Step 1: Selecting a token

• Take a walk outside and find a spot in your community that you enjoy and feel comfortable visiting

• Find your grounding token to carry with you over the next 6 weeks to add to/start your bundle. An example of a token could be a rock or stone; look for your token in a special place in your community. Tokens can be any object that you can hold and connect with (ie: a rock or stone)

Step 2: Connecting with your Token

• Sit with your token for 10 minutes and connect with it:

  • Physically: by holding it in your hand in different ways; learn its shapes and textures

  • Mentally: by describing it non-judgmentally, meaning simply state the facts about the object (for example, it is hard, it has 3 grooves, etc. versus stating judgments, both positive and negative for example, it is pretty, it is small, etc.)

  • Spiritually: by getting to know about it, it’s story, it’s journey, how it came to be in your life, it’s connection to you and the meaning you assign it

Emotionally: by noticing what sensations arise in your body and mind as you connect with it.

For a printable worksheet, click here!

Step 1: Reviewing your values

• Take some time to review the Seven Grandfather Teachings

• Reflect on these values and what they mean to you. How do they look in your daily life?

Step 2: Exploring your values

• Thinking of the Seven Grandfather Teachings, which ones are most aligned with your value system, particularly in your relationships?

  • Love

  • Respect

  • Bravery

  • Truth

  • Honesty

  • Humility

  • Wisdom

Step 3: Reflecting on your values

• Select three of the Seven Grandfather Teachings from the Values Table worksheet that are most important to you currently in your life.

• Choose the one you practice, one you would like to start practicing, and one that falls in between. Answer the following questions:

  • What is the value you want to practice most?

  • What actions can you take to practice that value?

  • How do these actions make you feel about yourself?

  • How does acting in line with your values affect one of the meaningful relationships in your life?

  • How does not acting in line with these teachings affect one of the meaningful relationships in your life?

For a printable worksheet, click here!

Step 1: Reflecting on your relationships

• Take some time to review the relationships in your life and what they mean to you. These relations can be with family, friends, culture, land, or even as broad as the universe.

Step 2: Creating your personal constellation

• Reflect on your connections to each of the following categories. Write them into the map to build your personal constellations and see how you are connected to everything.

  • Family & Friends

  • Home & Community

  • Culture & Ancestry

  • Land & The Universe

Step 3: Reflecting on your constellation

• Reflect on what these relations mean to you and how they form a web of connections around you.

For a printable worksheet, click here!

Step 1: Getting started

• On the activities tab, review and print the scavenger hunt checklist. Feel free to add your own challenges to the list.

Step 2: Exploring your community

• Using the scavenger hunt checklist as a guide, go around your community and complete the checklist, whether it’s doing tasks or finding objects.

Step 3: Reflecting on your scavenger hunt

• Reflect in your journal using the following prompt questions:

  • What does community mean to you?

  • What communities do you feel most part of?

  • Which of these communities are most important to you and which are less important?

  • How do you feel when you are with your closest community?

  • How could you extend an invitation to other youth in your community so they could also feel those things?

For a printable worksheet, click here!

Step 1: Brainstorming

• Think of a situation that has shaped you into the person you are today. This can be either a positive or negative experience.

Step 2: Writing Your Story

• Using the situation you thought of, write about it using the third person, not as yourself. Write what thoughts and feelings were present at the time.

Step 3: Reading Your Story

• Read your story aloud to yourself and imagine someone you care about was telling you this story.

• Imagine them telling you this as if it had happened to them.

• If someone you cared deeply about was telling you this story, how would you support them? What would you tell them in this situation?

Step 4: Reflecting on Your Story

• Reflect on the advice and support you would give to this person and say it aloud to yourself.

• Try your best to hear and believe these positive words. Use this to reframe negative thoughts and ideas about yourself.

For a printable worksheet, click here!

Step 1: Assigning Partners

• Within the group you will be anonymously assigned to a person in the group.

Step 2: Exploring Your Partner's Gifts

• Once you know who you're assigned to, think of a gift they have or something they're good at. Don't tell them and write it out on the handout.

