PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT/PANSARILING KAUNLARAN

I. LIVING MINDFULLY
 Living mindfully is like being an artist: you need the right tools to practice your craft, and you need to
constantly refine your technique to achieve your creative potential.
 In the same way, using the present moment tools below will help you to hone a consistent mindfulness
practice that will in time lead to a more aware, compassionate and fulfilling way of life.
Tool 1: Breathe Mindfully. Use your breath as an anchor to still your mind and bring your focus back to the
present moment.
Tool 2: Listen Deeply. Listen with intention; let others fully express themselves and focus on understanding how
they think and feel.
Tool 3: Cultivate Insight. See life as it is, allowing each experience to be an opportunity for learning.
Tool 5: Limit Reactivity. Observe rather than be controlled by your emotions. Pause, breathe and choose a
skillful Response based on thoughtful speech and non-violence under every condition.
Tool 4: Practice Compassion. Consider thoughts and feelings of others and let tenderness, kindness and empathy be
your guides.
Tool 6: Express Gratitude. Practice gratitude daily and expand it outward, appreciating everyone and everything
you encounter.
Tool 7: Nurture Mutual Respect. Appreciate our common humanity and value different perspectives as your own.
Tool 8: Build Integrity. Cultivate constructive values and consistently act from respect, honesty and kindness.
Tool 9: Foster Leadership. Engage fully in life and in community. Share your unique talents and generosity so that
others can also be inspired
Tool 10: Be Peace. Cultivate your own inner peace, becoming an agent for compassionate action and social good.
II. THE CHALLENGES OF MIDDLE AND LATE ADOLESCENCE
Big Question: How can you as an adolescent, balance the expectations of significant people in your life and your
personal aspirations?
A. The passage to adulthood: Challenges of Late Adolescence
 Physical Development, Emotional Development, Social Development, Mental development
B. Encouragement: The Courage to Be Imperfect by Timothy D. Evans, Ph. D.
 Encouragement
- the key ingredient for improving your relationships with others
- the single most important skill necessary for getting along with others—
so important that the lack of it could be considered the primary cause of
conflict and misbehavior
- develops a person’s psychological hardiness and social interest
- the lifeblood of a relationship
 Alfred Adler (psychiatrist)
- Developed Encouragement, as a psychological idea, in the early 20th century and continued to
evolve through the work of Adler’s follower Rudolph Dreikurs.
- Few educators, parents, psychologists, leaders or couples have utilized his valuable concept.
Most of the time, people mistakenly use a technique like praise in an effort to “encourage’
others.
 Half the job of encouragement lies in avoiding discouraging words and actions.
 For instance: When children or adults misbehave, it is usually because they are discouraged. Instead
of building them up, we tear them down; instead of recognizing their efforts and improvements, we
point out mistakes; instead of allowing them to belong through shared decision-making and
meaningful contributions, we isolate and label them.
 Most commonly, we discourage in five general ways:
 We set standards that are too high for others to meet because we are overly ambitious.
 We focus on mistakes as a way to motivate change or improved behavior.
 We make constant comparisons (self to others, siblings to one another)
 We automatically give a negative spin to the actions of others.
 We dominate others by being overly helpful, implying that they are unable to do it as well.
 Encouragement develops children’s psychological hardiness—their ability to function and recover
when things aren’t going their way.
 The first step to becoming an encouraging person is to learn to distinguish encouragement from
discouragement. As a rule as yourself: Whatever I say or do, will it bring me closer together or farther
apart from this person?
 We all have the power to be more encouraging people. The choice, as always, is yours.
 PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT/PANSARILING KAUNLARAN

C. THE POWER OF PERSONAL DECLARATIONS by Dr. Emily De Carlo

 The following are some declarations that you may want to make concerning your
life:
I declare:
- that I am totally free of all addictions.
- that I will survive any attempts of others to control my life
- that I am free in my mind, body, and emotions.
- that I am free to set goals and reach them.
- that I am a loving individual with the capacity to give love.
- that I am a child of God with all rights and privileges thereof.
- that I will contribute to the welfare of others.
- that I will be a good example for others to follow.
- that I will help all that I can to reach their goals.
- that I will speak words of encouragement to others.
- that I will find the goodness in life and focus on it.
- that I will not succumb to the negative influences of others.
- that I will spread the information that I will encourage my personal, and spiritual growth.
- that I will commit to being the best I can be.
 These declarations are meant to encourage you to take control of the influences in your life.
 They are suggestions as to what positive things you can speak about your own life instead of
accepting whatever has been said about you in the past.

D. BEING HAPPY
1. Being happy is finding strength in forgiveness, hope in one’s battles, security at the stage of fear, love in
disagreements.
2. Being happy is not only to treasure the smile, but that you also reflect on sadness.
3. Being happy is to recognize that it is worthwhile to live, despite all the challenges, misunderstanding and
times of crises.
4. Being happy is not inevitable fate, but a victory for those who can travel towards it with your own being.
5. Being happy is to stop being a victim of problems but become an actor in history itself.
6. Being happy is not being afraid of one’s feelings.
7. Being happy means allowing the free, happy and simple child inside each of us to live; having the maturity
to say, “I was wrong”, having the audacity to say, “forgive me”.
 In your spring-time, may you become a lover of joy.
 In your winter, may you become a friend of wisdom.
 When you go wrong along the way, you start all over again.
 …Thus you will be more passionate about life ,and you will find that happiness is not about having a
perfect life but about using tears to water tolerance, losses to refine patience, failures to carve
serenity, pain to lapidate pleasure, obstacles to open the windows of intelligence.
 Never give up…from being happy because life is an incredible show. And you are a special human
being!.

ACTIVITIES
1. HOW MINDFUL AM I?
2. MINDFULNESS WITH REFLECTION
3. PERSONAL DECLARATION: MAKING SLOGAN
4. ROLE PLAYS
5. QUIZ
6. LONG QUIZ
7. (OTHER GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES)