I’m very pleased to have Yvie on the blog again today with a post about creating a year of positivity through a very simple and fun addition to each week. We’ve also done something similar in the past, which Kallista still looks back into from time to time and really enjoys seeing all those memories written down. If you’ve tried this, please share your thoughts on it in the comments!
Turn on the television, tune into social media, or pick up a paper and you’ll typically be bombarded with negativity. Those messages eventually affect our brains, causing us to focus more on the negative…..and if they’re doing that to our brains, imagine what they’re doing to our children’s brains!
Beginning A Year of Positivity
Back in January of 2016, after a particularly gruelling year, my husband and I decided that enough was enough. We wanted to train ourselves to focus on the positive side of life – and while it isn’t always easy, due to the constant flood of negative message, there’s been progress. More noticeably, we’ve noticed a difference in our children’s attitudes toward life’s little issues…
We created a little box, affectionately dubbed “the Friday box” due to the fact that we use it on Fridays, and began a mission. Each Friday, everyone was responsible for writing down one good thing (little or big) that they wanted to remember from that week.
The memory could be something as simple as a special lunch out, or a big thing like a fun experience at overnight camp. It usually falls somewhere in between, and three years into the tradition, there are often two or three memories written down each week!
Even when we travelled quite a bit, we took slips of paper to continue the tradition and then put them into the box once back home.
Opening up the Friday Box
On the last Friday of the year, after filling out our slips, we take turns reading off all of the slips of paper from the box and remembering the good times from the year. The vast majority of them are about little things, and good times, and we spend well over two hours just reminiscing about the good times we’ve experienced together.
It’s human nature for most to remember the bad more vividly than the good – it’s how we evolved to make sure we stayed safe by remembering those negative experiences vividly so that we could avoid them in the future.
However, with the advent of massive connectivity, negativity now surrounds us from every direction….it’s pervasive. But we have the choice to passively sit by and let it consume you, or work to focus on the good.
Giggles and laughter, smiles all around…those are the things that I want to remember. The “Friday Box” tradition is here to stay at our house. Will you start it at yours?
Yvie practices the art of simple living with her chickens, goats, dogs, rabbits, and house full of boys in rural America. She loves acoustic guitar, historical novels, and anything with dark chocolate! You can find her at Homeschool On the Range, or on Facebook and Instagram.
