Calming a contagion in the classroom

Today I was listening to the Unlocking Us podcast by Brené Brown about day-to-day anxiety and over/under-functioning. Something she said early on in this podcast really struck a chord for me from a teaching perspective, anxiety is one of the most contagious of all emotions.

Let that sink in for a moment, anxiety is one of the most contagious of all emotions.

How does this show up in a classroom setting? Here are a couple of possible situations that might feel familiar:

1.      You are being appraised and feeling anxious; you have planned for everything, ensured your students are aware of expectations and have done everything you can think of to prepare (more than you would for a normal lesson) but you are still anxious because you are being watched and you want it to be successful. And then the lesson falls way short of what you planned, you feel it was a disaster, the students didn’t respond as you expected and you are devastated.

2.      At lunchtime there was an altercation in the playground and one of your students was involved, they are anxious about how the rest of the class will react and you are mindful of this anxiety. They walk in the door and you can almost smell the anxiety so you become hyper-vigilant and that raises their anxiety and the rest of the class seem more anxious… it is a tense afternoon.

3.      One of your colleagues is under a bit of stress and anxious as end of term is coming. After lunchtime in the staffroom with them you feel anxious and don’t really know why but you take that into the classroom with you and have a bit of a miserable afternoon. You were feeling fine about getting everything done earlier on but now you are worried.

I am sure you can think of other situations that might be relevant too. If we go back to the idea of the Magic Brain, when we are anxious we are in the glitter room and that means we can’t think as effectively because our anxiety is in charge of our thinking. As teachers, part of our job is to create an environment where learning can occur and that means reducing anxiety where we can, doesn’t it? When I think about all of this, the quote from Haim G. Ginott comes to mind:

“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather…”

That’s a lot of pressure though eh? How can we be responsible for the feelings of others? The way I see it is that we can’t assume responsibility for other’s feelings but we might be able to influence the dynamic and calm the anxiety contagion if we are aware, and that does start with us.

Firstly, we need to notice and name our own emotions and behaviours. In this podcast Brené talks about over-functioning and under-functioning. I know for me I go into over-functioning as a response to anxiety; I get busy, try to fix things, organise stuff and keep everything under control, I like to look like I’ve got it all together and don’t need help. Under-functioning is the opposite. Neither of these approaches is really helpful, especially if we want to avoid creating an anxious learning environment!

Once we recognise our behaviours we can notice when they are flaring and press pause. I love practicing the pause! Pause enough to notice what is happening inside us and then shift gear so we can respond intelligently to what is happening around us. This is the time for the superpower of calm to come to the fore. In the face of emotional anxiety if we can stop, breathe, think then do we have a great opportunity to stop the spread. Let’s take the situations above and add in a dose of calm:

1.      The appraisal: take some deep cleansing breaths before you speak or start the lesson. Prior to the appraisal it may be appropriate to share your feelings openly “I am feeling anxious about this appraisal and just need you to know that”, you may even ask for help with it. Last year I was going to the dentist for the first time in a long time (I have a fear of dentists) and so I talked to my class of 7 and 8 year olds about my fear in the morning and explained that I was feeling anxious. I asked them for their help; they were kind and gracious with me, they also gave me great advice (some of it was my own words coming back to me). The thing was it calmed my anxious mind during that day so I could be more present for them as their teacher. (By the way, the trip to the dentist wasn't as painful or scary as I had imagined… anxiety often thrives in an uncertain future.)

2.      Anxious student: this is a situation where the power of breath is going to be really helpful. Taking a breath before you come into the classroom and staying present is going to help everyone, yes you need to be mindful of the emotional state of your learners, but it is about not joining in their storm. It might be time for a quiet coaching conversation where you can help them unpack their reality before engaging with the class. I now teach my students about the superpowers of breath and stillness daily, we are practising the skills of calmness, and I love it when they coach each other or myself in using our superpowers- this helps when we are faced with situations like this.

3.      Anxious colleague: I like to think that most of us in education are reasonably compassionate people, we care about others and want to help them. In this situation joining in on the stress doesn’t really help anyone e.g. “I wish that the government, school management, parents understood how hard it is, something should be done etc etc etc”. All this does is reinforce powerlessness and makes us feel worse. Instead we can lovingly investigate what’s happening for our colleague if they want to talk about it, we can listen with empathy and understanding, we can care but we don’t have to wear the emotion. And before we return to our classroom or office we need to take some deep cleansing breaths, perhaps orient ourselves to what we love about our work or focus on what our goals are for the afternoon and go there with some positive energy.

The fabulous thing about practicing our calm is that the more we do it the easier it becomes. I know several people who I admire hugely because of their calm, they are my role models and when I get flooded by emotion and feel like I am racing towards thoughtless reaction I picture them and it helps me pause. It is becoming easier. When we use our superpower of calm we can think more clearly, we can respond intelligently, we become more like ourselves I think. And this means that we can be the best version of ourselves in that moment as a teacher or leader.   