• The facilitator will collect it and distribute it to the appropriate person within the group.

Step 3: Reflecting on the Experience

• Reflect on the questions provided below:

  • What were your experiences in someone sharing a gift they see in you?

  • What were your experiences in identifying a gift in another?

  • Think of ways you can share this gift with others. How can you do this?

For a printable worksheet, click here!

Step 1: Using the Reflective Tree Worksheet

• Use the reflective tree worksheet and fill out the various boxes as "leaves" on your tree.

Step 2: Reflecting on the Process

• After identifying these aspects of your life, reflect on the following questions

  • What part of your roots are you most proud of?

  • What do you like about your life as is?

  • What aspect of your life can you work towards accepting wholeheartedly?

  • What are you hoping to bring into your life in the future?

  • What would it look like to “let go: of your leaves?

  • What steps would you take?

  • What emotions arise?

  • What would it mean for you to “let go”? How might you feel?

Step 3: Practising Letting Go

• Focus on the old leaves you identified as aspects of your life you want to let go of.

• Spend some time reflecting on why you want to let it go.

• Put all your thoughts, emotions, and energies that arise from this aspect of your life and imagine them flowing out of you and into the paper in your hands.

• Physically let go of the paper by throwing it out. It is no longer yours to carry, walk away, and don't look back.

For a printable worksheet, click here!

Step 1: Designing Your Avatar

• Design an image of your ideal self.

• While creating this image think about who you are, what makes you who you are.

Step 2: Reflecting on Your Avatar

• After designing your ideal self as an avatar, reflect inwards by answering the following prompt questions:

  • Who are you?

  • What makes you who you are?

  • Who do you want to be?

  • What are your intentions?

  • What do you need to become your truest self?

For a printable worksheet, click here!

Step 1: Reflecting on Your Relationship with Land

• Take a couple of minutes to reflect on your relationship with land and what it means to you.

Step 2: Writing a Letter to Land

• Write a letter to land as a way to reflect on your relationship to land and how you want to foster it as part of your bundle.

• Write this letter as you would write to a friend or family member.

For a printable worksheet, click here!

Step 1: Reflecting on Yourself

• Reflect on things you love about yourself (body, mind, spirit, etc.) and what others love about you.

• Reflect on which ways are you hard on yourself. How you can be kinder to yourself about these things? Imagine you're comforting a friend about these things. Use those same kind words when talking to yourself.

Step 2: Practicing Self Affirmations

• Repeat these affirmations to yourself daily.

For a printable worksheet, click here!

Step 1: Reviewing Emotions

• Review the emotions chart.

Step 2: Watching the Attached Video

• Watch the video "Bundle Activities: Recognizing Emotions" on the Finding Our Power Together Youtube channel. Throughout the video, use the worksheet to identify what emotions you're experiencing.

Step 3: Reflecting on Your Emotions

• After watching the video and identifying your emotions, answer the following questions:

  1. Were you able to notice any emotions?

  2. What evoked these emotions?

  3. What do you feel in your body?

For a printable worksheet, click here!

Step 1: Reflecting on Your Spiritual Signal

• Reflect on the following questions:

  1. What are 3 things that decrease your feelings of connection to your spirit?

  2. What are 3 things that increase your feelings of connection to your spirit?

  3. What are 3 ways you can nurture or protect your spirit?

For a printable worksheet, click here!

Radical acceptance is a distress tolerance skill that helps reduce emotional suffering in moments when we cannot change the circumstances life presents. Radical Acceptance is not approval of- or agreement with- a situation. It is whole-heartedly acknowledging reality as it is in the present moment with our mind, body, and spirit. It is accepting that we cannot change past or present circumstances, even if we don't like, agree with, or approve of them. We must be willing to accept what is to make space for change to happen.

Step 1: Writing Your Story

• Write a story of a part of your life or a situation you are having trouble accepting.

Step 2: Reflecting on Your Story

• As you are writing, reflect on the judgments you are placing on the narrative - What are ways that you are fighting against or denying reality as it is? How can you work towards accepting reality in order to move forward?

