Part Four-The Gift of Appreciation

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them."    

                                       -John F. Kennedy

This beautiful quote by John F. Kennedy expresses the true value of showing our appreciation for ourselves, others and life.

Appreciation is truly a gift that we can enjoy, learn more from and share with the world! To be able to express appreciation is important, but to display appreciation through our actions is what changes our lives.

Living with appreciation opens the door for showing our children what it means to live a meaningful life.  It also shows them that the gift that appreciation gives us is true happiness in the moment.  No matter how challenging life can be, we can take a moment to be aware of our blessings and feel our gratitude for those gifts. The happiness that enters into that moment will be priceless. Children naturally live in the present, so wouldn't the world be even better if elders did a little more as well?

It's nice to look back on our journey to see what lessons we have learned to bring us to where we are now.  In these series of blogs, we talked about what appreciation is, where true appreciation stems from and how to appreciate ourselves and teach our children this valuable lesson. Once we all practice and honor appreciating ourselves, it is much easier to appreciate others and the life we have been given. We have also discussed the value of teaching this to children and students, and helping them approach challenges with an opportunity perspective. Seeing every challenge as an opportunity can help them appreciate what they learned from it, and that is something that will help them throughout life and influence those around them in a positive way. 

Since Earth Day is celebrated the month we wrote these blogs, and appreciation is the seed to happiness and enjoying each moment, we decided to create a tree word art picture for this month's responses to the question,"what are some things you and your children appreciate and why?."  The number one response we received from children and adults was that they appreciate family. 

We hope you enjoy our first video production below where a cute and creative little girl shares what appreciation means to her and Joy Sun Bear.  Please share the video with family, friends and anyone else you know that will be interested.  Not only do we have a passion for sharing different cultures around the world with children, but we also want to help children learn to love, trust and share their uniqueness with the world!  So the more you share our video, the more it will help us spread our message and help others.  Thank you for your support!!

Stay tuned for the next emotion we will be exploring in May and hope you keep living with appreciation and enjoy the rest of April!

-Joy Sun Bear Family