savings is dead crying omg bc adulting is such a drag most of the time although I’d like to instill a good mentality that I could still do it. Slowly, getting there.

I’m freaking turning 25 this month. Partly, I don’t want to think it’s considered the marrying age bc I still really feel like a teen and I have sabaw goals. Hahaha *Lies/excuses I tell myself*

Summer travel plans with friends on line-up!!

I kind of broke up with John Mayer by deleting his songs on my playlist to make way for opm band songs. Yes, I cleaned my playlist just this week. Been listening/appreciating the new and unfamiliar.

I’ll have painting training for the upcoming workshops held by S&G!!

Gallery/Cafe workshops on summer!

Currently, my life’s on the art zone.

*pats my own shoulder*

Thank you, universe.

I really wanted to ask you about this:

Do you have any advice of how to develop critical thinking and media literacy?

There are many, many ways you can practice critical thinking, evaluation and media literacy. At its most basic, you can access student resources for lower levels of education like earlier high school years and look at the examples and guidance given there. Rehashing this will often give you a good foundation to build off of and apply.

One of the main aspects of critical thinking involves discerning what is fact and what is opinion. A good portion of media analytics is opinion. What is 'bad' by one person's standards is 'sub-par' or even 'great' by another's. Similarly, the majority of fandom space is opinion-based. The main pitfall of fandom spaces is that everyone wants their opinion to be taken as fact, which is where critical thinking and even basic communication begin to fall away.

"I'm right and you're wrong" and "this is the way it should be, if you do it or think differently, you're wrong" are common roadblocks people run into when engaging with things like media analysis and even basic fandom activities like fanfiction.

'Mischaracterisation' is fanfiction is one popular topic, especially here on Tumblr. What people often fail to recognize is the true creative depth of fanfiction and using someone else's pre-existing characters. Characters as they are in the source material may not make the choices or behave in the ways necessary to activate or validate certain plot material or author intentions in fanfiction. Which is, inherently, one of the main points of fanfiction. Exploring the alternate.

While you might immediately recoil and say "he'd never do that!" you then have to sit back and recognise that that's exactly the point. That this iteration of that character is not meant to directly reflect the source material. Its a re-imagining, a re-interpretation. That doesn't mean its bad. Its simply different.

'Mischaracterisation' is only actually applicable in fandom spaces when someone is trying to insist as a blanket fact that a character would do something or behave in a way that blatantly contradicts their canon behavior, opinions, morals and perspective or deliberately interpreting an action in biased bad faith. It is not actually applicable to fanfiction where creative liberty dictates you can do whatever the fuck you want with a character because you're not trying to claim it as part of the source content.

Questions To Ask Yourself

Am I reacting to [media] emotionally instead of rationally? Is my emotional response to [media] blinding me to the rational or critical approach(es)?

Am I allowing my expectations to get in the way of me understanding [media] fully? Am I forming a biased negative opinion of [media] because it isn't meeting my expectations?

Even if I disagree with [media], do I actually understand it? Can I recognise the reasoning behind choices made or actions even if I don't agree with them?

Am I searching too hard to hidden meaning or purpose in absolutely everything? Can I recognise what is simply passive information/detail and what is active information/detail? (E.g; English tutors saying a character's curtains are blue because they're depressed when throughout the literature its passively reinforced that blue is the character's favorite color.)

Even though I disagree with the statement or opinion shown, is it necessary to argue against it? Is there any benefit to making my counter-opinion known or is it simply a no-end argument? Am I just using arguing as a means of release/fulfilment? Am I treating this person poorly because of their opinion/statement?

Resources

Critical Thinking Exercises & Explanations #1 The Critical Thinking Activity Workbook Early Stage Critical Thinking Games Five Media Literacy Activities Six Media Literacy Ideas

💐Picnic witchcraft guide💐

Sandwich correspondences

Fruit correspondences

Vegetable correspondences

Tea correspondences (sun tea, tea in general, floral tea)

Flower correspondences- can be used as decoration, for flower crowns, as a fun nature activity (collecting them respectfully, of course), and edible flowers can be used for deserts, drinks, and salads!

Desserts- here’s some witchy dessert recipes, perfect for any picnic!

