Parents are people, too! Take good care of yourself. Just like on an airplane if the oxygen masks drop from the ceiling, you need to breathe first before you can help your kids.
Mental and Emotional Self Care
Here are just a few easy mindfulness practices. Try to practice these on a daily basis. It’s quite unbelievable just how effective this is. If you’ve already got a daily meditation practice, keep doing it! If you don’t, then here are some suggestions.
Sitting meditation
You don’t need anything special for this. Just sit comfortably in a chair. It can be your dining room or an office chair. It helps if your back is upright and comfortable so that you are not constantly squirming around in your seat. Your eyes can be closed or open – the objective is that you are undistracted as much as possible.
(Some people prefer eyes open because it’s a constant visual reminder of where they are and what they are doing; it keeps them safe from flying off into thoughts that are elsewhere than right here, right now. Other people prefer eyes closed because they are distracted by the visual stimulus.)
Similarly, determine whether you have a preference for mouth open or closed.
The simplest sitting meditation just focuses on breathing: breathe in, breathe out…. To help you stay focused, you can count to 4 on the in-breath, count 4 as you hold it in, and then count 8 as you exhale. Or if you are better able to keep distracting thoughts to a minimum, you can simply observe and notice your breathing without counting or words. Perhaps you can even feel the sensation of air passing in or out through your nostrils or nose.
Some tricks if your brain keeps chattering: You can speak “breathing in I relax, breathing out I smile.” Or, there’s a neat trick where you use one of the words (or syllables) of the chattering that’s happening in your head, and silently say that sound reeeeeeeeeeeally long and extended. For example, if you catch yourself thinking/saying something like, “Boy oh boy, I’m talking in my head non-stop,” you can simply say silently (but loudly, emphatically, in your head), “Boooooooooooooooooooyyyyyy ooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh……” It’s amazing how well this trick can work.
Repose meditation
This is like sitting meditation, but you lie on the floor, arms and legs outstretched, eyes closed. (You probably want to avoid this kind of meditating while you are very tired, because you’ll likely fall asleep!)
Walking meditation
This can be an effective way to move at the same time that you are “clearing your head”. It is best if you can walk silently without need to interact with people (or traffic) and if there’s little noise. Simply clasp your hands together in front of you or behind you, with your gaze toward the ground about 5 feet in front of you, and walk slowly and purposefully with each step. It may require some practice to discover your optimal method of stepping. For example, do you land with your heel, or toes, or entire foot?
With either or both the sitting meditations or the walking meditations, you may be surprised to discover how it can seep into your everyday life. You may find the opportunity to walk or sit “meditatively” or “mindfully” while at work, if even for a few brief moments at a time. It can be quite effective at reducing anxiety or unease and creating calm or focus.
Be mindful of yourself, at work and in your personal life
“Mindfulness” is a becoming more and more of a popular term. SImply put, it means to be aware of yourself – your own thoughts, your own emotions and feelings, your own physical feelings. The practices and techniques of “being mindful” encourage your own self-awareness. And by becoming more and more self-aware, you will inevitably become more focused and alert mentally, as well as more precise and awake physically.
We’ve included some mindfulness exercises (like walking meditation) that can be done whenever. By extension, you can cultivate this ongoing “mindfulness” simply by noticing as much as possible about what you do, what you think, and what you say. This means, pay close attention to your actions, your thoughts, and your speech. You may be surprised at what you notice.
Teachers may be aware of the concept of metacognitive strategies in the classroom. This refers to any methods that are used to help students understand the way they learn – helping students to think about their own thinking. In essence, this is being mindful: a constant state of being aware of what you are doing, saying and thinking. Although this can definitely be a challenge for those of us teachers who are in chaotic or compromising classroom situations, it still will be effective at bringing you to a state of calm mental fortitude, as well as physically commanding presence among your students.
One important piece of being mindful is to refrain from harshly judging yourself. It’s easy to fall into a trap of self-criticism because, after all, we all are fallible and we all make mistakes or poor choices on a very regular basis. The practice of being mindful means simply to be aware and observant about all that you are doing: chewing your food, dressing yourself in the morning, driving a car, writing with a pencil, speaking to colleagues – and speaking to yourself!
Which bring us to…. the concept of Self Talk.
Self-Talk
Basically, there are two kinds of self talk: Negative and Positive. Which would you prefer??? For most people, it’s easy to fall into the negative self talk – the voice in your head that tells you how bad of a job you are doing, how poorly your students are doing, or simply how awful the present situation is.
Recognizing the self talk is the first step toward disarming this negativity. This is where your mindfulness practice comes in handy: being aware of your thoughts and emotions. If you’re feeling down, maybe it’s due only to the talking in your head. Or maybe you can just recognize and observe this talking. Some of us can just stop the talk right then and there, on the spot. But most of us need some practice, or some tools, to help us get out of that dark, downward spiral.
Some questions you can ask yourself: “Is it really, truly true? How do I know that it’s true?? And what if it really, truly is true – then what???” Often, we hear what we fear. And often, what we fear usually does not equate with reality.
You are more powerful than you think – especially with regard to your mind. With ongoing, simple practice, you can take control of your thoughts, be more in charge of your own emotions, cease being so re-active and become more pro-active, and become the most powerful person you can be.
Here’s one helpful mantra: “I am whole, I am strong, I am perfect, I am powerful, I am beautiful, I am loving, I am harmonious, I am divine.”
But the most important thing you can do here regarding Self Talk is to be mindful of your thoughts, be aware of whatever dialogue or narrative or chitty-chat is audible in your head, so to speak. With practice, you can achieve an ongoing state of meta-awareness of these words, which may or may not even belong to You.
If you had a choice, what would you want to be listening to inside your own mind?