Session 15 Courage

This week was very different from last week, our group had much more positive energy and I would say most definitely a case of the giggles. We did check in by picking a stone that represented our thoughts or feelings for that day. At the end of group we each shared one statement including the meaning of that stone to explain our choice.

We continued our discussion on forgiveness and what this means for each of us. A consensus was reached about whether or not we feel able to forgive someone who has lied and apologized for it.  We decided that people make mistakes and if they apologize sincerely they deserve a second chance, but that it  may be different if the behavior is a pattern. T brought up the example of the boy who cried wolf and shared the story with the group to illustrate this point.

On to chapter 21: Anger.  In this chapter we learned about the Amara stone of courage and talked about how we can act with courage in our lives.

S1 felt that she could try helping someone who looks down. This would be courageous for her because she feels shy.

K thought that she could stand up for herself more.

T wants to try more to meet new people.

L2 also wanted to stand up for himself.  He shared that he had stood up for himself recently and it made him feel happy and brave, but chose not to share the details in group.

M want to have courage when she gets older, and was worried about what it will be like.

As we continued to talk and bring in examples of how we had acted with courage in the past H2 struggled to share a memory of this. S1 asked if she could she could share something for H2 and told us she felt H2 has showed courage a few weeks back when she shared even though she was feeling worried. I pointed out to the group that in that moment S1 had just met her goal for showing courage and this realization resulted in a giant smile across S1’s face.

We wrote down three things that make us feel angry, stood up, and as a group yelled them as loud as we could. What a change from this group in just a couple of weeks. Everyone participated with courage in this activity!

We read chapter 22 in the book but ran out of time to start the workbook portion. Each of us shared our statement about the moobia stone we had picked. L2 shared about how he had picked Rahwa because he felt thankful for the chance to spend more time with his mom. He was able to stand up for himself and express to his parents who he wanted to stay with for awhile. L2 had initially not wanted to share this with the group and for whatever reason he chose to share anyway. All this courage talk must have paid off!