(Tiny strawberry pies, cranberry pistachio shortbreads, cardamom pear cake, ginger and fig tart, apricot coconut bites, and lavender tea bread)

Locations- fun witchy locations for picnics include:

🌹a botanical garden, floral garden, or any sort of garden (perfect for fae, floral, air, green, life, spring, and summer witchcraft)

☀️a sunny open field/area (probably has wild flowers!, great for air, sun, floral, and weather witchcraft)

🌙⭐a night picnic under the stars and moon! (Perfect for lunar, nocturnal, and cosmic witchcraft)

🌳a park (great for all witchcraft, very versatile)

🌊💧a beach, pond, lake or near any body of water (perfect for water, sea, and love witchcraft)

👻a cemetery (perfect for death, spirit, medium, and floral witchcraft. Just make sure it’s allowed and you’re respectful of graves)

🌲A forest (perfect for forest, tree, nature, green, earth, and hedge witchcraft, here’s some tree correspondences)

Other witchy picnic ideas:

Stones/crystals to bring- it depends a lot on location and the general theme of the picnic! But a few favorites of mine are:

rose quartz, opalite, any aura quartz, sunstone, agate, tigers eye, and selenite (especially peach selenite)

Scents- I like to focus on scents a lot during picnics. It can make the experience so much more enjoyable! Location once again plays a huge role, but you can always spray your picnic blanket with essential oils, use strongly scented herbs or flowers, use a specific perfume, or even a specific tea that smells good. Some scents I like to focus on during picnics are:

lemon, orange, grapefruit, lemongrass, strawberry, orange blossom, gardenia, rose and lavender

Bring some little spells or offerings with you! A picnic in nature is the perfect time to do a little crafting, especially love, self care, fae, peace and happiness spells. And you can correspond your picnic with the intent of the spell!

It’s also a great time for devotional offerings and any other offerings, especially fae offerings.

Put together a picnic spell- an entire picnic can be a spell! Everything from location, to drinks, to food, and the extra stuff you bring along can be in it.

🍑Have fun picnic witching! 💐

Activity: Imagine Catholic saints as modern Christian music artists—what would their signature song sound like? CCD Journaling Activity/ Lesson 2 - Grade 8

How to Guard Sabbath for Your Children

Jen Wilkin

TGC Blog | December 4, 2012

My oldest son started high school this fall. At his orientation the counselors spoke to parents about the greatest challenge they see students face in school. I expected to hear about poor study habits or substance abuse, but to my initial surprise, these were not at the top of the list. Apparently, the greatest challenge presenting itself in the office of the high school guidance counselor is a growing number of kids struggling with anxiety and depression. Can you guess why? A combination of over-scheduling and sleep deprivation, linked to two main contributors: electronics use and extracurricular activities. We were encouraged as parents to go home and talk to our teenagers about setting boundaries in these areas. Parents across the auditorium scribbled notes furiously as the counselors outlined some suggestions: limit texting, monitor bedtimes, cut back on team practices. I couldn't help but think to myself: tonight there will be many demonstrations of teenage angst when mom shows up with her new list of suggestions.

What is unfolding at my son's high school is a clear illustration of spiritual truth: the need for regular periods of rest in our lives. From the earliest pages of the Bible we find God instituting patterns of activity and rest---not just any kind of rest, but rest with the intent to engage in worship and community. The concept of Sabbath weaves its way through the Old Testament and the New, occupying a prominent place among the Ten Commandments and informing our understanding of heaven. Despite biblical precedent, few Christians understand or practice Sabbath as a regular part of life, and consequently, neither do their children. Christian parents bear the responsibility of teaching our children the value of rest, through our words and through our actions. Children don't set the calendar in our homes---if they are overscheduled or sleep-deprived, the fault lies with us. How can we better discharge our duty of raising children to seek Sabbath? To value down-time to reconnect with God and family? While I admire the high school guidance counselors' optimism, age 14 is probably too late to start imposing boundaries on our child's rest habits and schedule. We need a plan, and we need it early. How will we safeguard for our families the key Sabbath concepts of rest, worship, and community? Here are a few suggestions that have helped our family to honor God in our rest.

