By Lynda Shadbolt
Published April 24 2018
The yogis have always said “where the attention goes the breath follows and the energy or life force follows the breath.” The life force or energy is called prana and it is what makes everything live. It makes our hearts beat our stomachs digest food the sun rise and flowers grow.
In order to thrive the yogis would say that we need an abundance of prana moving through our bodies and in our lives. So for example when you put your attention on your own health and well being the prana will follow and something will happen. Or when you put your attention and your energy on your children there will be an impact. Over the past few months I’ve been following the successes of our kids at SBES JDHES and HHSS.
Every week there have been many good news stories in the paper. I don’t remember all of the exact details but I do know that a lot has been happening.
It’s obvious that there is a lot of attention and energy being given to many different parts of the schools. At JDHES the boys won their volleyball season this year. A team of students from JDHES won the board wide math Olympiad and will go on to represent TLDSB at the provincial competition in June.
The JDHES curling team won first second fourth and sixth at the provincial elementary school championships.
The Battle of the Books team recently did well at their competition and the basketball teams are playing well as well. At HHSS I have followed how a number of teams have gone to compete at OFSAA such as wrestling volleyball badminton and snowboarding. The basketball curling and hockey teams all did well. HHSS won the board-wide “Great Grain Challenge” by collecting the most about of donations per person for our local food banks.
Recently I saw pictures of teachers eating bugs and getting taped up in blue tape for the Light It Blue for Autism Day. The students had raised $1262 and teachers had agreed to do all kinds of things if the students met their goal. There is plenty of life force moving around in those buildings thanks to the efforts of teachers administrators support staff and the willing students. I feel like we all thrive when our kids thrive.
I have a personal story of a young man thriving in my life. Some of you may remember when I wrote in 2016 about my then 28-year-old nephew who had created a hockey commercial for the playoffs.
It was called Hockey Dreams and was a tribute to four great hockey players and kids who aspire to be like them. Cameron has a second commercial being played this year during the playoffs and it is also called Hockey Dreams. It is a 30-second Scotiabank commercial that has kids playing street hockey and a young girl is commentating while another young girl scores a goal.
“Holy mackinaw they are going to the playoffs.” I’m sure Cameron’s dad had no idea that when he spent hundreds of hours as a volunteer hockey coach that it would have an impact on Cameron’s future work. He just put his attention on Cameron and the rest happened. Where we put our attention our energy goes.