Positivity Despite Struggle
We are excited to announce that our first writing workshop took place this Thursday, February 9th, 2023 in the classroom of Godhavi primary school located in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. We were thankful to see multiple eager faces willing to take the plunge and express themselves through words on paper. When we were initially planning the workshop and what it would entail and hope to accomplish, we wanted to first and foremost provide a safe space for children to have a catharsis of negative emotions regarding hardships going on in their lives while simultaneously being able to appreciate the good. Having a balance of being able to express negative aspects while remaining positive about the persistent good is something we deemed important because over-rumination of negative things is linked to greater risk of mental illness onset. We also wanted the students to be in power of their expression by being able to choose the writing medium in which they decided to pour their thoughts into. Some options included, but were not limited to, poetry, an essay, or a memoir.
Due to time difference concerns as well as internet connectivity barriers, we decided to create a video divided into segments that could be played for the students rather than do a live session. After each segment where I explained what the students would be doing, the video was paused and then the students were allotted time to complete the exercise. Additionally, the language used to communicate the goals to the students was Gujarati. I was the only one who spoke Gujarati, so I was the one creating and leading the course of the video.
What was our design/plan for the workshop?
The first segment of the video was a free-write where the students could share anything negative occurring in their lives. They then had the opportunity to share if they wanted to, but I was careful to not push it since the writing was for themselves, not for anyone else. The second segment of the video was where the students were encouraged to make a list of at least 5 things that were going well or that they were thankful for in their lives. I also came up with a few things that I felt gratitude towards alongside the students and shared it to encourage the students to share too. Sharing positive things with others can be very rewarding and increase appreciation for what is going right rather than wrong in one’s life.
The final part of the workshop used the positivity that had been brainstormed and used it as a way to combat the presence of difficult, negative emotions. I allowed the students 15 more minutes to create a piece of writing where they picked one negative and one positive thing they had brainstormed. They then had the opportunity to think about how the positive thing could be used to help overcome/make the bad thing feel a little less bad.
To close out class, I recapped on everything we did and emphasized how important it was to focus on positives within life as much as it was to feel pain about things that can be upsetting. While I acknowledged that it is always important to feel pain, I also made the point that drowning in that pain could be dangerous. The ultimate goal of this workshop was to try and stop students from falling into a spiral of negative thinking alone.
The video that was created to lead the Positivity Despite Struggle workshop is linked below and a translation of it is provided underneath:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ER8Az-XMaEZsTiGVj-mqvMkRlhk8SF_M?usp=sharing
Translation of the video:
Hi everybody. My name is Simran and today I will lead you through a writing workshop. I started this program because whenever I would visit India with my family at that time I would see that no one was willing to talk about mental health. I believe that if we keep whatever we feel inside our heads and we don’t talk to anyone about it, then it can have a negative effect after a while. So I wanted to somehow spread the word on how important it is to talk about this. But I know that sometimes talking alone cannot describe how we feel. So, I started this nonprofit so that you students could use writing to write your thoughts down on paper instead. From my experience, whenever I overthink and then write my thoughts down on paper, my mind feels a lot lighter and on top of that, I think good thoughts along with the bad ones so the bad ones only do not dominate. The first workshop’s name is “Positivity Despite Struggle.” Its meaning is that everyone goes through troubles but then the responsibility falls on us on
whether we ruminate on the problem or we accept the problem and try to find a solution to it.
For this first part, you need a pen and paper. First we will write for 10 minutes. Whatever is going on that makes you angry or sad or makes you feel anything else is what you will write about. Sometimes when I would write about things that made me sad, I wouldn’t know how to put it into words. That is a very normal thing so don’t worry if that happens. You can write in whichever form you would like to. But it is very important that whatever comes to mind, you write about it and think about it as well because if you never process the things bothering you, then it can have a negative effect on the mind. Now we will start writing. Pause the video for 10 minutes and write.
Now we will write about good things going on in your lives for 10 minutes. Make a list of 5 things that make you happy and write about them. It is easy to only ruminate on negative things happening but it is very important that we also think about things that make us keep going and love living. Now pause this video and write for 10 minutes.
In this third and last part, we will share what makes us happy. In my life, my family and friends, my job, and traveling gives me joy even when I am going through difficulties. If anyone in the class wants to share amongst themselves what gives them happiness, then pause the video and let them do
so. Otherwise, we will begin the final part. Now, we will combine and write about what makes you sad and happy. From your writing, pick one happy aspect and one sad one you wrote about and think about how that happy thing can create peace when the sad thing is happening. The happy thing won’t be able to eliminate the sad thing, but it will give your mind a break. If we constantly think bad thoughts, our mind will be trained to keep thinking those bad thoughts. But if there is a good thing like for example I like to go out and eat with my friends so lets say I had a bad day because I found out I scored low on an exam, then I could tell myself that for the next exam, I will study a lot and then because I put in so much work, I will go eat with my friends as a reward. A good thing can make a bad thing seem a little less bad. But if I got a bad score and then stopped studying because I thought that I was dumb, then I would have more
problems long term and I will not be in the proper state of mind. Now you do the same and think of one bad and one good thing that’s happening right now. Pause this video for 10 minutes and write about it. You can write it as a poem, an essay, or any other form of writing as long as whatever is on your mind can be translated onto paper. Then, if anyone in the class wants to share what they wrote then take time and do so.
This workshop is now finished. Out of this workshop, my goal is that you will all realize the importance of taking better care of your mental health. Two things are important: First, it is very important that you don’t bottle up your emotions and secondly, that think good thoughts alongside bad ones so that your mental health improves. My hope is that from this workshop, you guys better understand how to regulate your mindset and to never give up even when you are facing struggles.
Ms. Sejal Patel, the headmaster, was gracious enough to take a few photos of the workshop while it was in progress that we have include below in a slideshow:
As seen in the first picture of the slideshow, the headmaster has played the video I created for the workshop and the students are intently listening. The subsequent pictures include the students doing the free writes as well as creating the culminating writing piece in the third segment.
We asked the students whether they would be comfortable to show us their writing but they were not, so images of the writing are not showcased.