Flourish

On a recent episode of the Happiness Lab podcast hosted by Dr. Laurie Santos, Dr. Richie Davidson spoke on mindfulness and flourishing.

Dr. Davidson, a psychologist and the founder of the Center for Healthy Minds, has recently published a book, Born to Flourish.

In his book Dr. Davidson shares what he has found, through research and practice, the four pillars of flourishing.

1. Awareness

2. Connection

3. Insight

4. Purpose

While studying mindfulness, mediation, and flourishing, Dr. Davidson spent time working with teachers. He shares that there are more teachers leaving than entering the field of education. Teachers are feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and unsupported. They do not feel as if they are flourishing.

As he continued his research and work, Dr. Davidson asked a group of teachers to begin a 5 minutes a day mindfulness practice focused on the four pillars of flourishing. One unexpected finding of this research was that teachers who had a mindfulness practice were less likely to have an implicit bias toward students. 

Think about the students in your class. Are their some that would benefit from you starting a mindfulness practice? Would this practice help you see students in a new and positive light?

On the podcast Dr. Davidson shared about his own mindfulness practice and the pillars of flourishing.

He shared that after his morning mindful meditation he pulls out his daily schedule and thinks about who he will meet and work with that day. He uses his awareness of his schedule to build an internal mind connection with those he will encounter that day. This creates an insight to how he can have a good day and focus on his purpose and not be stressed about what might feel like work overload.

I loved this idea of looking at your schedule and connecting to people before you even see them. It got me thinking about our students and taking time to connect with them in our minds and hearts before they even enter the school.

Can you take time each morning to thinking about your students and build an internal connection? Can you flourish in the classroom with awareness, connection, insight, and purpose?