Here is some great information that I got at the Southeaster Minnesota School
Counselor’s Association’s Fall conference. I went to a
Mindfulness presenter and l got excited about all the ways we can incorporate
it at Friedell. Some interesting points:
·
Described adults and
children have too many “tabs open”. Thinking and multi-tasking too much
·
We are all living in a
state of continuous, partial attention (raise in attention-deficit and mental
health in humans)
·
We need to be in the moment
in order to fully experience any positive or negative emotions or
experiences. When we do not take that time, we don’t fully appreciate the
positives in our lives, and we don’t allow the negative thoughts dissipate.
These negative moments/thoughts stay with us.
·
We are not our thoughts,
saying “I am angry”, registers in our conscious as our persona being an
emotion. It is important for us to meditate on the emotion in order for
us to process what we are feeling. Then we can chose the thoughts we want
to keep and the ones we want to discard.
·
We need a stress response
in life to do things like get out of bed and face the duties of the day
·
Our stress responses date
back to the caveman running for his life from predators, however, we not
utilize our stress responses to our modern day responsibilities and challenges.
·
The mind traps we get
caught up in:
o
Catastrophizing – believe
the extreme consequence will happen
o
Mind –reading- “I know what
he really meant by that”
o
Discounting the positive –
spend 10 to 15 seconds in a positive moment to truly appreciate it (don’t be a
Teflon pan, let it stick J)
o
Black and white thinking –
it has to be one way or the other
o
Blaming others instead of
looking at how our own responses have contributed
o
Generalizations – This
always happens, they never, everyone else
·
Each day, periodically ask
yourself, “What am I doing right now?”, “What am I thinking about?”, “Am I
happy?”
·
A wandering mind is an
unhappy mind
·
We have not taught our
children what calm down looks like, or helped them actually practice the skills
of calming down
·
Stress is an epidemic, a
2013 study shows that the #1 stress in children is school.
·
Stress= tired and depressed
·
Teachers are feeling more
stressed now, due to frequent interruptions, not being able to complete all the
tasks they set out to do, and caring deeply about what they do.
·
As teachers we should ask
ourselves each hour, “Am I present, am I focused, am I empathetic?”
·
Mindfulness is being
present in whatever you are going thought, good or bad
·
Mindfulness is NOT thinking
about nothing
·
Mindfulness is NOT being
happy all the time
·
Mindfulness is NOT only
living in the present and never thinking about the future or past
·
Mindfulness is the opposite
of multi-tasking, which is why it is hard for people to do because we take
pride in multi-tasking
·
Sometimes mindfulness is
reflecting on uncomfortable moments, which makes it effective for students who
are having behaviors. They reflect on the stressor, their response and then
let the moment pass to work on alternative responses in the future.
·
Mindfulness gives us the
power of pause
·
When we as teachers/parents
take pause after a stressor, it invites the child to take a pause.
·
Mindfulness does NOT need
to be lengthy. Mini-mindfulness is being used in classrooms, 1 minute
before class starts and 1 minute after (as time allows)
