A growing amount of attention has been given to mindful practices in the classrom. This week, The Guardian profiled what is happening in a UK school with positive effects:
“The whole process of mindfulness has the knock-on effect of making people more receptive and open,” Woods explains. “What we are trying to do is help them become more aware of themselves in a non-judgemental way. By the time the students leave in year six, they have an emotional intelligence and a set of skills that really equip them to cope with everyday life.”
Here are five resources to help introduce mindfulness into your classroom:
Teaching schoolchildren happiness, empathy, altruism and compassion has proven beneficial results for classroom learning as a whole, says Vinciane Rycroft
Deepack Chopra and Operah are back with another 21 day free meditation course called Finding your Flow. Here is a sample:
Welcome to Day 2 of Finding Your Flow.
Today in meditation, we will tap into the source of happiness that lives deep within each of us. In our practice today we invite inner joy and contentment into our daily activity. Together, we will discover that by accessing the source of joy inside, we access a sense of happiness that doesn’t vary with the ups and downs of everyday life.
Today’s Quote
“Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.” —Denis Waitley
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Be sure to check out the journals.
Question 1 of 4
What does it mean when all the parts of your life are flowing smoothly? What does that look like? How does it feel? As you write, allow yourself the freedom to explore, knowing there is no wrong answer to this question.
ALl good, but it missing a key aspect, so I got thinking but the core of happiness: Authenticity, Accepting and Appreciating
Authenticity
Living true to yourself is the heart of being yourself. Many people love ee cummings take on self: “
“To be nobody but
yourself in a world
which is doing its best day and night to make you like
everybody else means to fight the hardest battle
which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.”
But they miss where the whole passage comes from: He was responding to you young person asking for advice on becoming a poet:
A real human is somebody who feels and who expresses his or her feelings. This may sound easy. It isn’t.
A lot of people think or believe or know what they feel—but that’s thinking or believing or knowing: not feeling. And being real is feeling—not just knowing or believing or thinking.
Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but it’s very difficult to learn to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody – but – yourself.
To be nobody – but -yourself– in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else–means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
As for communicating nobody-but-yourself to others, that means working just a little harder than anybody who isn’t real can possibly imagine. Why?
Because nothing is quite as easy as just being just like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time–and whenever we do it, we are not real.
If, at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you’ve loved just once with a nobody-but-yourself heart, you”ll be very lucky indeed.
And so my advice to all young people who wish to become real is: do something easy, like dreaming of freedom–unless you’re ready to commit yourself to feel and work and fight till you die.
But where to begin? Who is this you? Start with your strengths. There are mutiple of instruments to help you idnetify them. Two are free right now:
The Buddhist have a very strong notion of accepting things as they are. Tara Brach explains this in some detail in her talk:
Our capacity to accept this life is key to our freedom, yet there are many misconceptions about acceptance: People wonder, if acceptance makes us a doormat in relationships? Isn’t acceptance akin to resignation? Doesn’t it make us passive when what is needed is action? This talk explores some of the misunderstandings about acceptance and offers teachings on the nature of genuine and liberating acceptance.
Actor Thandie Newton covers one aspect of acceptance by telling the story of finding her “otherness” — first, as a child growing up in two distinct cultures, and then as an actor playing with many different selves.
Vunerability Researcher Brené Brown, whose earlier talk on vulnerability became a viral hit, explores what can happen when people confront their shame head-on.
Writer Andrew Solomon shares what he learned from talking to dozens of parents — asking them: What’s the line between unconditional love and unconditional acceptance?
Appreciating
There has been a growing body of work focusing on mindfulness and gratitude. Like the great philospher sang: Slow down, you move too fast.
Calvin and Hobbes launched in my senior year in high school. Never acused of being too cool for school, I adored the little man’s antics and philosophical queeries to his tiger. Bill celebrated the Child’s immagination before society has beaten it out of him, Character Building dad’s, brave mothers, teachers and babysitters who will have their revenge, slimy girls and deep friendships with tigers. He tooks us back to our day dreams and reminded us to invent our own rules because with out it how can you play Calvin Ball? Bill gave the commencement speech at Kenyon College back in 1995. Poignant. Inspired. A few months latter he retired Calvin and his world: “I will be stopping Calvin and Hobbes at the end of the year. This was not a recent or an easy decision, and I leave with some sadness. My interests have shifted, however, and I believe I’ve done what I can do within the constraints of daily deadlines and small panels. I am eager to work at a more thoughtful pace, with fewer artistic compromises.”
Now, Cartoonist Gavin Aung Than, of Zen Pencils, hasn taken the key elements of that speech and set them to a Bill Waterson stylized comic strip complete with Dinosaurs, red wagons and otherwroldly landscapes (although lacking any tiger). This panel is a celebration that living life authentically, being true to your own values, is the path to happiness. From Gavin’s profile of Bill, we learn that Watterson is not just creative, but persistent and full of intergirty. His comic strips reveal his humor, curiosity and wisdom.
Brian shared the video during our workshop on strengths based counseling in Ho Chi Min Today. This video is based on Martin Boroson’s book, One-Minute Meditation.
Who can make the sunrise? The candyman can! In this video he shows you what your life (if you are a typical American) looks like if measured in jely beans. How would you spend it if you were down to just one?
Goldie Hawn, best know for her ability to make us laugh, has been instrumental in bringing social and emotional training to schools around the world. Her Mind-Up Program is now utalised in over 80 schools in the USA, 140 in Canada, 7 in the UK, 2 in Australia and even one in Venezuela. NPR dedicated almost an entire hour to the idea:
“Without gratitude, life can be lonely, depressing and impoverished,” said Emmons. “Gratitude enriches human life. It elevates, energizes, inspires and transforms. People are moved, opened and humbled through expressions of gratitude.” —Dr. Robert Emmons
With US Thanksgiving on the horizon (and Canadian Thanksgiving long gone) we turn our attention to gratitude (and Turkey). Gratitude has been shown to have a very positive effect on our wellbeing:
Stronger immune systems and lower blood pressure;
Higher levels of positive emotions;
More joy, optimism, and happiness;
Acting with more generosity and compassion;
Feeling less lonely and isolated.
Have a look at the Happier Huamn for the source of the research, 26 studies and counting. Clearly experiencing and expressing gratitude is a good thing. How grateful are you? The Greater Good Society of UC Berkeley is offer up a gratitude survey:
2. I count my blessings for what I have in this world.
Research has demonstrated that meditation can in fact boost focus and creativity. A 2011 study found meditation to boost both divergent thinking, which helps new ideas to be generated, and convergent thinking, which is linked with effective problem-solving. With more and more research proving meditation’s extensive cognitive benefits, increasing numbers of artists, writers, musicians, athletes and business innovators are turning to the practice to tap into their deepest creative potential.
Day 2 – Finding Happiness
