Giving Thanks for Delight: Thanksgiving at Bold Earth
Autumn is giving way to winter here at Bold Earth headquarters. The leaves are falling, temperatures dropping, and the daylight creeps away faster each day. The excitement and business of summer is fading to a quieter time, giving us space to think about other things. As the nights grow longer, we’re spending a little less time exploring outside and a little more time looking inwards. It’s almost Thanksgiving and we’ve got a lot to be grateful for this year. Our summer was full to the brim with new friendships, self discovery, and adventure. We got to welcome new Bold Earth families and see old friends again. Our staff training was alive with electric new trip leaders, learning from and offering their insight to our incredible team of experienced returners. Our teen groups experienced challenge, adversity, and the kind of bonding that can only happen when you have to dig a little deeper. We had the privilege of witnessing, nourishing, and celebrating genuine connection–the greatest gift we can ask for in this industry.
Gratitude at Bold Earth
We all know it feels good to sit with gratitude. It’s also amazingly beneficial for our health. Gratitude rewires your brain–we see lifts in our mood, improved resilience, and physical changes in our neurological activity when we practice gratitude. These changes happen when we take a moment to let it sink in. Taking note of gratitude can look different for everyone. It can be done out loud, on paper, or even through guided reflection. It can be private or with others. However you choose to practice, gratitude goes beyond the Thanksgiving table. At Bold Earth, we believe in making a space for practicing gratitude. During every program, our trip leaders run evening meetings with our students. We gather in a circle after dinner each night and pass around dessert, letting the highs and lows of the day percolate in our memory. Each person has a turn to share, should they choose to. There’s a special question we ask: who was your hero of the day? In other words, who are you feeling grateful for? Sometimes it’s a fellow student who reached out in friendship. Sometimes it’s a rafting guide who did a great job of guiding the group safely down the rapids. Once in a while, it’s the simple kindness of a perfect stranger. Through this nightly ritual, we hold space for gratitude to sit with us. Life moves fast, but it’s our job to slow things down for contemplation and growth, even on a busy adventure trip. When we invite gratitude into our minds, it develops new neural pathways that can improve the quality of our lives. There’s one more thing gratitude can do for us. When I practice gratitude, I often find it helps me notice delight. Gratitude primes the mind for taking note of those tiny, beautiful moments that are unique to every day. Like giving binoculars to a birder, gratitude is a tool that aids us in catching a glimpse of fleeting colors before they disappear.
No matter what the objective, kindness wins
Gratitude and Delight
Above all this November, I’m feeling especially grateful for delight. There’s a lot going on in the world, to say the least. Inside our personal lives and beyond, in the news cycles and global community, times are in flux. There’s a great potential for frustration and despair out there. So what do I mean when I say delight? Although it might seem similar, I think delight is very different from both happiness and joy. Happiness is something we actively pursue, the white rabbit tail disappearing into the brush. Joy is an internal state of contentment, the eye at the center of a swirling storm.
Delight to me means something infinitely more mundane and therefore, constantly accessible. I find delight in the way golden leaves skitter and tumble down the sidewalk in front of me, playing games with the wind. I find delight in an eight minute phone call with friends, listening to the smiles in their voices from hundreds of miles away. The smell of woodfire smoke from a cozy home is a delight, same as the chilly wind that snaps your cheek on a quiet walk. Delight doesn’t require anything to exist. You don’t have to accomplish something or succeed to feel it. You don’t even have to be having a particularly good day. It can surprise you in the strangest moment, like a piece of glass catching the light and throwing rays of color across dull pavement. Delight can be hiding almost anywhere, so it can be easy to miss. By nature, it lives in unexpected places and it can take some practice to notice it. That’s why it can be helpful to make a space and time specifically for delight–talking about it, sharing it, and hearing others’ experiences. For me, the perfect time is Thanksgiving. After asking my friends and family what they’re feeling grateful for, I like to ask where their most recent delight was found. You’d be surprised by all the odd places it can pop out of. These stories lead to more silliness, laughter, and then the best part of the magic happens–we realize delight is in the room with us now, sharing our holiday table.
We're Grateful You're Here
Wherever you might be reading this, I can’t end this blog without saying that I am truly grateful for you and delighted you’re here. Whether you’re a parent, student, trip leader, or future friend. Community is what makes Bold Earth a home. We can’t do it without you. So from my table to yours, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving full of silly stories, big laughs, and connection. I hope gratitude is present with you when you gather, warm as a roaring woodfire stove. And most of all, as the dishes are cleared away and the turkey leftovers wrapped for tomorrow, I hope you stumble across a delight or two hiding somewhere unexpected.
Recent blogs
Arches National Park Adventures
Curious about what life is like on Bold Earth’s teen travel programs? Sophie, a summer camper on one of our trips, submits an exciting blog entry about her experience at Arches National Park! Starting the day with an early 5:00 am wakeup, Dillon, Max, Logan, Don, Jackson, Lindsey, Mariana, and Alexandra, led
Interview With a (Previously) Nervous Student
Leaving your comfort zone to travel for several weeks with a group of strangers can be nerve-wracking. There are new foods, sights, smells, and social dynamics to navigate. Even if we know this new experience will be good for us, it can still feel overwhelming. It’s normal to feel butterflies when
Camera Recommendations for Bold Earth Trips
Many parents choose Bold Earth because of our no-electronics policy—teens finally get a much-needed break from digital and social media! But the first question they ask is, “How will Bold Earth teenagers be able to take photos?!” Believe it or not, digital point-and-shoot cameras are still available (we know, it sounds crazy).
Pros and Cons of Cotton Clothing
As we move into the new year, parents and students begin to look ahead to summer and make their 2019 Bold Earth trip selection. There are so many options taking place around the world—we know it can be hard to choose! With trip selection comes trip planning, and it’s important to
The Silver Lining to COVID-19 Quarantine
As we’ve all grown fond of saying, we’re living in a challenging and unprecedented time. No person in their right mind would describe these past few months as a “good time.” With all who have suffered from the direct and indirect effects of COVID-19, it’s hard to feel positive. I
And then it rained…
Well, I’m not sure if it actually did. But unless you’re on our Grand Canyon trip, it’s bound to rain at least once, right? This may sound odd, but we really like a day of rain on our trips. It doesn’t have to rain – maybe it’s wind or mud.
request your
program proposal
The custom group program process is a collaboration from start to finish. We love hearing about what you hope to get out of the Bold Earth experience.