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Mindfulness as…
Paying attention
in a particular way:
on purpose,
in the present moment,
and
nonjudgmentally.-Jon Kabat-Zinn
Who are we?
You should know that:1) The waters will probably get muddied today. So be kind and generous with yourself and those in the room.
2) We will spend more time focusing on our practice than on mindfulness for children and youth.
WHY?
Because one must BE in order for others to BE. This is the entire point of mindfulness. If this is lost, mindfulness becomes just another strategy or tool to implement.
AND…our job is high stress!
3. We will look at resources for Children and Youth AFTER lunch.
An intro to sitting meditation (p. 122)
“…as long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than there is wrong, no matter how ill or hopeless you may feel”
(Kabat-Zinn, 1990, p. 2)
Pair n’ Share
What is it like for you?How would you describe it?Can you say more about that?Is there more that you’ve noticed?
News Flash!• Anyone can engage in intentional mindfulness practices.• Do not let expert voices tell you this is only for the Counselor or Psychologist, Monk or Disciple.
We are mindful beings. It is what makes us human.
“We are beings whose being is an issue for us.”
-Heidegger
Moving Mindfulness with Karen!
School Staff: The data says…• 13 peer reviewed studies• Reductions in stress• Better mental health• Greater wellbeing• Increased kindness and compassion• Better physical health• Increased cognitive performance• Enhanced job performance
Evidence for Mindfulness: Impacts on the Wellbeing and Performance of School Staff. 2014. Weare, K. Mindfulness in
Schools.org and University of Exeter.
Students: The data says…• 20 peer reviewed articles met conditions of meta-analysis• Mindfulness was HELPFUL, not iatrogenic• Superior to active control comparisons• Larger effect size found on those with psychological symptoms and in studies focused on clinical settings
Mindfulness Intervention in Youth: A Meta-Analysis. Zoogman et. Al. 2014. Mindfulness
Learning and Unlearning Practice (p. 98)
Autopilot…• In everyday situations, we can sometimes go for hours on automatic pilot,
not fully aware of what we are doing or what is happening. We may never notice that our thoughts are miles away. We might think about the past so much that we forget where we are-right here in the present. We might become sad or angry at what’s already happened. Other times we might be so busy trying to see what will happen next that we completely miss what is happening now. The future may feel scary or uncertain, and we may feel worried or anxious. All that thinking and worrying can cause us to miss what is happening right now. When we are on automatic pilot, we may react without thinking instead of mindfully choosing how we wish to respond to events. Mindfulness practices bring awareness to our thoughts, feelings, body sensations, and all of our senses. When we practice living with mindful awareness, rather than on automatic pilot, we can respond to other people and the events in our lives with greater choice.
Semple & Lee, 2011. Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy for Anxious Children. P. 274.
When are you most on autopilot?
What brings you here? Practice (p. 198)
What is it like for you?How would you describe it?Can you say more about that?Is there more that you’ve noticed?
Moving Medication with Karen
Teachers Within Practice (p. 94)
A Model for Mindfulness
Attention
Intention
Attitude
Attention
Intention
Attitude
Intention = self-regulation to self-exploration to self-liberation: personal journeys
Attention = sustained focus and flexibility of focus
Attitude = non judgment as accepting, open, and kind curiosity towards one’s experience
What happens?• De-habituation (reorganization of perceptual structures – to know more deeply)• De-automatization (constant refreshing of perception of the moment)• De-centering (viewing experience from the outside – temporary and not reified!)
Zinn calls this “ORTHOGONAL ROTATION IN CONSCIOUSNESS”
“…everthing old looks different because it is now being seen in a new light – an awareness that is no longer confined by the conventional dimensionality and mindset.” (2005, p. 350)
McMindfulness…
In Buddhism• Life of the Buddha (p. 67)
The Four Ennobling Truths
The Three Marks of Existence
Mindfulness within the 8 fold path…
Four Foundations of Mindfulness (p.70), • Of body (breath and body)
• Of feelings (feeling tone of emotions – pleasant, unpleasant, neutral)
• Of mind (quality of activity of the mind)
• Of mind-objects (all the mind encounters)• 5 hindrances, 5 aggregates, 6 subjective/objective sense
factors/7 factors of enlightenment, and 4 ennobling truths
Two forms of meditation• Samatha = attention on an object (breath)
• Vipassana = fullness of direct experience (all is connected, co-created and impermanent = insight)
The Four Sublime States (Brahmaviharas)
• Loving kindness vs. anger
• Compassion vs. cruelty
• Sympathetic Joy vs. jealousy
• Equanimity vs. attachment and aversion (anxiety)
Do you have a sense for your strengths / weaknesses here?
p. 72 - 73
Think about:
1) Loving Kindness
2) Compassion
3) Sympathetic Joy
4) Equanimity
• Practice, practice, practice!
