Mindfulness and Me

This week I am handing the Head’s blog over to a guest blog from Mr. Shah who has two daughters at St. Helen's College. 

Last week I attended a ‘Reconnection Day’ in London with 50 other mindfulness teachers to reflect on how we were taking mindfulness into schools around the UK and overseas. It was only when we separated into smaller focus groups that I became fully aware of how much we do as a school, giving our children the opportunities to embrace just being; taking some time to appreciate our environment and community and bringing their attention to their breath.

I cannot take any credit for St. Helen’s College being a frontrunner in the field of mindfulness as it was Mr. and Mrs. Crehan who were so forward-thinking and brought the paws b and .b training to the school. Mrs. Crehan also starts our young Ducklings off with their mindfulness journey with her weekly visits.  

Year 6 are currently in their 4th week of the .b programme and Year 4 will soon embark upon their Paws b course. But it is our whole community who engage with ‘mindful moments’ as they choose ‘strong silence’ in assemblies and are given time to be in their bubble and appreciate the silence, conducting simple mindful practices at ease.  Our Mindful Ambassadors meet weekly and the commitment to mindfulness is admirable but they also recognise the benefits it has brought to them. 

For those of you who may wish to find out more about mindfulness and would like to engage in a programme of mindfulness, the MISP (Mindfulness in Schools Project) are launching their next online course .begin: https://mindfulnessinschools.org/course/begin-5mar2020/.

 At our Friday recital last week, Mrs. Shah delighted me as she told me how their family had embraced mindfulness - I shall allow Mr. Shah to tell the story!

My Mind and Me 

As a family we are surrounded by friends and family who actively practise meditation. This has rubbed off on the children and both our girls are quite enthused by the idea and are quite eager to practise and promote mindfulness at any given opportunity.

In my opinion, it will still take me a lot of practice to bring my mind to a meditative state in any session, so the idea of mindfulness which I thought would give my mind the liberty to sense and feel the immediate environment was right up my street.

I’ll share my experience of one such mindfulness session conducted by my 10 year old daughter.

We agreed last week that we would have our dinner on time on Tuesday, after which, Krisha would lead a session on mindfulness.

Come 8.00 p.m., we had tidied up after dinner and gathered in the lounge where we were allocated a chair, which is ideal as opposed to on the couch. Krisha explained why we had gathered and then put on a soothing piece of music.

Feet flat on the floor and palms on the thighs is what we were advised to be the most effective position. We were then led through what she described as a pacifying journey.

Mindfulness of one’s five senses

Gently, Krisha led us through being aware of the immediate environment by using each of our senses. Noticing – really noticing – the sensation in a given moment, brought about by the sights, sounds and smells that ordinarily slip by without reaching our conscious awareness. We tuned into the physical sensations, from the gentle hum of the light bulbs over us to the way the body rested on the chair. 

Breathing

We were introduced to a  variety of breathing techniques. The first being ‘Flower-Breathing’. This technique is applied by mimicking the opening and closing of a sepal. Breathing in as the sepal opens, and breathing out as it closes. The other technique was that of tracing the index finger of the right hand over the fingers of the left hand. Breathing in as we trace the index finger going up the finger, and breathing out going down the finger. Only later did I realise that this not only made me feel aware of my external (flower) and personal (hand) environments, but also the harmony between the two.

Mindfulness of one’s thoughts and feelings

Being mindful of the environment soon transitioned to the awareness of thoughts and emotions. The relaxing background music helped me to recognise that fleeting thoughts and emotions could actually be harnessed, and as such don’t define either me or the way I behave or react. I felt a transition from a mind racing with a menagerie of emotions and feelings to that of a pretty transient state of awareness, bordering on deep relaxation to the point of drifting into sleep. This is how my meditation session almost always ends up, to be woken up by a sharp nudge on my arm.

Throughout the session, not once did I realise that our 10 year old was conducting the session, such was the confidence and maturity with which she created the state of tranquillity and ambience. This state could easily have been plucked from our lounge and planted in an auditorium full of people. St. Helens College has been subtly instilling the idea of mindfulness into the children who, in turn, have been spreading the message outside. For this I am thankful because I was able to have a meaningful session of meditation, albeit mindfulness, after such a long time.

Mr. Shah