Downloads

Jewish Mantras: How to Change Your Brain

How can we change our mood when we’re in a funk? This resource will describe brief exercises to improve your mood now as well as retrain your brain to help you be more positive overall. It is important to verbalize and analyze our emotions. Feelings help us gather information about ourselves— how we are experiencing the world and what we need in order to feel better. But if unwanted thoughts and unsettling feelings start to consume us, how do we focus on joyful concepts instead of those that circulate anxiety and depression? We must retrain our brain to cultivate our own happiness and strength, recognizing we are not defined by our emotions; in fact, we are the boss of them.

Downloads

Mental Health College Toolkit

The purpose of this toolkit is to provide college students with a comprehensive explanation of common mental health disorders, resources, definitions, and so much more. Not many college students know or understand the topic, which makes it difficult for them to seek help when they are experiencing mental health challenges. I hope this toolkit gives college students an understanding of mental health that’s basic enough to help them recognize their own mood, behavior, or experiences and potentially connect them to one of the mental health disorders. Knowing that one feeling is not just being crazy, lazy, or weird but rather is a true mental health disorder can work to reduce the stigma associated with mental health and make more college students feel comfortable seeking treatment.

Downloads

Ladder of Emotional Regulation

We have a variety of strategies and skills available to manage and/or “regulate” ourselves when we feel overwhelmed. Their effectiveness depends on the person as well as the type and intensity of the distress they are experiencing in that particular moment. Several types of tools address the different aspects of the emotional experience, and we can address our needs from all sides. We can manage unhelpful thinking, employ sensory strategies to calm our bodies, use social support to validate our feelings and get help when we need it.

Downloads

Brachot (Blessings) and Intuitive Eating

Jewish rituals surrounding food can be a fantastic tool for developing mindful eating practices and strengthening our ability to eat intuitively. According to Jewish tradition, before and after eating any food, a blessing should be said. However, the blessing recited before eating is not a generalized prayer of gratitude. Rather, each blessing is specific to the kind of food you are eating.

Downloads

Immersive Experience Staff Journal

We know staff mental health needs are important, and we hope this resource offers an opportunity to better support the staff’s mental health over the summer. The Blue Dove Foundation is proud to partner with BeWell, an initiative of Jewish Federations of North America, and Foundation for Jewish Camp in the creation of this meaningful resource.

Downloads

Summer Camp Staff Journal

Downloads

Passover: Four Cups Toward Freedom – Exploration of Liberation and How to Reclaim the Passover Seder for Ourselves with the T’Shuvah Center

Leaving Egypt is not just about our story and journey on the road to freedom. It is a foundational roadmap to liberation, both for a community and individuals and offers us a story of recovery. Each year, we retell it as a reminder to leave behind constrictions and slavery, and instead choose freedom and sovereignty. Jewish tradition commands us, as we are telling the story, to see ourselves as if we have left Egypt. Egypt is not just a country, an ancient place, or a space. It is not just the setting of the enslavement that we’ve endured. It is also an edict about how we leave Egypt internally.

Downloads

The #QuietingTheSilence Haggadah

Telling stories of people living with mental illness helps de-stigmatize conversations about mental illness and helps others feel less alone in their mental health journeys. This Haggadah is an attempt at creating an experience that helps participants feel a sense of freedom from their own challenges or at least helps them start to talk about them and #QuietTheSilence surrounding mental illness.

Downloads, Support Resources

The Blue Dove Mental Health Glossary

This glossary contains common mental health terminology. It is a great jumping-off point to learn more about terms you may hear when engaging in conversation about mental health. In Judaism, we read the same weekly parshiot (portions) from the Torah in the same order each year. While we may be familiar with the parsha (portion) of the week, we reread it to refresh ourselves with the story and glean something new as we approach it with fresh eyes and an open heart. In a similar vein, you may be familiar with many of the terms in this glossary. We encourage you to continue to learn and explore mental health terminology, so you can make connections to mental health in a way that supports where you are on your journey.

Downloads

Looking for Chametz – Inside and Out

Chametz is also symbolic of other things like the yetzer harah (the ego, the self, mental clutter, negativity) that live within us and distract us from our true goals. We are tasked with cleansing ourselves of that kind of "chametz" as well, which allows us to focus on what matters in our lives. In a way, this is a mental cleanse as much as it is a physical cleanse. Try this fun mental cleanse resource to make space in your mind for freedom.