Heartfulness: Mindfulness for Teachers

Heartfulness practice may be the mindfulness for teachers practice to open our hearts and keep us connected.

I’m going to just cut right to the chase. You should check out this mindfulness for teachers practice today. Right now. Seriously. It will make you feel better. Promise…

One We are Teaching Well member commented “I just finished the video of Heart fulness! I wish EVERYONE could hear it! It was awesome. Such peace comes from it!” And another member said, “This is just what I needed today.”

So I thought I’d just pass on this mindfulness for teachers recording to all of you.  Knowing that we are all on this roller coaster of uncertainty is not easy, but with a little bit of heartfulness, we may see how connected we really can be.

Part of Teaching Well’s mission is to build a community of teachers who are dedicated to teaching well.  Practicing heartfulness is such an important part of developing wellbeing inside and outside of our classroom (whether that classroom is in our school or in our home!). This is why mindfulness for teachers is so important.

So put your worries aside.  Put your to do list on pause.  If you’d like to participate in a radical act, I would invite you to take twenty minutes to sit still.

Here is the video from this week’s Morning Mindfulness Practice.  It’s all about cultivating positive emotions through heartfulness.

By working with our emotions in a neutral place, more free of daily distractions, we are practicing for when we are in the real everyday hustle and bustle of our classrooms or personal lives.  Life just happens, so practicing working with these emotions when things are neutral helps to build those neural pathways.

So what do you do beyond these twenty minutes of sitting still?  What happens when these thoughts just keep going?

Here are three techniques you can use to bring this heartfulness into the “real world” (of our classroom and beyond)…

• Send ourselves a little love… take moments throughout your day to wish yourself well and give yourself an encouraging “pep talk” when you hear that critical voice (or even when you don’t!).

• Try to really see others in your day…whether it is a cashier, the postal delivery person or your neighbor you don’t know that well, can you connect in some way? A sincere thank you, a nod or a wave. Can you take a moment to just say thank you. I see you.

• Remember everyone has their own story…  We may not all agree but remembering that everyone is trying their best and may in fact be facing a struggle that we know nothing about can be so powerful. We can often do this for people close to us, but can we work on extending this to our students and then even to those who are on the opposite end of the spectrum.

When we’re bringing heartfulness into our lives, we begin to see that others may not change, but we begin to change and then EVERYTHING changes.

This of course is not an excuse for bad behavior, instead heartfulness allows us to see the humanity in all people and then move forward from there.

If you are wanting more ways to bring these mindfulness for teachers practices to your classroom for you and your students (virtual or in person) check out this resource: 10 Ways to Move from Chaos to Calm in Your Classroom.

For more consistent support do help each other now and for whatever the future brings, check out the We are Teaching Well group.

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