12:10:14 So we'll get started. It's 1210. So hello everyone.
12:10:33 I want to thank ley spawn for joining us to present today's noisy wellness mindful teacher educator and Lunch and Learn session, entitled building and broadening resiliency integrating mindfulness into education and introduction, Ellie is a Toronto based
12:10:35 mindfulness practitioner and teacher, who has worked internationally to integrate mindfulness into key sectors including education healthcare and business, her master's degree focused on bringing mindfulness into education, and she completed her PhD here
12:10:49 at UT at the Institute of Medical Science in the Faculty of Medical Faculty of Medicine focused on integrating mindfulness into health care. She is currently an assistant professor in the Buddhism, mental health and psychology program and the faculty
12:11:04 of Arts and Science, and then instructor at the University of Toronto's applied mindfulness meditation certification program. We're grateful to have you here with us again, Ellie and but before we get started, I just want to let everyone know that this
12:11:20 session is being recorded and to ask if you have a question to raise your hand or use a chat. and also just to remind you that we have a number of resources on the Boise wellness website in case you ever feel overwhelmed or any help coping.
12:11:34 And I'll post the website link in our chat. So let's get started. Over to you.
12:11:40 Great to be back as part of the series, thank you for organizing it again this year.
12:11:45 So welcome everyone I'm looking forward to exploring this topic with you I'm going to share slides in a moment. And just a reminder top right you have some view options so if you feel like you know, side by side view you can kind of choose what's bigger
12:11:58 or smaller in your screen or speaker view whatever is best for your attention at this time.
12:12:04 So I'm going to share my slides and you'll see just on my title slide here I have a calligraphy I really enjoy that was written by Zen master scholar Nobel Peace Prize nominee tick not Han who I've done some extensive training with, who wrote this phrase,
12:12:17 happy teachers will change the world. And so perhaps that is a proposal for what we are exploring today what is the what does it mean to cultivate happy to Germans and how does that impact the world around us and as a researcher and scholar in this area
12:12:32 I'm really interested in how mindfulness can be a modality that can kind of support and underpin both individual and stomach growth and support in ways that we can create spaces where we can flourish and thrive and so for me, this calligraphy really reminds
12:12:49 me of that intention happy teachers will change the world. As mentioned, will keep the chat on so as I'm going if something comes up for you. Please drop it in there.
12:12:59 And you heard a little bit about me already so I won't go into this but just to say I wear a few hats in a different spaces at the university.
12:13:06 I've done work with the Search Inside Yourself program that was developed at Google that brings together neuroscience, mindfulness emotional intelligence training with tech the hands community affiliated with Michaels project gets sick kids hospital and
12:13:19 and doing ongoing work with the Ontario Hospital Association. So maybe all this is to say that I like to nerd out a bit on the neuroscience and research and also to dive into the kind of historical etymological kind of roots of this practice so these
12:13:33 are the, the lenses that I'm aware of that I bring to this work.
12:13:37 So, I just want to pause for a moment and watch a little poll so I get a sense of who's here today. So I can you know kind of tailor what we'll be talking around that a little bit.
12:13:46 So I'm going to launch a poll now hopefully it will come to you. And when I do that, we don't have to have technology anxiety, but if it does get to you.
12:13:55 Please fill it out. And we'll just take a moment to find out who's here.
12:14:06 And for the first one, it's a single choice and for the second question also this is anonymous so it's just kind of whatever however many of those emotions that you may be experienced you can check all that apply.
12:14:18 We all have maybe a lot going on these days so you can pick more than one.
12:14:36 Alright so I'm going to end the poll now it looks like most people have been able to participate in it.
12:14:43 So we have, what is your experience with mindfulness. So we have a nun welcome I'm always excited to have a new critical mind to take a look at this. And then we have kind of the majority around a little maybe one to two years, some moderate some very
12:14:58 experienced so welcome to everyone wherever you land on that spectrum, get to know who's here. And then also, have you experienced any of the following emotions in the past few weeks.
12:15:11 Interesting I don't always get 100% so everyone who answered is checked stress so we're all experiencing stress we've got anxiety at 73% worried about the future 73, maybe a little less worried about the past but some of that in there but also we have
12:15:26 excitement happiness.
12:15:27 So maybe are our lowest things are, you know, common peacefulness we have at the lower end here worry about the past. And then we have a lot of anxiety, stress excitement and happiness.
12:15:38 So, thank you for this it'll just kind of inform what we're talking about.
12:15:41 From a mindfulness perspective we often talk about finding a middle way that you know in our lives in our work, it can be. There's nothing wrong with experiencing strong emotions at both ends, but also that this can lead to some exhaustion and burnout
12:15:55 so interesting to see the kind of strong emotions at both ends of the scale are very alive for all of us right now so thank you for this data will come back to it during the presentation.
12:16:06 So I'm going to dive in. Now as I said to share some slides with you I'm excited to explore this topic, and also you know hear more if if anyone has any questions will leave some time for that at the other end.
12:16:23 So I want to share with you a little bit of a presentation outline so you know where we're going to be going in the session today.
12:16:30 So we're going to talk a bit about some operational working definitions of mindfulness will try then a little short experience will practice my hope is that we'll both do some theorizing today to maybe leave you with some language and some information
12:16:44 some evidence base for mindfulness, but also that you'll get to try some practical activities that you can start applying in your daily life perhaps bringing them into spaces you're going into so we'll get some hands on practical things I want to talk
12:16:56 a bit about well being and why we care, like mindfulness I find well being is talked about maybe more and more but also can get a bit of an IRA like stop telling me to like worry about my well being and be mindful I'm really busy.
