{"id":10338,"date":"2019-05-23T06:13:43","date_gmt":"2019-05-23T09:13:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelaker.ca\/?p=10338"},"modified":"2019-05-23T06:13:43","modified_gmt":"2019-05-23T09:13:43","slug":"olympian-furneaux-brings-message-of-support-for-students-navigating-emotions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/?p=10338","title":{"rendered":"Olympian Furneaux brings message of support for students navigating emotions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

MILFORD: <\/strong>Karen Furneaux gave Grade 6 students a \nmessage of always remembering to dig for your goal, just like she did in\n her parents back yard many moons ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furneaux, who grew up in \nSilversides subdivision in Waverley, started off her speech as part of \nRiverside Education Centre\u2019s well-being week talking about Waverley\u2019s \nrich gold mining history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI would always be digging looking for \nthese nuggets of gold,\u201d she said. \u201cNow my mom did find a nice size \nnugget, she took it to the bank and she cashed it in. So you can imagine\n as this eight-year-old girl, I was extremely excited about finding the \ngold in the earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt took me many, many years to find out that \nthe gold wasn\u2019t only in the earth around me, but it was also in me, and \nit\u2019s in each and every one of you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three-time Olympian wanted\n the students to be able to find and dig for that special, sparkling, \nbrilliant gold that each of them have. Furneaux represented Canada, and \nher club Cheema based out of Waverley, at Olympic Games in Sydney, \nAustralia in 2000; Athens, Greece in 2004; and Beijing in 2008. She is \nalso a two-time world champion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She told a story of her younger years when her favourite sport was gymnastics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt\n my first gymnastics competition, I remember going to the gymnasium at a\n Lower Sackville school and opening them doors and looking around and \nseeing everything,\u201d she said. \u201cI walked up to the bars. I signalled to \nthe judges that I was ready to go. And I started going through the \nroutine and everything was going exactly as I pictured it the night \nbefore.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it was about to get a bit, how do you say, embarrassing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\n get to the toughest part of the routine, the hand stand on the bars,\u201d \nshe recalled. \u201cI kicked up to my handstand, and I farted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI \nwanted to run out of that gym and never ever come back. It was so \nhorrifying, so embarrassing. I was mortified. This huge sound came out \nof me. I got back to my coach, and he said to me \u201cwow Karen, that was \nsome jet propulsion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said in that moment she knew that always it was okay to just be herself, to show up and just be herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo matter what comes out it\u2019s all okay,\u201d said Furneaux. \u201cThat\u2019s a really important message.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furneaux\n then went in to speaking to the students about what each letter of \nPOWER from her inaugural book Strong Beauty: Power Up the Champion \nWithin, Released in 2018. A copy of the book was given to the school for\n their library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She did a couple of exercises with the group that \nhad them stretching and then touching the floor, and a breathing \nexercise, getting them moving about during her 45-minute or so \npresentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end she took questions from the students who asked very good questions of Furneaux, who now calls Halifax home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In ending, she left the students with a simple, pointed message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen\n we feel our emotions, we don\u2019t have to become our emotions,\u201d said \nFurneaux. \u201cWe can breathe through our emotions. We can move through our \nemotions. We can be creative with our emotions and use our energy to \nhelp us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnytime you have difficulty with emotions, I want you to\n know you can always reach out. There\u2019s amazing group at Kids Help Phone\n for you to reach out too<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnderstand there is support there for you if you can\u2019t navigate through your emotions on your own.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MILFORD: Karen Furneaux gave Grade 6 students a message of always remembering to dig for your goal, just like she did in her parents back yard many moons ago. Furneaux, who grew up in Silversides subdivision in Waverley, started off her speech as part of Riverside Education Centre\u2019s well-being week talking about Waverley\u2019s rich gold […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[400,506,507,508,16],"class_list":["post-10338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-cheema","tag-karen-furneuax","tag-nsshof","tag-rec","tag-waverley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}