[for more links, inspiration and ideas for the classroom please follow my FB page:https://www.facebook.com/teachingwithheartandbraininmind/)

Change = living fully rather than merely existing?

It is said that the only constant in life is change and if you think about nature this rings true... everything changes. We have tides, seasons, rocks are ground down over time to become sand, water can become ice, all animals are born and age, and some things like our butterflies go through dramatic transformations in their life time.

So why do some of us attach such negativity to the concept of change? Well I think it is fear... fear of losing what we have, fear of uncomfortable feelings, fear of vulnerability and fear of the unknown. What are we allowing fear to hold us back from?

As I have already said change is part of life. This image represents that well. When there are ups and downs that is a good thing because it means that the heart is beating and the patient is alive. When there are no ups and downs then that is bad news because the heart is no longer beating.

If we avoid change to protect ourselves from feeling vulnerable and experiencing emotions like sadness, disappointment, fear or embarrassment then we are often denying ourselves the opportunity to feel truly joyful, and also to feel a fulfilled sense of calm and peacefulness. In that situation we are flatlining, we are not truly living, in some ways we are merely existing. God willing we have more ups than downs but I think we need to embrace them as part of a healthy, fulfilled life.

Life is meant to be lived and lived boldly. If you embrace change, how might that turn out for you? Could we have fear? Absolutely. Might things go wrong? Probably, at times. Will you have days where you wish you could just crawl into a corner and forget about the world and everything in it for a little while? I imagine so. Could you have opportunities to feel great joy? I'm pretty sure you will. Will you feel stronger, braver, more able to deal with what life throws at you? I would argue that seeing change as part of the lived experience enables us to cope better when things go wrong, it is for me, an important part of my resiliency toolbox.

I sincerely believe our hearts have capacity for a huge amount of joy but often the fear of change sets in and we start catastrophising (is that a real word? I think so!), imagining ourselves losing the source of this feeling, questioning whether we deserve it or not, waiting for something to go wrong. I also think that often we go into the negative thought spiral out of habit, voices from our past experience that we have given brain space to and have made strong pathways in there come in to play. I think our brain does it to protect us from pain or disappointment but in reality what is happening is that we let the negativity of our past steal the joy of our present. And if we remain unaware it will continue to happen. This is where mindfulness can be a real asset.

I guess that mindfulness is kind of like knowing that we are living an internal journey in an external world rather than ignoring the internal world and being at the whim of the shifts and changes that happen in the external environment. Perhaps we embrace change by realising that the only really important changes are the ones that happen in our own minds?

Feeling genuine joy is a risk because something might go wrong but if we focus on what might go wrong (and might is an important word because we don't know it will for certain) then we feel a fraction of the joy we could have. The same applies for the peace, love, happiness in any given moment. If we can free ourselves from the chains of fear, embrace that life is full of change and wholeheartedly enjoy the good when we have it, fully in the moment, then we are so much more likely to enjoy this wonderful adventure called life!


Images sourced from:
Caterpillar quote: https://www.etsy.com/listing/73406580/just-when-the-caterpillar-thought-the
Heart Rate monitor: http://www.redflagnews.com/headlines/ponzi-101-obamacare-bailout-planned-for-insurance-companies
Joy quote: http://www.jessicalynette.com/tag/quotes/ 

Be as big as you dare to be

Last weekend I attended a conference hosted by 4es education. There was a terrific mix of speakers and delegates, and I had a great time meeting a whole bunch of wonderful new people. One of the speakers was the fabulous Robyn Moore, a lady who inspired me hugely about 11 years ago and this weekend was just as inspirational, she started her presentation with the statement of 'be as big as you dare to be' and set me off thinking about the stories we tell ourselves.

We are given 86 400 seconds every day and we have a choice to participate in our own life or to be at the whim of the circumstances and people around us. By not making a choice you are still making a choice. This does not mean that you won't have bad times or even bad days. It is about being aware of who you are being in a given moment and asking yourself "is this who I want to be right now?"... sometimes the answer will be yes. Sometimes we will feel angry, cynical, disengaged and down, that's OK, they are normal feelings and these feelings serve a purpose, but we need to look at what is the cost if these become our default feelings and overshadow our joy, love, compassion, enthusiasm, engagement and wonder. The cost is physical, emotional and spiritual, it can rob us in our work life, home life and social life.