• There might be things we are not yet ready to accept (remember, acceptance is not the same as approval), and that's okay! Make note of the areas of your story that you will work on when you are ready.

For a printable worksheet, click here!

We have 3 states of mind:

Emotional Mind

Our emotional mind operates when we make decisions based on what we're feeling, primarily focused on our emotions, leading us to be reactive and/or defensive.

Wise Mind

Our wise mind operates when we have a balance of emotional mind and logical mind. We are living mindfully and honouring our emotional mind while trying to act rationally.

Logical Mind

Our logical mind operates when we make decisions based on facts and what makes intellectual sense. It steers away from emotions and compares current experiences to past ones.

Step 1: Exploring States of Mind

• Identify times where you operate or notice these three states of mind in yourself.

• Ask yourself: "How can I bring myself to the wise mind?"

For a printable worksheet, click here!

⁠⁠IMPROVE the Moment can be quite valuable when dealing with overwhelming emotions or unexpected situations. There are many strategies involved with this skill, so find the strategy that works best for you. The goal is to learn to deal with difficult emotions more effectively. Take note of how have you generally dealt with crises in the past, and see if these strategies work better. It’s important to let go of old habits if they are not beneficial. Instead, establish new coping strategies that are more likely to lead to positive and healthy results.⁠⁠

Activity instructions: think of queues that can help you to improve the moment. Write them down or create a dream space with images - something you can look to and find calmness and joy in times of distress.

For a printable worksheet, click here!

Emotional regulation is an understanding of our emotions as being valid and ⁠⁠natural parts of ourselves that we can't always control - but that we can regulate, make less distressing, and use to react in healthier ways.⁠⁠

One skill that we can use to regulate our emotions is the PLEASED skill. PLEASED is an acronym to help people remember a set of skills that can make emotional regulation easier. The idea behind the PLEASED skill is to take care of your basic needs so that you can make healthier decisions and be less vulnerable to emotional disruptions. PLEASED stands for:

Physical health

ILlness treatment

Eating balanced meals

Avoid mood-altering drugs

Sleep balance

Exercise

Daily⁠⁠

Activity Instructions: using the worksheets provided below, try to prioritize the PLEASED skills for one week, tracking your progress along the way with the tracking card. Identify and address any barriers that may be preventing you from practicing these skills. Reflect on how you felt each day in relation to your ability to take care of your needs. Feel free to add any skills or practices that help you to prevent emotional vulnerability and allow you to connect with your heart truth!

For a printable worksheet, click here!

Relational effectiveness skills can help you to build and maintain healthy relationships while maintaining your self-respect and getting your needs met. ⁠There are 3 core relational skills in DBT: GIVE, FAST, and DEAR MAN.

GIVE reminds us to be gentle, maintain interest, validate others, and maintain an easy manner when we want to build relationships with others.

FAST helps us maintain our self-respect in our relationships through being fair, apology-free, sticking to our values, and being truthful.

DEAR MAN helps us to get our needs met when something isn't sitting well with us; in these situations we can describe the issue, express our feelings, assert what we want, and reinforce our relationships while being mindful, acting confident, and negotiating until we reach an even ground.

Activity instructions: choose a skill to focus on applying to a relationship that is important to you. Reflect and write down what you would do or say in order to practice these skills.

For a printable worksheet, click here!

Activity instructions: write one thing you are grateful for. Please use the alphabet to guide you.

For a printable worksheet, click here!

Activity instructions: reflect on your relationships with others and answer the following questions:

1. Which relationships are important to you?

2. What do you need to build a healthy relationship with yourself and others?

3. What can you do to nourish these relationships?

4. What boundaries are important to you?

For a printable worksheet, click here!

Activity instructions: respond to the following questions about the PLEASED (physical activity, illness treatment, eat balanced meals, avoid mood-altering drugs, sleep balanced, exercise, daily) skills.

1. Describe your motivation to improve your self-care skills.

2. Describe your strengths, barriers, and resources in using the PLEASED skills.

3. Describe the skills you will use to address your behaviours.

4. Describe your action plan to start each day and how your life will be different when you use effective PLEASED skills.

For a printable worksheet, click here!

