What Are We Feeling?

What Are We Feeling?

Here at True Balance Karate in Downers Grove, Illinois, we have a social-emotional learning program called True Character. I’m Master H, the owner and chief instructor here at the studio. I have two master’s degrees in education. I was a classroom teacher for 15 years, and we’ve developed this curriculum to meet the needs of our youngest students who are three or four and our oldest student who is 85.

Defining Awareness

This month, we are talking about awareness.

When we talk about it with the younger kids, we say, “I pay attention and I ask great questions because that’s how we grow.” Being aware of everything. Last week we talked about being physically aware of where you are in space, what other people around you are doing, that kind of thing.

Noticing Emotions

This week, if you couldn’t tell by the question I started with, we’re talking about feelings. What are we feeling and where did it come from, and is it good? Is it bad? Is it something I need to address? Along with, what is the person in front of me feeling? Are they scared? Are they mad? Are they happy? Did I have something to do with that kind of thing?

When we’re talking about awareness of our feelings, we’re not just talking about our feelings, but we’re talking about everybody else’s feelings. All of your feelings too, because that’s how we wind up building better relationships, healthy friendships, that kind of thing.

Exploring Emotions

When we’re talking with the younger kids, a lot of times they’ll be like, “I’m mad,” or “I’m sad,” or “I’m happy,” right? They pick these very simple ways of looking at things. I was talking to a friend of mine one time, and she told me that a lot of times we get angry and we kind of use that word to be the blanket over the rest of our emotions. It’s one that we use, but is it actually what we’re feeling or is it something else? Are we more irritated? Are we more frustrated? Are we disappointed? Can we actually put a name to what we’re feeling and why? Why are we feeling that way?

For 3, 4, 5, 6-year-olds who are throwing a temper tantrum, we need to get them to calm down first. We need to get them to come back to being in more of a calm, cool, collected manner so that they can then answer questions a little bit more objectively.

I remember when my son was throwing a fit one time, and I waited until he was done, and then I sat next to him and I was like, “Hey, bud, what was going on? Why were we screaming and crying? Can you tell me what happened?” He wanted to start screaming and crying all over again. I said, “No, no, no, that part’s done. Now we’re gonna talk about where it came from, what we were feeling, and how we can figure it out from there.”

I wouldn’t let him start going down that road again because he had already dealt with those feelings and we didn’t need to necessarily pull them back up. Then he explained what he was actually frustrated with when it came to his sister, and we talked through the best way to solve that problem.

Teaching by Example

We as adults need to model understanding and educating feelings for the younger kids. As they get to be double digits in teenagers and feelings get bigger and more robust, it turns into a somewhat different conversation. It turns into still that educational side of things, but now it’s guiding, giving them options and helping them have some agency over their choices.

Because at the end of the day, as adults, we wanna teach our kids how to make good choices. We wanna teach our kids how to own their choices. In order to do that, they also have to own their feelings that go along with it.

With adults, we all understand our feelings. The hard part with adults is being aware of what we’re actually feeling and owning it, recognizing what it is, and how do we go about addressing it, fixing it, embracing it, that kind of thing.

Applying that same thought that we just did to ourselves, to our friends, to our family, to people out in the neighborhood that might be having a bad day. We just need to take a moment and recognize what their face is saying to us, and recognize what their body language is showing us so that we can practice that same level of awareness and understanding and patience so that we can all build these healthy, awesome, fabulous relationships.

Learning About Awareness

As we continue through awareness, we’re gonna talk about, what do we know, what do we not know next week, intellectual awareness. Then we’re gonna finish it off with this idea of being hyper-aware along the way.

Thanks, and I’ll see you on the mat!

True Balance Karate was founded in 2012 by Master Sue and Paul Helsdon.

We offer kids karate lessons for pre-school children ages 3-6 and elementary age kids ages 7 and up. These lessons are designed to develop the critical building blocks kids need — specialized for their age group — for school excellence and later success in life.

Our adult martial arts training is a complete adult fitness and conditioning program for adults who want to lose weight, get (and stay) in shape, or learn self-defense in a supportive environment.

Instructors can answer questions or be contacted 24 hours of the day, 7 days a week at 630-663-2000. You can also contact us here. True Balance Karate is at 406 Ogden Ave Downers Grove Illinois, 60515 (next to CVS) Check out our Facebook!