12:17:07 And so I just want to take a moment as someone who studies this phenomenon, to actually give them a bit of evidence base and talk about why they're important.
12:17:16 I want to talk a little bit about neuroscience what's going on in our brains and hopefully that kind of relates into what we've discussed with mindfulness and well being.
12:17:27 Talk about some foundations for basic practice try another practical activity, and then talk about some further resources so that's the plan.
12:17:32 As I said drop into the chat if you have a question. I'm going to move at a fairly rapid pace through some of the evidence base and definitions because I want to make sure we have time to actually try some things out together.
12:17:42 So what exactly is mindfulness.
12:17:46 This is a really complex question. I want to, you know, first off, start by kind of recognizing that mindfulness contemplative practice this idea of maybe thinking about our thinking, I like to think sometimes mindfulness is like thought technology that
12:17:59 I get to apply to myself. And this has roots in so many traditions around the world and so these concepts I would say are not owned by one culture or one organization or one space.
12:18:12 And so I just want to welcome in that there can be many lineages and traditions that inform the practice of mindfulness, how we care for our well being.
12:18:20 And when we're in different spaces to really kind of recognize that. So for me, I'm going to offer some working definitions of mindfulness because it's helpful to have some collective language.
12:18:30 When I submit to an RFP it's helpful to kind of have a definition of working definition, but to recognize that there are many different traditions streams lineages cultures that we could draw on for this and just reflexively to share you know I'm drawing
12:18:42 from the training that I have and so that comes from the kind of lineage of science and neuroscience, and then this practice of what we would call engaged mindfulness or applied mindfulness, which is in the tradition of tick not Han and Plum Village so
12:18:55 those are the lenses that I will be offering to you. And this is, this is one framing one set of definitions and you may have others that you bring to this work.
12:19:06 So I like to sometimes start with this cartoon. Just what are we getting at with the idea of mindfulness, again, it's very popular these days, which is great.
12:19:15 I get invited to give talks but also it can lead to a lot of different concepts and so in a very basic way you know we might start thinking about mindfulness, as thinking about our minds as seeing what's there and so here we have a mind on one side that's
12:19:26 full of projects worries fears the anxiety, stress happiness excitement that we all just said is going on for us that's like the busy mind.
12:19:33 And then we have this other mind that seeing what is clearly in front of it.
12:19:37 Maybe this mind has a bit more of that common piece that we had a little less of and so there's just an interest so we start thinking about mindfulness that we are thinking about our thinking we're observing what is here.
12:19:48 So I want to offer us three working definitions of mindfulness as a as a basis to build our collective language around it. So the first is going to come from tick not hon community.
12:19:58 So this is the Zen master that I've studied with. Then I'm going to offer you one from Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, Jon Kabat Zinn his work. And this is one of the most researched mindfulness based interventions that we have in clinical settings
12:20:10 so it kind of clinical perspective. And then a definition that comes from the UK all parliamentary report on mindfulness, this was a report that the UK government put out in 2015, that formally recommended mindfulness be integrated into the public sectors
12:20:24 of healthcare, education, business and the criminal justice system. So, Zen master, a clinical perspective, a government policy documents so three angles that we can kind of triangulate from.
12:20:37 So from tick not Han and Plum Village mindfulness is the awareness of what is happening inside and around us in the present moment.
12:20:45 From Jon Kabat Zinn founder of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way on purpose in the present moment and non judgmental.
12:20:56 And then from the UK all parliamentary report mindfulness means paying attention to what's happening in the present moment in the mind body and external environment with an attitude of kindness and curiosity.
12:21:07 So, a lot of words here. But what I want to pull out is what do all three working definitions have in common. So if we do that, we can kind of see and I want to highlight three components.
12:21:17 So the first is this word awareness or attention we see these in all the definition so let's do a quick proof on attention and I want to say something, because we're at Boise I want to also offer some kind of behind the curtain things on on how I teach
12:21:30 and bring this into spaces with folks of different ages. And so what we're about to do is a little proof on attention that I find lands really well for people of all ages.
12:21:40 So what we're going to do is I'll invite everyone to direct your attention, up to the ceiling of the space you're in, or the sky, direct your attention down to the ground.
12:21:50 And then reorient your attention to me.
12:21:52 And so just a little proof on attention that we are in fact in charge of where our attention is flowing, or being oriented so in the definitions, it has something to do with where we are sending our attention, our attentional flow if you like.
12:22:08 Then we have this term present moment, and I often like to say you know what is the present moment about why is it important and really the present moment is where learning happens, it's where communication happens, it's where we collect the data that
12:22:20 we integrate from our occipital lobe to our prefrontal cortex to make meeting and narratives about our world so it's very important to be able to send our attention to the present moment, as learners.
12:22:35 You know, that's how we take in the information that's being presented to us. And so, this isn't to say that in mindfulness we're saying, always pay attention to the present moment, every moment, that would be impossible, your default mode network your
12:22:49 DMS is in charge of mind wandering it's what you default to. But what we're interested in is this capacity to train ourselves so we have some regulation over this and in education we often hear the terms like self regulation.