Electronics

Late-night texting and TV watching, online chatting, surfing the internet---all can rob a child of rest. Children between the ages of 7 and 12 require a whopping 10 to 11 hours of sleep each night. This is the very age range during which most acquire the electronics to rob them of needed sleep. Parents can guard their children's rest simply by keeping electronics in sight. We made a rule in our home that no electronics are allowed upstairs: no TVs, computers, phones, or games in bedrooms or rooms where their use cannot be monitored. Each night, those of us who have phones leave them in a spot on the kitchen counter. These measures give us accountability to each other, keep electronics as a shared rather than an individual privilege, and force our electronics to obey our family's Sabbath priorities of rest, worship, community. Well-rested kids bypass many of the unsavory habits of their tired counterparts: fits, backtalk, forgetfulness, drama, isolation, and yes---anxiety and depression. Guarding your child's rest actually gives them a running start at Christlike behavior, even during adolescence.

Activities

So many to pursue, so little time. Don't be fooled: the proliferation of activity options for children reflects our cultural affluence, not our child's need to be well-rounded or socialized. Gobs of money are being made off of our misplaced desire to expose our kids to every possible talent path. How can we choose activities for our family in a way that doesn't compromise Sabbath principles? Because the four Wilkin kids are close in age, our schedule and finances forced us to limit activities to "one or none" for each child. Not all families need to impose a limit this low, but we have re-learned something our grandparents probably knew: children who participate in no organized activities at all still lead lives full of activity and joy. To many parents the idea of a child on no sports team, in no music lessons, at no club meetings is completely foreign and a little frightening. Won't they get bored? Won't they drive me crazy lurking around the house? Won't they miss out on an NFL career and blame me? Or, my personal favorite: Won't other parents think I'm a bad parent? I would answer all of these questions, "Maybe, but who cares?" As is often lamented, parenting is not a popularity contest. With that in mind, here are some good (and highly unpopular) questions to ask when evaluating which activity to pursue:

Does it sabotage weekend downtime or worship?

Does it sabotage family dinners?

Does it sabotage bedtime?

Does it pull our family apart or push us together?

Is it an activity my child can enjoy/benefit from into adulthood?

Can we afford it?

Notice that "Does my child enjoy it?" is not on the list. So often I hear parents justify keeping a child in a time-sucking activity because "He loves it so much." Kids love Skittles and Mario Kart so much, but they don't get to decide if, when, and how much to consume. Because children possess a limited range of life experience, it is difficult for them to conceive of happiness outside their current circumstance. It is our job to help them learn.

Less-than-Admirable Motives

Why do we have such a hard time as parents placing limits on electronics and activities? Both can appeal to parents for less-than-admirable reasons. Both can serve as a babysitter or a diversion. But the appeal of activities extends even further, to our very identity as parents. We actually want to be labeled "soccer mom" on rhinestone-studded tee shirts and coffee mugs. We carefully arrange our car decals so that every identity-marker is announced. The thought of removing or withholding our child from an activity threatens the very way we view ourselves. Maybe our view needs to adjust to something a bit higher. Families that prioritize Sabbath fix their eyes on and find their identity in Christ, recognizing that their greatest potential for missed opportunity lies not in neglecting activities but in neglecting time---lots of it---spent together as a family in worship, rest, and community with each other. God forbid we value the discipline of a sport more than the discipline of Christian living. Both require great application of time and effort, but one is worth far more than the other. Because time is our most limited resource, how we allocate it reveals much about our hearts. Our time usage should look radically different than that of the unbelieving family. We must leave time for slow afternoons, for evening meals where we pray together and share our faith and struggles, for Sunday mornings of shared worship. God ordains Sabbath for our good and for his glory. May our homes be places where Sabbath rest is jealously guarded, that in all things God might have preeminence---even our schedules.

Ephesians 5:15-17: See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

#FamilyTimeActivities

Today I could:

A. read book

B. graphic design (my passion /ref)

C. meticulously categorize children's music with the intent to formulate a cohesive musical play with a well-conceived plot based on selected children's music from the songs I have categorized

D. make waffle

E. play video game

HAPPY SPOOKY SEASON

🍬🎃🎃👻🐈‍⬛🦇🦇🎃🍬

trick or treat!!

Activities during Yule festival (part 2)

Goal list to make

 Money, luxury and material values;

 Training, education, knowledge and skills; 

 Family, home, children, relationships; 

 Health, fitness, lifestyle;

 Fame, recognition and achievements

Travel, rest; 

 Hobbies and creativity;

 Spirituality.

Cute things for you and your friends to do! Prt 2.

