This year our school is rolling out weekly Mindfulness sessions throughout the whole school. Every Monday morning after we mark the roll, there’ll be the sound of a Tibetan bell and all the kids will be guided for a 10-minute Mindfulness/meditation session by their teachers. We start next week and I’ll be guiding my little year 7s through it. They’re going to love it.
The school has had mindfulness classes for a couple of years now, but these were optional classes at lunchtime. Now, after more data has been collected, particularly by Monash University, everyone is going to get the benefit.
Blogless Liz, the woman I sit next to in the staffroom, has been a huge fan of meditation and mindfulness for years. She’s talked a bit about it but I’ve never actually done a session like this until we started the teacher training when term started a few weeks ago.
Basically, it’s a little like meditation but with no mantras. You sit or stand quietly, noticing sounds, smells, your breathing, the way your feet feel on the floor etc. Any time your thoughts start to wander, when you realise it you bring your attention back to the ‘here and now’. It’s incredibly grounding and refreshing.
When we finished the first session, Blogless Liz asked me what I thought.
“I’ve been doing this for the last 15 years – I just didn’t know it had a name!” I said. ” I’ve been calling it ‘Noticing the little things,‘ “
This was brought to my mind today when I was listening to a podcast, where the Mad FIentist was interviewing Grant Sabatier about his new book. Towards the end of the podcast, they talk about the first times they were ‘in the moment’, truly contented and enjoying what was around them, instead of constantly thinking and hustling and striving or the next goal.
Mindfulness.
The choice to focus inward, with no judgement, to centre yourself and focus on what IS, not what you’re working towards and planning towards. This is a novel experience for FIRE people – we’re always looking to optimise habits, earning capacity and spending to get to where we want to be as fast as possible.
For anyone who’s interested, Monash University is running a free online course, starting at the end of April. I’ve signed up to it, along with everyone else in The Danger Zone (our section of the staffroom.) Monash Uni has made mindfulness a core part of most of their undergraduate programmes, particularly the high-stress ones like Medicine and Law.
Here’s the link. Enjoy! Anything that lowers stress and makes people feel good without doing stupid or illegal things is a Good Thing in my book!
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Next trip Dharamsala?
Haha! Probably not, but you never know!
Ooh, thanks for sharing the link to Monash Uni’s Mindfulness course. I’ve signed up. I like the Future Learn platform it will be presented on and have done a few other courses through it. Hope you can report back some positive changes with your kids doing regular mindfulness practice.
I’m feeling gald that I’ve got a year 7 class, rather than a more cynical and jaded year 9 or 10…
I did that mindfulness course with Monash a couple of years ago. I was only thinking about it this morning because I want to try it again. So glad to see they’re repeating it. I’m off to enrol.
Is Scout OK?
My husband has become very into meditation with work becoming more stressful in the past few years. He particularly like the guided meditations by Dan Harris and Sam Harris (apparently not related!)
I’ll have to check them out. 🙂
I did a mindfulness course last year and really enjoyed it. It takes a little getting used to when you are used to having your mind racing and thinking about a dozen different things at the same time. But definitely worth adding to your daily routine.
It’ll be interesting to see how the kids at school go with it.