12:23:03 What does that mean and part of it is from a mindfulness perspective that we can see that it is trainable to work on when and how and where we orient our intention and this can help us with some regulation, so we'll get into that.
12:23:18 And then I want to just note that this part non judgmental with curiosity and kindness.
12:23:23 If we look at theories and literature and mindfulness there's this interesting and novel piece which is, we are not just training ourselves to pay attention, we are training ourselves to pay attention with a novel attitude that is kind and curious, so
12:23:37 I would hypothesize that most of us here are pretty well trained and paying attention. You can't really, you know, participate in the activities of a university without being able to intentionally pay attention, whether that's, you know, to your exams
12:23:50 to your papers to your lectures to your colleagues there's some intentional attention paying we all do, but we aren't always trained to do it with an attitude that is kind and curious, you know, for example, when I was doing my PhD, I noticed that I could
12:24:03 work on a literature review for three hours and two very different ways. I can sit there for three hours and go you're not good enough, you're never going to get this done work faster.
12:24:11 Or I could think this is really interesting I'm grateful to be doing this work and I'll stop when I have to and I'll start again tomorrow.
12:24:18 And depending on the way I was narrating that moment to myself, I had a very different sense of well being in myself, and it impacted how I communicate with others in the day.
12:24:28 So mindfulness What is it, maybe in a very simplistic way mindfulness has something to do with our attentional flow with an intention to train it to the present moment, know we're in a mindfulness moment with this attitude of kindness and curiosity.
12:24:46 So that's, that's the idea.
12:24:50 And with this, I want to share with you kind of three proposals. My husband is a PT at Women's College Hospital and we've been bringing and doing my trainings in lots of different spaces, we work with a team at sick is that does interventions for adolescents
12:25:02 for adolescents with chronic illness in different clinical spaces and educational spaces and through this we kind of made this slide that has three proposals of how do we integrate mindfulness into education and healthcare spaces so I want to share those
12:25:16 with you because that's our topic today is building this resiliency in ourselves and we're going to try through some practices that are aimed at cultivating this capacity to have attention in the present moment with kindness and curiosity.
12:25:27 And then how do we integrate it What does it look like when we bring it into spaces and so we'd like to propose that teacher well being is not separate from student well being.
12:25:37 So who the teacher is that hidden curriculum that personal practice undergirds practical implementation. So how do we bring this into spaces and just trying it yourself, is an incredible place to start and I'll talk a bit more about that, and that there
12:25:52 are multiple approaches for integrating it into classroom setting so this doesn't look the same in any space I'm a huge believer both as a researcher and pragmatic teacher that we really want to be context specific.
12:26:03 And so, you know, these proposals lead us to this proposal which is that you know personal practice your own experience with different mindfulness modalities activities concepts, then can flow out into educational or classroom settings in some different
12:26:19 ways that there's, you know, the teachers own well being, that there's one one student interactions and then of course we have more formal interventions where you might bring someone in to present on it so as we start thinking about how do we bring this
12:26:32 in what does it look like we thought these proposals were a helpful place to start.
12:26:39 And so yeah, also a question about bringing this to those who might be less neuro typical with ADHD, so I'll speak a bit more to this but I want to say a really interesting piece you know of course that context specific pieces really important so I'm
12:26:53 going to share some basic practices with you today, kind of in the standard formula for how we introduce them, and then I'll make sure to talk about some alternatives, how do we adapt apply and get creative with these practices to suit different contexts,
12:27:06 different needs both physically and mentally.
12:27:09 So thank you for these questions and I'll make sure when we do we're going to do a practice called focus attention. And often, I hear both from educators and also students who have ADHD they hear focus attention and they're like, well that's not for me
12:27:23 or maybe even makes them panic a little, but my experience is actually that those students really love this practice when it is offered to them in a way that is safe and accessible for them to engage with.
12:27:34 I actually had several students in a second year undergraduate course I'm teaching two weeks ago, bring up this question before we did an FA practice that they had ADHD that they were feeling anxiety, we talked about it, I gave them some tools for interacting
12:27:48 interacting with their practice. Since then, in their log books they've been trying it every day and the feedback was that it's been really meaningful for them, so we will return to both of those questions.
12:27:57 So briefly, why do we care about well being.
12:28:00 This is from the World Health Organization that wellness includes not just the absence of distress or illness but also emotional well being, physical health and social relationships so just to hold on, we think about you know this term well being that's
12:28:15 tossed around a lot, what we're interested in is considering what do we have to support ourselves that goes beyond just the absence of illness or just stress and so, especially when we look at a pandemic we can see emotion physical health and social relationships
12:28:28 are very directly impacted so we can also maybe have some kindness to ourselves.
12:28:34 When we think about you know why might we be feeling overwhelmed or exhausted right now.
12:28:38 And I want to just say for grad students there's some great research showing that when we increase our well being and we have a greater sense of happiness grad students are more productive, more creative more collaborative better long term goal pursuit,
12:28:49 more likely to find employment, psychologically resilient so if you're going like, I don't want to deal with my well being, I have to just do my work.
12:28:57 Hopefully, this is a little bit of a case for you to say, you know, my emotional, physical and social health like not only matters because I'm a human who deserves to be cared for, but also it will help me with the bottom line of, you know, succeeding
12:29:11 as a graduate student, so I put this out as food for thought.
