Standing Together With Heartfulness

The month of October is Bullying Awareness Month.

School based anti-bullying programs help reduce bullying by 25%

Mindfulness programs such as Inner Explore help reduce disruptive class behaviors by an average of 60%,

What if we utilize mindfulness to help support our bullying education?

This month is a great time to use mindfulness to teacher compassion, kindness, and empathy. As a school we are focusing on Standing Together Against Bullying. You may have noticed some posters around the building that say things such as, “I will fight for you”, “ I will reach out for you”, and “I will hold on to you”. The idea is to talk about bullying in a way that encourages the kindness while teaching students what bullying looks like. Often times we highlight only the things not to do and we forget to instill the things to do.

In mindfulness training we start with our focus, we add in our breathing, and then we need to work on our heartfulness. Heartfulness can help teach our students to show compassion to themselves and then to others.

Heartfulness Beginner Level: Wishing yourself positive kindness and compassion. “Today I wish for myself to have a day filled with learning, success, and kindness.”

Heartfulness Master Level: Wishing a friend the same kind of positive kindness and compassion. “Today I wish for my friend to have a day filled with learning, success, and kindness.”

Heartfulness Expert Level: Wishing someone we don’t like or don’t get along with the same kind of positive kindness and compassion. “Today I wish for the student I don’t get along with to have a day filled with learning, success, and kindness.”

To get to the expert level we can also learn to use the statement “Just Like Me...” This statement teaches us that, just like me others want and deserve love, happiness, and a chance to better themselves. “Just like me, that student I do not get along with, is hoping for a good day today. Just like that student deserves to have a peaceful and productive day.”

As we begin to explore what is and what is not bullying try including some heartfulness to your day. Maybe simply practice on your own the first day. Before your students come to class take some time to walk by each desk and make a “Just like me” and “Today I wish” statement. Try the expert level of heartfulness. See how it feels. Is it difficult for you as an adult to walk past the “trouble” student’s desk and wish them well for the day? If it is difficult for you, and you have a fully developed prefrontal cortex, just imagine a student being able to wish someone else well when their brain isn’t done developing.

Expressing heartfulness toward another, without that person knowing, isn’t for them, it’s for you. It is your mindfulness practice. It is helping you pay attention to your own thoughts and feelings. Heartfulness helps open you up toward a greater complicity for compassion and understanding.

Teaching our students to practice heartfulness can help your classroom become a more peaceful and caring environment. Just imagine a student who has never been told “Today I wish for you to have a great day.” This student perhaps hears something more negative before they are sent off to school. Our students may be carrying backpacks full of disappointment, resentment, hurt, and anger. Our students need our compassion to teach them to be compassionate. When you express heartfulness toward your students and teach them to express heartfulness, you are helping to unpack their backpack of pain. You lighten their load and give them the relief they need to thrive in your classroom.

Take some time this week to instill compassion through heartful mindfulness. My challenge is; October 1^st you silently express heartfulness toward each student in your class as they enter. October 2^nd express heartfulness aloud to your students. October 3^rd teach your students heartfulness. October 4^th have your students write out a heartfulness statement for someone else in the building and either deliver the message or post it outside of you class.

Resources to Explore

This week I wanted to take some time to share with you some resources which may aid in your efforts to create a more mindful classroom.

Inner Explorer is a school mindfulness program that can also connect families at home. They allow a 30 day free trial of the program. This program will chart your progress with utilizing mindfulness. There is some great informational reading to encourage mindfulness, including letting you know that research has found that teachers who participate in mindfulness are 43% less stressed in the classroom!! I have included a link to a youtube video introducing the program. With this program all you have to do is log in and press play! It’s all ready for you to use, no preparation needed. I encourage you to check it out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pljVvqxt3A

https://innerexplorer.org/

If you use GoNoodle checkout the mindfulness section. I suggested trying the mindfulness for yourself before sharing with your class. I experienced Bee Breathing the other day and felt that it could actually be a breathing that hinders focus. Lets think about being a kid and putting your fingers in your ears and humming, in an effort to ignore someone. What if a student was doing this and used Bee Breathing as a cover? I love spending 5-10 minutes of my lunch exploring mindfulness on my own. Once I’ve found a great one I then start sharing!!!

YouTube can also be a source of some mindfulness videos. I have found a couple of great breathing songs that can be fun and calming for students.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mZbzDOpylA *Great for younger students

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNBj23_irT0  *A nice calm and peaceful breathing song

Perhaps you simply just want to take some time to relax. EarthCam is a great site for watching a variety of things around the world. My favorite is exploring zoos. Watching a panda sit and eat can be rather relaxing.

https://www.earthcam.com/events/animalcams/

If you have about an hour there is a wonderful movie called Room To Breath that you can watch online. This video talks about mindfulness in a middle school. It shows the students reluctance in the beginning and over time the progress that they are able to make.

https://www.mindfulschools.org/resources/room-to-breathe/

Mindful Education is an amazing resource for training educators on how to practice and teach mindfulness. The link belong has a training for mindful education. Several parts of the training are free for exploring. I have explored them all and find myself going back over some of the videos to help refresh how I teach students. For all my spider-man breath fans, this is where I learned it!

https://mindfuleducation.teachable.com/

I hope that some of these resources help you as you continue to explore and utilize mindfulness. I will continue to share resources and mindfulness activities weekly.