4 minute Meditative Reflection (p. 111), then Sharing…
Mindfulness in Education as Stewardship…(p. 105)
Freedom: • to come more fully into your experience. Surrendering to how you are in the
moment
Belonging:• To see your influence on the life of the group…to offer care and the demand of
restraint…an accountability to others…a form of self-regulation for building solidarity
Resonance:• The co-created inter-connected resonance of the group…the gift that we
become for one another to increase our freedom and belonging.
These three are interdependent…
Loving Kindness (p. 216)
What is it like for you?How would you describe it?Can you say more about that?Is there more that you’ve noticed?
What’s Raw in Me? Practice (p. 99)
Releasing the Jardine!This is why, frankly, I am so concerned about the rise of mindfulness practices in schools (see, e.g., Campbell 2013, Olson 2014, Saltzman 2014, and countless recent others). My fear is that such things are unwittingly (and dare I say that I more deeply fear that it is quite wittingly) ways to get kids to settle down so they can go back to doing stupid and demeaning things in classrooms, while at once derailing any "uprising" into a personal problem that needs quelling, rather than see it as an intelligent and intelligible insight into their institutionalized circumstances. "Increasingly, teachers are using the principles of mindfulness to help make the classroom a calmer place and to improve learning" (Campbell, 2013, n.p.) thus perhaps masking classroom conditions and expectations that might just warrant restlessness and discontent, and leaving in place, too, what "learning" and "improvement" are understood to be. Mindfulness thus becomes understood instrumentally against the background of the status quo of school life whereas, in fact, once rooted back into its long legacies and ancestries, it involves and leads to precisely the breaking of the spell(s) of everyday life, waking up to the delusions and false promises of one's circumstances and acting accordingly.
Dr. David Jardine
Meditation is working with our speed, our restlessness, our constantbusyness. Meditation provides space or ground in which restlessness mightfunction. Meditation practice is not a matter of trying to produce ahypnotic state of mind or create a sense of restfulness. Trying to achievea restful state of mind reflects a mentality of poverty. Seeking a restfulstate of mind, one is on guard against restlessness. There is a constantstate of paranoia and limitation. We feel we need to be on guard. Thisguarding process limits the scope of the mind by not accepting whatevercomes.
Instead, meditation should reflect a mentality of richness in the senseof using everything that occurs in the state of mind. Thus, if we provideenough room for restlessness so that it might function within the space,then the energy ceases to be restless because it can trust itselffundamentally. Meditation is giving a huge, luscious meadow to a restlesscow. The cow might be restless for a while in its huge meadow, but atsome stage, because there is so much space, the restlessness becomesirrelevant. (Trungpa 2003, p. 218-219)
What very often happens in schools when students become restless andencounter difficulties with the work they face is that teachers (andsometimes assessors, testers, curriculum developers, and remediators) zoomin on that trouble, narrowing attention, making the “meadow,” the “fieldof relations” available to that restless student less huge, luscious, richand spacious (this defines, of course, precisely what can happen to arestless teacher in a school as well). As Trungpa notes, paranoia andlimitation increase in response to restlessness. In a tragic but terriblyunderstandable turn, restlessness begins to be blamed on the fact that thefield is too big, too luscious, alluring and distracting. Abundance,lusciousness, variegation and multifariousness become transformed intothreats set on breaching the narrowing security fences. This is similar tothe ecological argument that Wendell Berry (1986) makes regarding howgreenhouse walls transform that which is outside of those walls into athreat to what is inside the walls rather that in relation to which and inthe midst of which and in concert with which life is made vigorous andhealth and whole.
Tasks facing a restless student become stupider, more menial anddemeaning, more degrading to be part of, less interesting, less alluring,and all of this because of the student and their restlessness.
The more trouble a student has, the smaller and simpler and lessinteresting the “bit” doled out to them.
And the more restless they become.And the more our paranoia and need for limitedness
increases
To hark back to Chogyam Trungpa’s words, in the process of such narrowing,restlessness does not become irrelevant. It becomes paramount. Therestlessness now no longer has places (“fields”) that are patient,forgiving, variegated, rich and rigorous enough so that our troublednessmight be able to work itself out.
It can now only be worked on.Poor restless cow has a problem.
Gadamer on free spaces…
‘Being with difficulty’ Practice (p. 101)
What is it like for you?How would you describe it?Can you say more about that?Is there more that you’ve noticed?
Explore the following:• StFX Mental Health Education LibGuide – Mindfulness page
http://stfx.libguides.com/mental_health_education
• Books• Powerpoints for books here:
http://people.stfx.ca/cgilham/
• PD plans for schools (based on the books) here:
http://people.stfx.ca/cgilham/