12:29:17 So want to take a moment to talk a little bit about what the research tells us about our brains stress and achievement, and I want to say that this concept is something that we teach to teens and I've taught in grade one classes and everyone really liked
12:29:30 it so we're going to dive into a little neuroscience.
12:29:34 But really, hopefully accessible neuroscience that can almost be a mindful awareness practice itself.
12:29:40 So, when I think about what to share about the brain which is always a very complex thing and we're doing it in just a few minutes, but I like to focus on two areas that specifically inform reactivity and maybe being offline and specifically how this
12:29:56 intersects with our ability to learn and take in information, which as graduate students, you're doing and also as educators, your job is to relay information and students to take in that information so learning and information intake and then re accessing
12:30:13 information is a really important part of the process of education.
12:30:18 And so I want to take a moment to talk about two areas of the brain that are really central to this, this dialogue of taking in processing and retrieving information.
12:30:28 So, the amygdala, a part of the brain, you may have heard of the amygdala is in charge of our fight or flight response which is a short form for fight, flight, freeze paint will go with fight or flight.
12:30:39 And so this is kind of the alarm system of our brain it's looking out for danger if it senses danger sends off a cascade of chemicals gets us ready to fight or flight.
12:30:48 So very helpful from a survival perspective and the other part of the brain, I want to talk about is our PFC our prefrontal cortex. This is the part of our brain that we would say is kind of in charge of our executive function.
12:31:03 So, this is a part of our brain that's in charge of, you know, problem solving, it's in charge of retrieving information. And so what I want to kind of touch on is just to say the relationship between these two parts of the brain, and I wanted to do in
12:31:18 do in the way that we often teach it to younger folks so if you want to do this with me this is a great way to relay this information. So we raise our arm and we kind of say that our arm is the brainstem that kind of dips into our body checks on our interception.
12:31:31 Do we have enough oxygen. And then if you fold in your thumb. This is going to represent your amygdala, that's your alarm system and then if you fall down your fingers.
12:31:41 This is our very oversimplified brain, but we here we have our pre frontal cortex, and what you want to remember is that when your amygdala senses danger.
12:31:51 You flip your lid.
12:31:52 Literally, the chemicals the amygdala sends out takes your prefrontal cortex offline.
12:31:59 And so this is very interesting because we need our prefrontal cortex online to retrieve information to make meaning over what we are hearing and when our amygdala takes over.
12:32:10 When we put Berlin.
12:32:12 We don't have as much access to our logical, rational reasoning, maybe you can really relate to this and I love to do you know an activity in the classroom where we talk about this and then we talk about like what are my reactions What are PFC reactions
12:32:26 and where we want to place mindfulness what's interesting is in between, right, to get the prefrontal cortex back online, a mindfulness practice can help to calm our nervous system.
12:32:37 And let us have access again to our executive function.
12:32:41 So I'll tell one story about this before we actually try a practice that's kind of designed to help do that.
12:32:48 I was teaching in a classroom with grade two students, it was just before recess and after recess. One of them came back in and they were like, Ellie Ellie I reacted by Migdal over recess, and I was like oh, what do you do, and they said, Well, someone
12:32:59 kicked me in the playground and I kicked them back. I thought Yes, exact example right stimulus reaction.
12:33:06 I said, What did you do next and the student told me well I did that breathing thing we had practice a FA practice that we're about to try and one breath per finger to calm the nervous system, bring the PFC back online.
12:33:20 I said, What did you do that, I apologize.
12:33:23 I thought wonderful there's the response. And so when we talk about self regulation, we can think about what are the strategies and tools we have to recognize when our amygdala takes over and to bring our PFC back online, and to really make that a very
12:33:37 practical activity for ourselves and for those around us.
12:33:41 Just having this collective language, my amygdala is taken over can really help to already start to calm the nervous system. I can tell you between my husband and I, if I come down and like my ego has been pretty active for the last hour because it's
12:33:54 a female so we both kind of know where I'm at and how we might need to take care of me in that moment and so I think an activity of mindfulness sometimes we have a misconception ization we think mindfulness means sitting alone on a cushion for 20 minutes
12:34:06 with our eyes closed, that's great that will change the structure and function of your brain great research around that.
12:34:11 If we don't have time to do that or what are other ways we can expand this idea of mindfulness. For me, I think the neuroscience goes really well, hand in hand, to bring right if we remember the definition from the Zen master awareness of what's happening
12:34:24 inside and around me in the present moment, the student understanding their amygdala and PFC, and this practice to bring it back online really had awareness of what was going on inside and around them, and apply that in a way that allowed for some real
12:34:38 regulation of themselves.
12:34:40 And so just another interesting note from the literature is we have this concept of paper Tigers basically we can see that there are certain experiences we have that trigger the amygdala to send the same cascade of hormones are our body.
12:34:52 That would be the same as if we met a tiger in the woods but there, you know, exams presentations job interviews can, you know, our media goes like this feels dangerous and then our PFC is offline if you're sitting down to an exam.
12:35:04 Right. You need your PFC to access the information you've retrieved and then relay it in an articulate way. So if we notice you know anticipatory stress, anxiety coming up in ourselves.
12:35:17 It's really important to consider what strategies do you have to take care of your nervous system, so that you can have that access to your executive function.