As a side note to all who have made it this far in the blog---test out INNER EXPLORER and let me know how it is going for your class. If after 30 days it is going well we can explore the idea of purchasing the full version.

Name It - Tame It

Before we are able to open a student’s heart and mind to feeling their present state of being, we may need to help them identify how they may feel. Giving a feeling a name can be powerful. In many counseling practices they will tell you that you need to “name it to tame it.” 

How can we ask a student to tell us how their bodies feel if we have never given them the language to describe the sensations and feelings? Take a moment to explore some ways a body may feel. Make a list together. Below is a list I have come up with by talking to several classes across the building.

·       Cold

·       Frozen

·       Heat

·       Hot

·       Heavy

·       Light

·       Ache

·       Relaxed

·       Tension

·       Tingles

·       Discomfort

·       Anxiousness

·       Tightness

·       Agitation

·       Happy

·       Peace

·       Hurt

·       Anger

·       Love

·       Sadness

·       Pain

·       Numbness

·       Fear

·       Romance

·       Weird stomach- butterflies

·       Focus

·       Kindness

·       Normal *this one may need to be explored further if a student states that they feel “normal” when talking about chaos in the class.

·       Fast-racing heart

·       Stomach drop

·       Jaw dropping

·       Throat stabbed

·       A fight- a pull

·       Surprise

·       Heartbeat quickens

·       Exhaustion

·       Empty

·       Full

·       Nervous

·       Shaky

·       Energy

·       Electricity

Feel free to share more in the comments section. Let’s keep adding to the list to create a resource and a common language for our students. Giving them words to name how their bodies feels can give them the power to tame the feels or embrace the feelings.

Now that we have made a list of various ways our bodies can feel, lets pause our bodies, statue breathing, and feel. If you have yet to experience “statue breathing” it's a was to teach a still body while deep breathing.

The next step in our mindful lives here at school is to use the language ourselves. Let your students hear the words. “How does it feel when chaos erupts in our class? For me my body begins to feel tension and when the chaos ends, exhaustion.” We are often under the assumption that we need to be tough and strong for our students. This can lead a student to believe that all adults always have it all together and they would then never understand the struggle of a student. Show them you understand, connect with them, and show them you can and do feel feelings too. Be present in your feelings. Teach your students to name their feelings, understand their feelings, and either embrace them or release them.

After we have named our feelings, we then need to learn to live in them. Live the moment they exist. Mindfulness is not simply feeling good and being calm. Sometimes we are sad, sometimes we know heartache and pain. Mindfulness teaches us to feel those feelings as they come, accept them, and then release them.

Many people believe that mindfulness is a practice to teach us to transcend our difficult emotions and only experience our pleasant emotions. This is not true. Mindfulness is a practice to teach our minds to befriend our emotions and allow them to come home to our bodies. Once we give awareness to the difficult emotions, we allow our bodies to experience them in an educational way, a way that will teach us how to heal.

Mindfulness can help us relax our bodies and minds and enjoy the positive and affirmative emotions. Our days become so busy, we multi-task, and we let the warm and compassionate feelings escape our conscious recognition.  

My challenge to you is that you not only help your students; name, feel, and accept their emotions and feelings, but that you too take time to do so.

Time to Show Up

What if we “showed up”?

Let’s take a moment and visualize ourselves as the captain of a ship. We are entrusted with the safety of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives.

When the Titanic sank a headline from the Washington Post read, “One Thousand Eight Hundred Souls Lost.” People were counted by their soul. Each life, or soul, aboard the ship matters.

You, as the captain need to remain cool, calm, and collected; especially if a storm hits. You need to be able to focus on the task of steering the ship, protecting the passengers, and making it to safe harbor.

What if you are the captain of your ship and you freak out when a storm hits? You panic that the waves are too high. You worry you can’t see the iceberg to your left. You are in a frenzy that you just can’t right the course and all the passengers, every soul on-board, will go down with the ship.

As the captain you set the tone for your ship. If you fear the storm, your passengers will too.

What if you are the captain of your ship and you remain calm when the storm hits? You gather your crew, you give them focused instruction, and you send them to a specific and live-saving task. You stand ready at the helm of your ship. You take a deep breath. You steady your hand. You focus your eyes straight ahead. You steer your ship to safety.

As a calm captain you now have set the tone that you can handle any situation and there is no need to worry. All will be saved.

I ask again, what if you showed up for your students?

What if you were calm in the classroom? Even when someone is causing a disturbance. Even when there is an unexpected fire drill. Even when you just don’t think you can.

Teaching your students to be mindful begins with you being mindful. Teaching your students to notice, pay attention, and be present starts with you. You noticing, you paying attention, and you being mindfully present.

Let’s show up for our students. Let’s practice mindfulness.

I challenge you to practice being mindful for ONE MINUTE each morning, before your students arrive. Try it for one week and take notes on what you feel and notice within yourself. Note if you are able to later in the day recall your mindful minute and utilize the skill during a rather trying time in class.

Before we can help our students, we must help ourselves.