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Expanding our Emotional Vocabulary: Inside Out 2

Expanding our Emotional Vocabulary: Inside Out 2

Hi folks!

This week’s topic is on a movie I really want to see but haven’t yet: Inside Out 2. (I haven’t seen the first one either!) This movie is getting applause for being a great illustration of how teens (and all of us) deal with anxiety and change, and for giving us some words to talk about it.

We’ll listen to an article/4-minute podcast from NPR: The ‘Inside Out’ movies give kids an ’emotional vocabulary.’

There’s also a 14-minute interview with a psychologist on what the movie got right. I won’t play that one tomorrow, but it’s worth checking out. It’s very affirming and normalizing of emotions and experiences surrounding anxiety.

Warm-up question: If you could hang out with any cartoon character, who would you choose and why?

See you soon!

Kirsten

Surgeon General is Calling for a Warning Label on Social Media Platforms

Surgeon General is Calling for a Warning Label on Social Media Platforms

See you soon!  Hello everyone.

At tonight’s meeting, we will start with an icebreaker when we will discuss:
“If you were famous for something, what two companies would you want to sponsor you?”

The article that we will discuss for tonight’s stronger together conversation is one written by the Surgeon General; he wants to be able to add a warning label to social media sites that have not demonstrated that they are safe.

Some questions that might come up in the conversation are around:

  • “how might social media or the internet be affecting our mental health–either positively or negatively?”
  • “Would a surgeon general’s warning help us make choices that are better for our mental health?” If not, what could help us avoid things that are not good for us?
  • Similarly, “are there things we can do to help those we love avoid things that are not helpful for their mental health and do things that support mental health?”

In Christ,

James

It’s Who You Talk to That Counts

It’s Who You Talk to That Counts

Hello friends,

This week we’re going to focus on two different but related stories about the power of talking to others. In the first, we hear how a university professor came to discover that even brief, casual exchanges with others are an antidote to loneliness and a building block in our well-being.

We’ll follow that up with a couple of brief excerpts from a video about “collective illusion,” a phenomenon where false beliefs about society are shared by many people within that society. We’ll focus on the section about social media and how our “offline” interactions have become a critical counterbalance.

Our warm-up question for this week:

Tell us about someone people tend to overlook, but who you know is special.

See you soon,

Alex