12:35:25 And so for me when I think about where does mindfulness fit and you know we can call it mindfulness mental fitness whatever those strategies are that help take care of ourselves I'm trained in mindfulness I propose it as a really useful modality from
12:35:37 what I know in the research in my own life.
12:35:40 But this is where we really want to place it with some, some awareness. And just to say there's a lot of evidence base supporting mindfulness to possibly benefit you know being perceptual sensitivity self regulation empathy concentration motorcycles all
12:35:51 these things.
12:35:54 And why does it do all these things you know I would say just like with physical fitness we know for physically fit there's a cascade of physiological benefits.
12:36:01 If we are mentally fit if we are taking care of the instrument of our mind using some of these modalities and practices that come from mindfulness, that we see a cascade of cognitive benefits so for anyone who's interested, there are some references here
12:36:15 that I can share on these different benefits. Okay. So hopefully this is all sounding good I know I'm delivering a lot of information at a quick pace.
12:36:25 But I want to talk about the how I want to take this this bit of time we have left to actually try something because for me so much of mindfulness as you look at as a etymological roots.
12:36:35 It's about pragmatic application. We're not talking theory here we're talking about really doing something.
12:36:41 And I often like to frame this as mental fitness. For me this is a really useful way to describe what we're doing for a few reasons.
12:36:49 One is we kind of have this sense of physical fitness like it's something we should do, but we know it's kind of hard to and so that's a good relationship also for caring for our well beings in mind, but also that it gives permission for it not to be
12:37:01 the same for everyone. Some of us go to the gym, some of us go for a walk, some of us go to dance class. And so we want mindfulness to be a form of mental fitness where we our students can try different things out and make them our own meet ourselves
12:37:15 where they are, integrate them.
12:37:17 So sometimes you go to the gym for like an hour and that's really dedicated way to build your muscles and that's great that's like meditating for 20 minutes every day, but also sometimes your fitness might be like going for a brisk walk.
12:37:28 And that's a more integrated way and so we want to expand mindfulness to be able to permeate daily life by being practical.
12:37:36 So what I want to do now is introduce you to focus attention and again we'll talk about some different ways to do it for different neuro types and spaces, but I'm going to start by just introducing it in a kind of basic standard way.
12:37:50 And then we'll talk about how to expand the practice and I'm starting with focus attention today because it's one of those research practices and really forms the foundation for a lot of other mindfulness activities.
12:38:01 f8 can be applied to our walking to stretching to listening to music to doing art so we'll talk about all the other places that can go. But I want to start by giving you a kind of foundation.
12:38:11 And I can share with Irene and the well being team also i co authored an article that looks at focuses tension open awareness loving kindness are three of the most researched mindfulness practices, not say they're better than others is a lot of research
12:38:24 about them that talks about some of the evidence based on how to practice them so if you're interested, we'll, we'll give you some more resources.
12:38:32 So, focused attention.
12:38:35 Typically is about anchoring our attention in something as a way to start training our mind to notice when it is distracted and bring it back. And so this this basic function of starting to build up our attentional control is really important.
12:38:49 And I want to point out that it isn't like just when you do focus attention. It's like if you go to the gym and you work out those muscles stay with you.
12:38:57 So focus attention sometimes people say well why should I sit here and like really then like I'm having this really stressful day and it's like, well, that ability to train where our attention is going stays with us, it's, it's a muscle that we build.
12:39:10 And what this does is, over time, can lead to greater clarity focus concentration and feelings of comfortability and wellness.
12:39:17 Because if our mind is always on default we're always worried about the future we're always worried about the password, always playing our projects we never rest.
12:39:26 It increases our feelings of dis ease of anxiety and so training this capacity to regulate where our attention is going can really inform how we take care of ourselves throughout the rest of our day, and our lives.
12:39:41 I can tell you, the ability when I am focused I when I do have a fav practice more often in my life when I go to fall asleep at night and my to do list starts playing or I wake up in the night or first thing in the morning and it goes, I have more ability
12:39:55 to regulate that to close it to come back to it. So it's, it's interesting how this training impacts us.
12:40:03 So what are the basics of FA and then we'll, we'll try it very briefly and then you can take it with you.
12:40:09 Basically I like to think of FA as practicing workout in a cycle. And so we start the workout by choosing an anchor often this is the breath it's free it's with you, but for some folks the breath is in a safe focus for attention.
12:40:22 So it could be the breath, maybe a neutral sound perhaps like the sensation of your feet on the floor your hands in your lap so you pick an anchor, you try and anchor attention you send the flow of attention to the anchor.
12:40:34 And then the next part of the cycle that we are all super good at, we get distracted, our mind goes somewhere.
12:40:40 Then the next part of the cycle we noticed the distraction we reorient to the anchor, so you anchor, you stay with the anchor long as you can. You get distracted.
12:40:48 He noticed the distraction successful woman of mindfulness, and you reorient attention to the anchor. So is this working for some of us if we're having a calmer day, we may be able to stay at the anchor longer and that's very peaceful.
12:41:01 For those of us who are having a lot going on. If we have ADHD if we may be our neuro a typical and holding attention somewhere as hard. We're going to go through the cycle, a lot more times.
12:41:11 And that's totally fine, the barometer for success is not to empty your mind. It's not to perfectly focus. It's to whatever degree that you are able to do this workout to be in the cycle.
