Bloom Activity Library

Listen to your friends and siblings empathically, without preparing rebuttals, and simply reflect your feelings after they are finished. Don’t just wait for your turn to speak during a conversation.

You can check out the resource link for the book that will make you a better listener:

https://baos.pub/listen-like-you-mean-it-the-book-that-will-make-you-a-better-listener-be7e516c18e5

Francesca Johnson is a married mother who falls in love with a traveling photographer while her family is away. Though her romance lasts only four days, it changes her life drastically. After her death, her children learn of the affair and must decide whether to honor the wishes of the family or the secret wish of their mother.

Once-respected financial journalist, in order to save his professional life from disintegrating, has to spend a year researching mysterious disappearance of a female. The story depicts excellent illustrations of prudence and caution.

An affluent family in suburban Chicago lives in various stages of denial after the accidental death of one of their sons, unable to express their emotions or deal with their grief. Only after the surviving son attempts suicide and begins to see a psychiatrist do the barriers begin to come down, and at that point the family must deal with their strained relationships and haunting past.

In order to think creatively you must have an attitude that lets you search for ideas and play with your experience and knowledge. Crazy, foolish and impractical ideas are your stepping-stones to practical ideas. Sometimes you need to break the rules and look for ideas in unusual places.

A Whack on the Side of the Head teaches you that your attitude towards your creativity can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. When we feel creatively "locked", we need a "whack" to free our creativity once more 🌈

Chris: It takes a little time to toss that off. Because they weren’t just men. For instance one time it had been raining for several days and this kid came to me, and gave me his last pair of dry socks. Put them in my pocket. That’s only a little thing... but... that’s the kind of guys I had. They didn’t die; they killed themselves for each other. I mean that exactly; a little more selfish and they’d’ve been here today. And I got an idea—watching them go down. Everything was being destroyed, see, but it seemed to me that one new thing was made. A kind of…responsibility. Man for man. You understand me? — To show that, to bring that on to the earth again like some kind of a monument and everyone would feel it standing there, behind them, and it would make a difference to him. (Pause.) And then I came home and it was incredible. I … there was no meaning in it here; the whole thing to them was a kind of a –bus accident. I went to work with Dad, and that rat-race again. I felt... what you said... ashamed somehow. Because nobody was changed at all. It seemed to make suckers out of a lot of guys. I felt wrong to be alive, to open the bank-book, to drive the new car, to see the new refrigerator. I mean you can take those thing out of a war, but when you drive that car you’ve got to know that it came out of the love a man can have for a man, you’ve got to be a little better because of that.

May 10, 1940 We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind, and many, many months of struggle and suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea, and air. War with all our might and with all the strength God had given us, and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs – victory in spite of terrors – Victory, however long and hard the road may be. So I say to the House that I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat […] But I take up my task with buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. At this time I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, "Come then, let us go forward together with our united strength."

This film depicts the relationship between a speech therapist of the oralist tradition and a Deaf woman who will only sign. The movie contains many examples of the characters working to bridge their differences in language, beliefs, and experiences to forge a meaningful relationship.

A mysterious patient in a mental hospital claims to be an alien from a distant planet. Though nobody believes him at first, he demonstrates a remarkable ability to relate to the other patients, helping them to make progress where they had stalled previously. His character shows the value of social insight in forming relationships with others.

Start a book club in your neighborhood. Invite people who might not approach you on their own, such as new or elderly neighbors.