Back-To-School Meditation - Being Gentle With Yourself

It's back-to-school season, friends. I have always believed that it doesn't matter how much you love being an educator and how excited you are to go back, the transition back to school is demanding on a number of levels and it is okay to acknowledge that. As such, my invitation to you in this talk and meditation is to be extra gentle with yourself as you navigate this transition and to give yourself as much grace as you can.

Transcript

Hey there everybody, This is Kristen from Teaching Balance and I am here with you with this week's mindfulness meditation practice. We are now in the month of August and the Teaching Balance theme for August is an invitation to you to be gentle with yourself. I almost always come around to some sort of self-compassion, Self-kindness, Being gentle with yourself around this time of year because this of course is the month that so many of us transition back to school. Of course it's all dependent on what part of the country you're in and what your school, Your schedule looks like, But it is kind of the beginning of that trend back from summer vacation and into the new school year. And so I always like to remind people and just sort of name the fact that going back to school is challenging. You're getting right back into it again, Whether you have a full teacher workweek or even just a couple of days. And of course, As we all know, Those non-contact days or whatever they might be referred to in your district are often chock full of meetings and programming and professional development. And there's usually quite a scarcity of time to actually prepare. And so with that comes a quality of kind of concern and nervousness and dare I say stress. And if you are brand, Brand new, Then you might not be familiar with that. But for so many of us who've been down this road before, We know that that's just a part of things. And what is often easy to forget is how emotionally taxing this can be and whether you are transitioning back to school, Which of course is what we're talking about. But honestly, Any kind of transition is difficult, Whether you're moving or whether you are changing schools or adding to your family or whatever it might be, Those transitions in life are hard. And it's at those times that I think there's a temptation to be hardest on ourselves and to be judgmental of the fact that maybe we aren't handling it as well as we would prefer to be. But I really do think that instead of being critical, It's that much more important for us to extend real generosity, Kindness, And grace to ourselves in the form of being very gentle. Now, We're going to be exploring this topic all month, Of course, But for the invitation for this week, I want to talk specifically about that first week back. Now, About a month ago, I had the opportunity to co-facilitate a retreat for educators, A mindfulness retreat for educators, Which was wonderful. Such a privilege and what an extraordinary opportunity that was. And one of the things that I talked about is something that I typically talk about around this time of year, Which is the story of, I believe it was Teacher Work Week, It might have been even the first week or so of school, When I thought it would be perfectly manageable for me to go to work in whatever form that was at the beginning of the school year and then stop at Target on the way home. And I think I've even talked about this in these recordings before, But you can probably see where this is going. While perhaps most of the time it wouldn't be too taxing to do a Target run on my way home from work, In this particular time that I'm reflecting back on, I forget how many years ago it was, It was too much. It was just that extra of needing to keep it together and do things and make decisions and all of that kind of stuff. And when I got home, I don't know what it was, It just all came together and I just started crying. Because it's hard. Transitions are hard. And this was the transition back to school and while I thought that I had the resources within me to handle this, Apparently I did not. And so I point this out not only because I can laugh at it now, But we all have that. And certainly when we talk about how demanding it is to go back to work and to start expending all of the energy that's around that, But the rest of our lives don't stop. So then there is still being with partners and family and caretaking and all of that sort of thing. So my invitation to you this week is to, If you are still a little bit of a ways out from transitioning back to school, Perhaps making some plans to get things taken care of before so that you don't have as much errands, Laundry, Cooking, Whatever it might be happening when you're in that transition and maybe not as many social commitments or extra things or getting some help with those things, Whether it's from family or friends, You see where I'm going with this. So if it's right here and right now and there's really not any opportunity to make those plans ahead of time, Just doing what you can to give yourself permission to not try to do as much and to just let some things slide and take it easy basically. And of course, Coming back to this theme, Being gentle with yourself. Now I'm of the opinion, Not surprisingly, That if we give ourselves the opportunity to sit in silence and to meditate for any amount of time, But in this case 10 minutes, I think that also can be very, Very supportive in particular at this very challenging time of transition. So if you'd like, Just jump in with me. Also remember, As I set my timer for 10 minutes, If you only have time for five minutes, Just do five minutes. It's fine. If you've got time for like three, Two, Whatever, Just three breaths, That's okay too. But for those of you who are in for the 10, Let's go ahead and get started. Either closing your eyes or lowering your gaze, Allowing yourself to take a few long, Slow deep belly breaths. That deep breathing, If nothing else, Can be astonishingly supportive. It activates your body's relaxation response, Down-regulating your nervous system into its more homeostatic state. For our purposes of starting off our meditation practice, It really just helps us to get a little out of our heads and more into our bodies. So right now, Just noticing what it feels like to be in your skin right now, In particular below the neck. You may find that there are areas that are holding a quality of tension or discomfort. Sometimes we don't notice things like that until we stop. And if that's the case, You don't need to try to change it or stretch unless you want to, That's fine. But even that area of discomfort can be the object of our awareness if it's something that feels so present that it's easy to rest your attention there. And if that's the case, Just doing so with a quality of objectivity, Like a scientist, With a clipboard, Just making notes of what's observable from moment to moment without any subjective assessment. Just noticing. One of the classic objects for your awareness is of course noticing the breath. And more specifically, What you're really noticing is the sensations associated with the inhale and the exhale. So if you'd like that to be where you rest your attention for this sit, This practice, Just noticing where it's easiest for you to observe your body breathing. It might be the rising and falling of the chest or the abdomen. It may also be the sensation of the breath in the nasal cavity or outside of the nose or mouth. There's no right place. So it's really just about what's easy. You can also rest your attention on sounds. For me, Noticing when the air conditioning or HVAC fan is on. You might even notice sounds outside of the room, Planes flying overhead or cars or dogs barking. Just like sensations with the breath or sensations in the body, Letting go of any impulse to tell yourself a story about what's making that sound or why or evaluating it as being appealing or unappealing. Instead, Just like that scientist, Just noticing from moment to moment the quality of curiosity and interest. Just observing whatever's observed. Inevitably, Of course, Your mind will wander into thoughts, Plans, Memories, To-do's. Remembering that that's not a problem, That is a part of the experience, It's a part of meditation. And that moment when you notice that your mind has wandered into thought, That's your opportunity to strengthen your mindful awareness, See whatever the thought was for what it was, Enable it if you'd like as a plan or a memory or a worry, And then you just bring your attention back to the breath or the body or sounds. Just doing whatever feels easy, Or at least the easiest of the available options. Just to check in, Let you know there's about a minute left. So if that's completely irrelevant to you, Great. You want to play with maybe loosening and lessening your effort slightly, See if that changes things for you. We've talked about that the last few weeks. Just allowing yourself to be present in whatever way feels restful and restorative until we hear that final bell. And that is our 10 minutes. I think I beat that topic to death, So in closing, Allowing yourself to be gentle with yourself and extending yourself that same level of kindness and grace that we do to others and hoping that you have a wonderful transition back to school whenever it may occur. So as always, Thank you so much for taking this time for yourself, And thank you for allowing me to accompany you on this journey. I will see you next week. Take care. Bye bye.