12:41:25 I sometimes get told when I go into classrooms like oh that's the troubled student and they're not able to do this and that students falling off the chair of the whole time we do the practice and distracting everybody and okay and then we do in Korea
12:41:36 and that student goes, I just realized my mind is really busy and I cannot focus, like, what a successful awareness of what's going on for them.
12:41:48 And then they go like, I think when you try it again sometime. Yeah, totally.
12:41:51 I think when you try it again sometime. Yeah, totally. And so this interesting piece right success can be very different for each of us and so I think when we frame a practice, I like to sometimes say treat it as an experiment.
12:42:02 If you pour in all the chemicals and get the solution you want it, great people and all the chemicals and it explodes like also great you've got some good data.
12:42:10 And so I think a way to make a practice like FA very accessible approachable, is to allow everyone to be set up for success. This is about observing our minds and collecting data on ourselves whatever it is and I'll, I'll note just before we try it and
12:42:24 then I'll take some questions. You also want to be careful for yourself and for others if you bring this in that we often have this idea i'm going to do mindfulness and feel calm and happy.
12:42:34 And there's a bit of a framing and warning we want to give is when we stop in our day and become aware of what's happening inside of us what's happening inside of us maybe that we are very anxious or stressed, so it will not be a pleasant experience in
12:42:48 fact, we could feel more activated by a practice, because if we've been suppressing or not noticing what's going on because we're busy with work or we're watching Netflix, then this pause may actually cause us to have some challenge.
12:43:00 So I invite you both for yourself and anyone else that you invite to do a practice to make sure you share that. If you're in a classroom you might want a second body if there's a student that needs to open their eyes or disengaged with the practice that
12:43:10 they have somewhere to go or something to do, and even for yourself. Remember, the attitude of kindness and curiosity. What is here.
12:43:19 Let me be kind of curious to it. So we're going to try I'm going to just do a very brief version of fa so you can have a taste of it from me. And I really want to give you permission to know that anything that happens in your mind and your body is where
12:43:35 where you are today. And as much as possible just to be kind of curious to that, to know that you are just observing your mind, collecting some data.
12:43:46 So, with that, I'd like to invite you if you're comfortable to close your eyes for a few minutes. This just helps remove an extra stimulus, if you're not comfortable the eyes close pick a point to focus on in front of you at any point during this brief
12:43:58 practice if you need to disengage if you feel activated in a way and you want to disengage and have your own song or do your own thing, till it's done that is also totally fine.
12:44:09 as you're mindful as coach for the day though I encourage you to participate in as much of the workout, as you can.
12:44:15 So with that I'll invite you to direct your attention to an anchor, and you can select your anchor, if the breath is available and comfortable. It's a great one to start with.
12:44:28 If not, you might pick the sensation of your hands, your feet, or a neutral sound that isn't too distracting.
12:44:36 Or if you're very visual you might pick something just to really rest your days on and to fill attention with that. Whatever you choose is your anchor we're trying not to change it, fix it, judge it, we're just seeing if we can fill attention with it.
12:44:53 And I'm going to guide us using the breath, but you can simply focus on whatever anger you've chosen.
12:45:01 So for the next few moments, we're seeing what it's like to settle the mind to whatever degree possible by anchoring our attention, sending our whole directional flow to one anchor, we spend so much of our day running and rushing and playing our projects,
12:45:21 and so can we offer ourselves a moment a little gift of stopping to whatever degree as possible.
12:45:31 your anchor is your breath, you might just become really interested in. Notice it may be at the sensation of the nose, the back of the throat. The chest belly and then notice the breath, all the way out.
12:45:46 I'm just going to give us a few moments to do our own little focus attention workout so directing attention to the anchor.
12:45:57 Noticing when the mind wanders redirecting in your own time just being in that cycle anchor distraction reorient resting as often as possible in the anchor.
12:47:10 On your next Oprah, invite you to gently open your eyes or lift your gaze and just take a moment just to collect some data, what's going on in your body and mind calmer and slower.
12:47:23 More tightened anxious and just to give permission for whatever is there for you today but to know that with this data. It can inform how we continue if our mind is very busy we may want to think what strategies do we have to take care of my nervous system
12:47:37 today.
12:47:38 If our mind felt calm and at ease, we can take in that nourishment going forward.
12:47:44 So just noticing in ourselves and being really open to what's there.
12:47:49 And I'm going to take some questions in a moment. I just wanted to note that, you know, fa practice as I said can be adapted we can think of different anchors with younger students I often practice, sitting like a jello versus mountain and so we do like
12:48:05 weekly jiggly jello. And then we practicing like a mountain we call it jello jello mountain. And then we over time, we do the mountain longer and we talk about mountains being solid and stable and grounded in their breath and so students get like this
12:48:14 body sense between being jiggly and wiggly and distracted and being a mountain, and then you know often I've had classroom for the scenes like can we practice mountain, because all of us I think as humans like want those moments to pause to settle.
12:48:29 And so some places we sometimes hear that are great to do some focus attention is like when you're at a red light instead of already being at work, you can take that moment to pause and just notice your breath.
