As I said in the post introducing myself, I absolutely love the power of Virtuous Leisure. For those of you that don’t know, Virtuous Leisure is known most popularly through the Leisure Well-Being Model developed by Colleen Hood and Cynthia Carruthers. Defined by Hood & Carruthers, Virtuous leisure is about “Learning to select and engage in leisure experiences that allow one to use one’s strengths to make a contribution to the world in some way”.
As a person who believes in practicing what I preach (although I will admit that I’m far from perfect on this), virtuous leisure is actually my personal favourite. I often find myself using my leisure time to take part in activities that allow me to give back to my community. I love doing random acts of kindness, volunteering, mentoring youth and helping support others whenever I get the chance.
Virtuous leisure has so many different benefits but here is a list of just a few.
- Individuals get the opportunity to build on their strengths by using them in different ways and settings
- Allows individuals to identify strengths
- Can be an opportunity to build on skills that an individual sees as a weakness (mentor a youth and practice public speaking and socialization)
- That “feel good” feeling that you get when you do something nice for someone else
- Feeling like you’re able to contribute to the world in some way
- Could lead to individuals that can be added to someones support system
- Getting to see how your strengths can help others
- Creating social connections that could lead the potential for other recreation and leisure pursuits
As you can see from the list above, virtuous leisure has the potential to support so many individuals on their path to reaching their goals.
While I have only been directly involved in the world of TR for a few years, I find that we don’t focus on virtuous leisure very much. With that said, I know virtuous leisure isn’t everyones cup of tea and not everyone will follow a path that leads them this particular form of leisure. our goal is to help support our clients in picking leisure pursuits that best fits their goals and needs best, but why don’t we offer more programs that engage in virtuous leisure?
As a TR, I do my best to offer my residents as many different types of leisure opportunities as possible. Recently though, my residents chose to take part in a leisure activity that absolutely warmed my heart. In the retirement home I work in, we try do a DIY craft every month that they work on for 1-2 hours once a week until its done. During the month of November we had planned for them to make DIY holiday themed plushies. After some deliberation though, they decided it just wasn’t something they were interested in doing.
To change things up I printed off and brought them a pattern for scarves I’d done previously somewhere else (ill add the link to the pattern below). It started off as a “sounds like fun!” and quickly turned into so much more. The conversations changed from wanting to make them for themselves, to wanting to make them for those in need over the course of a couple days.
Over the month of November and a little into December the residents made a total of 74 scarves. The original plan was they would each keep one or two, and the rest would be donated. When we finished them last week though, everyone single one of them decided to donate all 74. They even made the local paper (link will be at the bottom). The scarves were then distributed to multiple different local organizations to go to individuals in our community who needed them.
I cannot even explain to you how happy the residents were to be able to do something for those in their community. The smiles and laughter that the activity brought was unreal, with people engaging in the program that I never would have expected. A couple hours a week led to so much pride, happiness, and love amongst a large group of them. The absolutely joy that appeared on their faces when I told them where they would all be going made my heart grow above 7 sizes.
Now I made this post for a couple reasons. One was obviously to boast about the amazing residents I get to engage with on a daily basis. I can’t even lie, their hearts are so filled with so much kindness and they teach me something new every single day. But, I also wanted to take a minute and remind everyone how fantastic virtuous leisure is.
Now, Virtuous leisure isn’t just making things to donate to those in need. It’s not just about volunteering. Virtuous leisure can take on so many different forms, so let me give you some ideas on what it can include.
- Volunteering for a youth organization or non-for-profit
- Mentoring someone who is going through
- Random Acts of Kindness
- Reaching out to someone that you think might be in need
- Helping a local school make their set for their play
- Knitting baby hats for the NICU in your local hospital
- Baking treats for a charities bake sale
- Making ornaments for residents in a long-term care facility
I know there is so many different types of leisure, but I just wanted to shine some light on this one with the recent scarf project I did at work. I think we often forget about virtuous leisure because the people we support often underestimate their strengths, but thats exactly why virtuous leisure is so important. It allows for people to feel a sense of pride, happiness and improves overall well-being when they realize just how much they contribute to the world through the skills they already have.
Even if you just start small, I want to take this opportunity to challenge you all to find a way to incorporate virtuous leisure in your life. Whether you are a TR looking for programming ideas for your clients in the new year or an individual who is just enjoying this read, find something you can do that allows you to use your strengths to help others. Now that the holiday season is upon us this is the perfect time to give it a try, because the holidays are just as much about giving as they are about receiving.
Be sure to let me know what path virtuous leisure sent you on through the comments, instagram, an email or even a tweet!