Mindful attention has a quality of welcoming and acknowledging what is true, rather than trying to change anything. This even includes difficult thoughts and emotions.

While we often want to fix or change our thought patterns in the moment, it can be helpful to let everything kick up. Like in a glitter jar, eventually, there will be some settling.  

Take some time this week to just allow- sit with some tea or coffee on the back deck and notice what kicks up, and how it settles. You can always come back to the breath or sense on purpose if it feels too uncomfortable.

With students, this can look like putting on a timer for one minute, and asking them to notice what comes into their attention if all is welcome.

This week, take a moment at the end of your day to review the moments that were sweet, fun, or just generally pleasant (if you got nothing, I included a cute puppy gif. so that's one). 

It can feel cheesy, but it actually has a powerful effect and leads to the rewiring of the brain. This is not about rose-colored glasses or silver linings, but is about helping the brain reset a natural tendency towards negativity, termed the negativity bias.

Writing your thoughts down can be a powerful way to solidify that reorientation towards the pleasant.

Variations include:

*gratitude journaling

*Out of this World Shout Outs! 

*Thank you notes

*Happy Lists

Try using your senses to help ground you (and your students) in the moment. There is profundity in simplicity.

This is helpful because it:

1. Interrupts the ruminative thoughts of the Default Mode Network (DMN)

and

2. Helps orient the nervous system to a safe environment around you, thus activating a parasympathetic response.

Try slow, gently breathing patterns to ease tension. Regularly practicing mindful breathing can lower your baseline sympatethic nervous system activation.

Before you speak, consider the following questions. They might keep you from saying something you wish you hadn't.

Time with family may be joyful, but it is not always restful. Is it possible to carve out some time for rest over the holiday break? Can we turn everyday activities into restful moments?

This week, I encourage you to explore finding moments of rest throughout your day. It doesn't have to be huge, but something just to slow down the pace. 

Here are some examples:

1. Close your eyes for 30 seconds between tasks. Allow your body to rest.

2. Listen to your favorite song in its entirety while doing nothing else.

3. Hold a hug with your favorite people a little longer and relax into it.

4. Literally walk slower from point A to point B.

5. Get into bed 10 minutes early. Get out of bed 10 minutes later.

What does intentional rest look like for you?

Consider going into this day with an intention on HOW you will show up. How will you redirect that student? How will you write that email? How will you plan that lesson? 

Before the To Do List, and the To Doing, what would you like that to look like? Wrap whatever your intention- to be patient, to be kind, to be lovingly firm, around the moments you know are going to need a little extra intention and purposeness to help you do it the way you'd like to...

Create a mental (or physical) map of the people you have around you, supporting you, rooting for you, shaping you. You can start with your inner circle- those who you feel the deepest connection with, and work your way out. We can add people who have helped us in our past, like teachers and mentors, and people we know are supporting us but may not interact with much (ie- custodial staff, food service workers, doctors, inventors, etc). Notice what it is like to remember each of these individuals out there supporting you.

If we practice steadying our minds with an anchor point regularly, overtime, our minds more naturally default to a steadier place. This week, play with taking some time to focus on one pleasant, present-moment object. Commonly, people use their breath, but you can also do this with listening to a piece of music or tapping your fingers. Tara Bucci even lights up a twinkle tree and candle to sit with while drinking her coffee.

For students, I set a timer for one minute, and suggest counting the breath or finger taps as a focal point. We process afterwards about what they noticed- were their minds steady or unfocused? Was it hard or easy? 

Take a moment to look around your room right now. Notice colors, shapes, textures. 

Take a few deeper breaths. 

Now, what's your next step?

It can be helpful to simply avert our gaze away from the screen as a way of taking a mini break. Shifting your attention into the world can reorient us to the bigger picture.

How do you help your body wake up in the morning? A lesson I do with kids is to start at their feet and warm up each set of joints from bottom to top by rolling them out- so, ankles, knees, hips, spine, shoulders, elbows, wrists, neck. It can be a gentle way to wake up and connect with the body first thing :)

In a Self-Compassion for Educators course I took with researcher Kristin Neff, she said, "It is hard because you care."

That reframe really helped me out today. I was home with my sick kid feeling frustrated I was missing things I really wanted to be at school for. Rather than fighting with that frustration, I remembered this idea. Yes, of course I'm frustrated and want to be there. I care about this, and I want to be a part of it. That diffused the intensity of that desire. Just acknowledging and remembering the stress response actually comes from good intentions can help with accepting the frustration.

It's hard because we care.