12:48:41 Notice what's around you focus attention in the anchor of the moment you know when you're drinking a coffee people tell me they're on coffee break and then I'm like What did you do and they like my drink my coffee and thought about my next project and
12:48:50 I was like, well then you were just like drinking your projects. So you know the taste of a coffee can be an anchor for attention so we can think about what do we do in our everyday lives that we can level up into a mindfulness practice, just by applying
12:49:02 these basic principles of focus attention really noticing what's here and being in that cycle. She is your anchor your walk your song brushing your teeth, notice on the mind becomes distracted and reoriented so this this basic things can really be applied
12:49:18 and can really help in the literature shows to calm our nervous system and get our PFC back online. So, as I said, we can share an article that goes into a bit more of these modalities, I just want to note, some resources that you've T and I know the
12:49:30 Boise wellness program has amazing resources for you, practices, I think happening every week if you want to tap in so I'll pause myself here and just say thank you for your attention.
12:49:42 I know it's a limited resource and we're going to spend a few minutes doing any q amp a so anyone who has a question or something you observed during that practice that you just like to comment on, I invite you to raise a hand or drop it into the chat.
12:49:55 And thank you for listening to the presentation.
12:50:04 I also want to say, just to wait, as we're waiting for some questions, just to say thanks so much for coming today and being part of our wellness program.
12:50:14 It's always so great to listen to your talk so that they're so busy aesthetic and you're just full of passion. So, thank you so much.
12:50:22 Thank you. Yeah, and it's definitely an area, both as a human being and a teacher that I really like to explore yeah please jump in Claire.
12:50:34 Hi. Um, so I just started introducing mindfulness to my students and I have trouble with like really kind of getting everyone to sit still and I'm trying to be invented Invitational.
12:50:49 But like, you know, we're talking about having a straight back, and like, because I know it impacts your breathing like things like that, I find that like I haven't been able to really make that time, like special or separate somehow, and it needs to
12:51:02 be so I'm a little stuck on that, but we've talked about the hand model with the brain and they loved it, it's invited so many questions about how we think.
12:51:11 Yeah, well that's great. Well the first thing would be just from what you're sharing it sounds like you're having success. So that's wonderful. And I think you know one thing is perhaps you know not to worry so much about the position people are in or
12:51:22 whether people are still, because sometimes that can be really hard like as the facilitator if we're trying to manage that piece of it, then it becomes harder to actually like facilitate the practice because we know so much of the literature says that
12:51:35 like the embodiment of who we are, when we offered is almost more important than what anyone does during it. And so what I might propose back you know from working in some different spaces is what makes that time special I think is so much of students
12:51:47 lives, you know, the teachers are busy they're busy they're trying to get through work there's like this kind of frenetic energy and so I think you know your own practice like how you said what your body is doing during that even if their eyes are open
12:51:58 and they're falling over that they get to take that in from you and that really has some meaning for them and so one thing is to give yourself permission not to worry about what anyone else is doing in that moment but just what are you bringing, and how
12:52:10 does that also support you in your day because we know that who you are, matters so much to the hidden curriculum and so to encourage that piece, and then also a bit of language I really like for mindfulness practice is this phrase, try not to bother
12:52:25 your neighbor, and this can be very helpful for students. So, one of the framing is rather than saying how to sit or where to sit but we're really going to try for this bit of time to support our friends and not bother our neighbors so the invitation
12:52:37 is to sit in this way as much as you can, but if you can't. If you need to move if you need to sit funny to do that without bothering your neighbors and that idea.
12:52:46 I think is really special because it can kind of help calm the classroom and the students are like Oh right, even if I can't do it I want to support the person next to me, and some of that often actually influences them to do the thing that kind of felt
12:52:57 impossible. So, those those two pieces are something I found useful to the practice.
12:53:05 Now, great question and fun to hear what you're doing. Thank you.
12:53:12 Anyone else anything percolating questions about implementation or just anything you notice in that practice that you have a question about.
12:53:33 Now please jump in.
12:53:37 Thank you so much for the presentation.
12:53:40 I'm like, I'm a teacher candidate, I'm in the MCC program, and I haven't started my practical yet, but I'm curious to know if you would recommend doing like a wellness activity, every day of the week, or if it's like, only a few times a week, or.
12:53:58 Yeah, basically like the quantity.
12:54:03 Yes, the dosage of mindfulness so to study why we need more studies on this, but I would say, you know, from a from a lens of like research in terms of what it means to bring interventions into spaces, going back to kind of it being so context specific
12:54:18 there's actually a great article, and making some notes on some articles that I'm just saying that afterwards and on what it means to bring practices and so my answer to you is I can kind of give a personal recommendation but my main recommendation is
12:54:30 the space where it is and so, both for yourself and whatever spaces you're in, you know, you might test out like if we do this every day, what's the feedback if we only so I think the main thing is to remain agile and flexible.
12:54:43 So what is the language are we calling it mindfulness are we calling it mental fitness are we calling it well being right that's you know one question How many times do we do in the week.
12:54:51 You know, often what I've experienced is when teachers start to bring this into classrooms, the students start to ask for it more and more. And I think one fun thing is to say the students like this week we're going to try it every day and then I want
12:55:00 to know how that went for you and let them tell you. You know how how much is it and I think that's a fun thing we can do and we really like co create what well being is going to be because if we look at one of the leading researchers are mindfulness
12:55:13 Shauna Shapiro, she has this model mechanisms of mindfulness and it kind of highlights like what gets activated when my best practices, having the complicated that commented outcomes we want.
12:55:24 And one of the three parts of this model is intention that mindfulness happens in our own minds. So we have to have buy in, otherwise we have no control what people are actually doing with their minds.
