Category: Meditations

“Deep breathing is one of the best ways to lower stress in the body. This is because when you breathe deeply it sends a message to your brain to calm down and relax. The brain then sends this message to your body. Breathing exercises are a good way to relax, reduce tension and relieve stress.”

Stress Management: Breathing Exercises for Relaxation – WebMD

Are you feeling stressed?

Maybe you are and don’t know it…

Do this right now: close your eyes (or not). Make yourself comfortable.

Give yourself a gift, take a pause and breathe. (inhale and exhale as 1 breath) 4 times slowly…

Note how you feel when you finish. Then…

Try it again.

I hope that you instantly experience relaxation and a mind shift.

“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.”
– Jon Kabat-Zinn from Wherever You Go, There You Are

Read more of my mindfulness curriculum perspectives related to how middle schools confront bias.

(From My Blue Book #3, May 22, 2016)

Silence is now accepted.

We all possess a river within.
Like my new spiritual and inspirational naturalist Jourdan Imani Keith says, “ Your body is a body of water.”

She reminds us that what we put into our bodies comes out of us and touches everyone because of our ecological biology as a species and as part of this planet.

Similar to that river is the ebb and flow of our breath. In and out, fast, slow, even or erratic my symphony is my own.

Together, however we compose:

A ‘rhythm section’
As cuz Rashid would call it
Of silent mellow

Since meditating mindfully with kids, I believe that over time racism, bias, prejudice, negative stereotyping and the like will dissipate IF every class in every school and every home sets [mindfulness] at the table. Maybe we will return to sitting together to partake… and contemplate our days together.

“ Between stimulus and response there is space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response
lie(s) our growth and our freedom.”

-Viktor Frankl, Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor

Besides a hug, giving or receiving one (like the beautifully spirited ones Anya runs to give me every time she sees me), sitting in silence with kids at the start of every lesson shifts hope and lightens burdens.

We meditate on gratitude, generosity, listening, empathy, looking (learning how to read not only books, but “the room” and each other). We often write about our reflections and notice where we need to change and that adjusting our behavior is okay.

Learning to not judge is hard as heck but we practice every day.

Imagine that!

I am walking in a new light of awareness that shines constantly.
Present Alternatives Unite Spirits & Empathy (PAUSE)