Step 1: Reviewing the life balance wheel

• Review the following categories in the life balance wheel:

• Write a number out of 10, judging how much time you spend on each category (10 being that you spend all the time)

Step 2: Reflecting on the life balance wheel

• Review your answers and reflect on why you might spend more time in certain categories than others, and how you can increase your time

For a printable worksheet, click here!

Being with land is a way that we choose to bring our attention to the spiritual essence of ourselves and everything in creation. Being is a skill of being present in the moment and accepting the moment without judgment. Being with land allows us to build our connections with land in a physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual way.

Step 1: Focusing on your senses

Choose a place that you want to connect and be with (it doesn't need to be in nature or even outside to still be land!). Focus your attention on your senses and write down your answers!

1. What are 5 things you can see?

2. What are 4 things you can touch?

3. What are 3 things you can hear?

4. What are 2 things you can smell?

5. What is 1 thing you can taste?

Step 2: Writing a letter to land

Now that you are more aware of the "being" of yourself and land, write a letter to increase your awareness of your relationship to land! Address the letter to land, introduce yourself, describe how you feel being on land, share your commitment to honouring your relationship!

For a printable worksheet, click here!

This activity is intended to expand our awareness of shorelines in our lives and worlds. Learning to listen and connect with shorelines is one way of deepening our spiritual connection with Creation and all our relations living on our ancestral homelands or the lands where we living now. It is also a way for us to expand our knowledge about the stories, practices, teachings, protocols and ceremonies of the land and water.

Step 1: Connecting with your intentions

• Decide which shoreline you will be visiting. Identify 1 or 2 intentions for your time together. Prepare an offering of some kind to bring to the shoreline.

Step 2: Developing a listening practice

• Plan your shoreline visit and develop your listening practice using the printable worksheet.

Step 3: Reflecting on your experience

• Reflect on the following questions:

1. Are there shorelines around you that you weren't aware of before?

2. What are the stories of this shoreline? Who can you ask if you don't know?

3. Are the lands and waters of this shoreline healthy and well?

4. What other life is happening on this shoreline? ( e.g. plant, animal, spirit, and other beings)

5. How are these relatives impacted by the health and wellbeing of this shoreline?

6. What can I do to care for the health and wellbeing of this shoreline?

7. What is the history of this shoreline? What Indigenous Nations are connected to it?

8. What else and who else is it connected to (E.g. other realms, other waterways, and shorelines)?

9. How have I contributed to the pollution, destruction, abuse of Mother Earth?

10. What can I do and how can I start making changes to help Creation to be healthier and help Creation to feel cared for?

11. How often do you ask yourself what you really need versus what you want? Maybe the harm we cause our mother would be less if we asked this question more?

For a printable worksheet, click here!

This activity is intended to foster a stronger sense of resiliency through visiting with animals and plants. Through this activity, you will learn to reflect on the strengths and characteristics animals and plants can teach us about ourselves. It is also a way for us to expand our knowledge about the stories, practices, teachings, protocols, and ceremonies.

Step 1: Connecting with your intentions

• Decide whether you want to spend time with animals or plants. Set 1 or 2 intentions for your time together.

Step 2: Exploring the community

• Spend some time walking in your neighborhood and notice the animals and plants around you and what they have to teach you.

Step 3: Reflecting on your experience

• Use this opportunity to reflect on how these animals or plants are resilient and strong and what they have to offer you. Reflect on how you can embody these characteristics in your own life.

For a printable worksheet, click here!

Looking for something crafty to do? Join Vanessa Nicholson in this tutorial as she teaches us how to make beautiful beaded fringe earrings!

You will need:

1. Beading thread (size D nymo thread)

2. Beading needle

3. Seed beads of your choice (size 11/0 tends to work best!)

4. Scissors

5. Lighter

6. Paper

Looking for something crafty to do? Join Vanessa Nicholson as she teaches us some basic sewing skills and encourages us to create our own custom scrunchies that go along with our unique esthetics!

You will need:

1. Fabric

2. Ruler

3. Scissors

4. Thread

5. Needle

6. Elastic