12:55:33 So I'd say in terms of how often you do it as much as that can be a kind of CO created decision. We know that that everyone is kind of on board, in a way, and so that will really help activate mindfulness because it really activates intention, so that
12:55:50 you know if you can do it every day like that's great, we're going to be building our muscles, but it really depends on on the capacity of the spacer and and that's also for length right like if we're, you know with with a younger group, it might be that
12:56:01 we do something shorter, with a older group, longer and so just again to really play with what's, what's in the space and what's needed there what makes it accessible, and what makes it an intention that everyone can really take on with their like own
12:56:16 self agency i think is is almost more important than, then how much we do it. Yeah.
12:56:23 Thank you. Great, great question. Any other questions. Yeah, go ahead.
12:56:28 Sorry, I was just saying thank you.
12:56:36 Yeah, and just an interesting comment in the chat just to say it's, you know, thinking and and highlighting that I did that focus attention is not always going to make me feel calm, relaxed and happy.
12:56:45 So being able to check in with that and give permission for wherever we land on that each week yeah please jump in.
12:57:04 I'm kind of jumping off from that question that I have is, when you do have students, or in my case, my son, who, when practicing mindfulness, it makes them more anxious, initially, and so they kind of tend to shy away like it's like uncomfortable.
12:57:14 What would you recommend for getting them through that and how to help them deal with that increased anxiety that happens at that time. Yeah, great question and I think, you know, part of it again is really framing the expectation that that might happen
12:57:30 can be very helpful. It can be a little less distressing. If we have I love teaching the science of prediction or if people haven't looked into it and like how our brains have like actual errors with the thing we expect doesn't happen so setting up a
12:57:42 good prediction by predicting that that might happen right before in of itself will help navigate that having really open discussion afterwards to hold it and take care of it is great, but also to potentially do some work around so few things.
12:57:59 One is to also do some work around. I like in mindfulness practice you know we have practices which are like these kind of techniques like meditation and focused awareness that we do to build these capacities.
12:58:11 We also have a whole set of teachings that I like to call concepts ways of thinking about our thinking. If we look at Tech not hard work he has some great rating around, what we call store consciousness which is like how our mind manifests different emotions
12:58:22 and you know he has some great well it's called thought technology around like, you know, sometimes our emotions are like guests that show up in our living room, and sometimes we want to have invited over happiness but like, we pause and the guests in
12:58:32 our living room is anxiety and then we have to host that guest. And so having some ideas around thinking about our anxiety, knowing that it's part of us.
12:58:42 Ties a really interesting reading I just shared in my class this week from his book, The sudden my heart, where he says, mindfulness is always an act of non violence and that means not turning our minds into a battlefield.
12:58:54 So our allies are not our emotions of happiness and joy and our enemies are not our emotions of anxiety and fear. They are all part of us. And so, I share some of these teachings to say I think talking about our mind a little bit in and around a practice
12:59:10 can help. And then also asking like what adjustments might be made to the practice to do that so I had a student in grade one who is very anxious. It's called the sun my heart.
12:59:22 It's one of my hands more theoretical books.
12:59:25 Another one that's a little less theory is no mud know Lotus is a book of his where he talks about some of these ideas, also.
12:59:34 And so I would say, another thing to do is also like ask a young person how to adjust the practice so I had one student say like breath was really anxiety inducing because they had a lot of anxiety.
12:59:44 But thinking about their cat was really happy for them and so the anchor that they chose was like when we do a practice, we think about putting our cat.
12:59:53 And so the same idea right we're just trying to train, focusing on one anchor. And so, that can be anything and so sometimes also like adjusting the anchor, or when I work with young folks with autism, if we're doing a body scan its eyes open and we rub
13:00:05 each part of our body and that like activity is much more accessible so I would say also just being flexible and again like co creating what mindfulness looks like if you try practice, and then a bunch of you're like, that didn't work for me like cool
13:00:17 what didn't work, how do we adjust it. So I think that's some approaches. Thank you, I appreciate that.
13:00:25 And also, I'll just recommend also the book, The mindful teen by Dr. Zoom vo. He's a pediatrician on the West Coast who started the mindfulness Center at BC Children's Hospital, a phenomenal book, adapt to different ages beautifully written it's a kind
13:00:41 of mix of he has a background in training with technology and also and CVT work from MBCT and he's put them together for teens and it's really adaptable and the book is written as both a workbook that a team could read themselves but also as facilitators
13:00:53 so that's a nice resource lot. Thank you,
13:01:05 I'm mindful of the time, but I just want to jump into, you know again thank everyone for taking this time I think it just from those of you I've interacted with something I like about exploring this phenomenon is these deep intentions, as I said from
13:01:17 the beginning happy teachers will change the world so who you are. I will say the way out is in so in order to take care of others, and all of you are in a caring space you have a collection of kiddos of whatever age, they could even be 90, you know,
13:01:32 But we're all human beings and to meet as humans when we look at the research on Burnett and we know educators are particularly prone to burn out.
13:01:41 that has said that when we remove the human side of the work we are most at risk for burnout and so I just I want to encourage all of you to see how does this apply to you because you are humans and not educating robots and your students also are each
13:02:01 a human and so how to meet each other in that way so important. So, I'm so happy that you're here. I'm so happy that ways he has a wellness committee and I hope that we can kind of keep interacting and as I said I'll follow up with some resources and
13:02:14 articles to share with you from the questions that came up.