4. Make a YT channel 2gether! 📺

Making a YT channel together is a fun and easy way to capture your day to day lives together or fun occasions and activities you guys do together.

You don’t have to try to make it big, although I won’t tell you what you can or can’t do, just making videos for fun is enough to make some memories that you and your friends can look back on in the future.

Record you guys going to school, or work. Record your sleepovers and just have fun with it.

!!NOTE!!- If it was me, I’d make a google email with your friends so you aren’t using one of your personal emails, so if someone was to be rude/mean and try to access your personal info or delete the channel as revenge or something else equally childish… They wouldn’t do AS MUCH damage. Now if you all make a new one and you ALL have access to it, then one of the people who knows the passwords could still use it and do something similar or worse with the email. Another thing I would suggest is vote for someone in your friend group that everyone trusts to run the account and email. Please don’t try to use this email/channel against anyone. I warned you.

5. Pics or it didn’t happen booklet 📸

The pics or it didn’t happen game is a fun way to make goals for yourself to do the things you’ve always wanted to do and a great way to have fun with buddies or by yourself! And this activity isn’t as, ‘girly’ as the others… Might be…?

This game includes you and your other participants making a list of items to achieve/accomplish before a specific time.

A lot of people do this activity during summer break, so for this explanatory example let’s say we’re going for the end of summer as our goal. Your goal is to earn a certain amount of points. The activities include silly things like prank calls, picnics, dying your hair, making a pizza, etc. Small little fun activities. The ‘smaller’ the activity, the less amount of points you get. The ‘bigger’ an activity is you get more points. You and your friends may decide what activities dictate how many points the activities are worth.

As the name of the game implies, you must have pics of you doing said activity/pic of activity as proof, or it didn’t happen/doesn’t count.

This I think would be a great way to have fun with close distance friends and long distance friends as you can do the checklist by yourself and then show and compare results later.

Making/agreeing upon the activities and the books could also be a separate activity in itself, and a fun DIY, which doesn’t take much money. You could just go to your local dollar tree and get booklets/binders and make these books’ covers to match or be unique to yourself.

6. Book Clubs 📖

Book clubs can be an amazing way to boost the amount of books you and your friends read and it can go beyond your school’s allowed books if your school has book restrictions.

It doesn’t have to be some, ‘boring,’ book that doesn’t capture your attention. You and your club can pick out books that ya’ll actually like or sound cool to you guys.

Reading is great on its own but for some people, like people who have difficulty sticking with one thing at a time, it can be hard to read alone. Getting together and reading a few chapters of a good book with friends is a nice way to keep yourself reading and you’re accompanied by some of your favorite people while doing it.

Getting some tea and coffee, meeting up at someone’s house or the park, and talking about what you’re reading about could be good for you too. Practicing reading will help you with anything you may have difficulties with when reading alone. Like if you loose focus, have problems with coherent sentences while reading aloud, and just lack of interest.

Doing this may also make book essays a hell of a lot easier now that you’re reading on your own time with friends.

I’m out of ideas for now, but I’ll be looking for more online to add to this series and ask my friends! I had some but… I forgot them ( • ̀ω•́ )✧

Thanks 4 reading :>

🎅Fun little themed winter bucket list🎅

❄Get some hot chocolate and bundle up and take a walk to look at Christmas lights! You can even check if your town has a Candy Cane Lane!

❄Make special homemade hot chocolate! My favorite is with a candy cane in it 

❄Bake Christmas cookies! Bonus points if you make some for your caregiver or grandma or even your neighbors!

❄Build a gingerbread house! Costco has some great ones for $10

❄Have a pajama day with all the blankets in your house and your favorite snack and movies!

❄Get some Christmas books from the library! And don’t feel silly getting books from the kids area they’ll just assume you’re getting them for your kid/sibling!

❄Donate some toys to kids in need. Most towns will have some sort of donation drive. Our fire station here does it!

❄Mail a Christmas card to Santa! This is my favorite one!!

❄Go to a local tree lighting! The one I like to go to here gives out free reindeer ears and hot chocolate!

❄If you’re putting up a tree make some Christmas ornaments!

❄Make play doh! My favorite is white and glittery like snow!

❄Make paper snowflakes!

Cakes - Pumpkin Pie Coffee Cake Fuel up on the Thanksgiving weekend mornings with a two-layer pumpkin coffee cake for all the festive activities and shopping days.