There is evidence that negative mindsets can impact on health and wellbeing. Our immune, endocrine and nervous systems are linked so a deficit in one influences the operation of the others. Considering that stress can be a result of long term negative emotions (or even short term depending on the stressors encountered) we can use it to illustrate this interconnectedness and impact on health. If we are out of balance emotionally it diminishes the supply of 'feel good' chemicals or neurotransmitters in our brain which has a flow on effect, as an example serotonin (one of those 'feel good' chemicals) helps to manage our sleep which we know helps improve our immunity. Reductions in our brain chemicals (neurotransmitters) also impacts on our hormone balance. Our hormones (like neurotransmitters in the brain) are messengers for the body so if they are out of balance that can impact on digestive function, respiratory function and immunity among others. If we are unable to gain the nutrition we need then our muscles are less effective, and essential nutrients required for building up the tanks of neurotransmitters in our brains are in shorter supply. Ah, what a vicious cycle we have created!

As a recovering stress nut I can attest to the physiological impact and even more so the emotional and spiritual fall out. We all have days when we don't feel so good but if we become stuck in the loop of 'my life sucks', 'why does this always happen to me?', 'nobody cares anyway', 'whatever!' and so forth then we create this vicious cycle... negative thought creates negative emotion, negative emotion creates negative behaviour leading to isolation, disconnection, disengagement, procrastination, fear and so much more.

The good news is... we do have a choice.

As I said earlier we can let our circumstances define us or we can can define ourselves. If we are having a tough day we can be angry, or we can be angry at the circumstance and grateful for our loving family that we are coming home to. Robyn Moore talks extensively about who we are being and the power we have to choose in that moment. Some of the statements I have chosen at times are: I am tired and grateful, I am weary and happy to be home, I am disappointed and loved by my friends and family, I am nervous and excited to have the opportunity, I am vulnerable and free... the power is in the and.

Dr Tom Mulholland is all about Healthy Thinking and as an emergency doctor he sees the impact of avoidable illness daily. His Healthy Thinking approach encourages us to notice when we are experiencing negative emotions and identify the thought or thoughts that sit in behind it. Once they are identified then we can analyse them and act accordingly. For example if you are feeling angry after a fraught meeting at work, the thought sitting in behind it may be 'no-one ever listens to me'. Now we analyse this thought by asking ourselves the following questions:

1. is it true?
2. is it worth it?
3. does it help me achieve my goal? 

If the answer to all three questions is a yes, then that thought is probably pretty accurate, so you work on alleviating or addressing the problem itself. However if there is a no response in the mix then we get to be the author and perhaps change the thought.
Using the example given, in response to the questions above:

1. no, it isn't really true because they did listen to me last week when I suggested another solution. Things are rarely all or nothing
2. not really, by saying this to myself it doesn't really make going to meetings more fun or fruitful
3. this doesn't help me achieve my goal of feeling like a valued contributing team member, I can probably prepare better next time and make sure I have the evidence to back up my suggestions instead which might help. 

So I am now empowered to change my original thought, I get to rewrite the words in my head, which affects my emotions and hopefully I will feel more competent and secure in the next meeting I attend. If I kept the original thought I can almost guarantee the next meeting would be another miserable experience. 

We cannot be as big as we dare to be when we let our negative thoughts get in the way and hijack our dreams.

We can be as big as we dare to be when we harness the incredible forces of our own minds... at the very least we might just get to enjoy some more of those 86 400 seconds we get every day.

The opportunity to experience more joy, laughter, peace, compassion, love and enthusiasm really is too good to let pass. Enjoy participating fully in your own life.

Follow your bliss

So here’s a big question… what is your passion? 

Some people know what their passion is inherently, some people have it recognised in them by others, and some people stumble upon it in the course of their lives. You might know when you are there because it feels right, you feel like you belong, it's almost like you have come home, you might feel connected to something bigger than yourself, time may even move differently... some call it being in the zone, in flow or in your element.

I am reading The Element by Sir Ken Robinson with Lou Aronica at the moment... and along with some other things I have been reading and viewing lately it really has got me thinking about passion and what following your bliss might look like.

Have you ever seen the Pixar movie Ratatouille? If you are looking at a child friendly way of describing what living your passion could look like this might be a good start. This little rat discovers he has a thing for cooking, through a bit of a journey he ends up fulfilling his passion. To get there he needed help from others and at times he had to ask for it, he needed perseverance, he needed to be flexible and use obstacles as opportunities to stretch himself but still in the direction of his passion, he needed self belief, he needed to keep improving and innovating... and in the end he got to be the best little chef he could be. And although this sounds hard, it wasn’t all a chore because he was passionate about it.

Living your passion, following your bliss, finding your element... however you choose to look at it, is not always a straight and easy path. Depending on our circumstances, even in ideal situations, we are likely not living our bliss 100% of the time. I love being a mum but washing dirty nappies, doing housework and sleepless nights would not be top of my personal passions list. :) So living your passion is not about everything being perfect. Some people may not have a job they love but they need the work and so this is not necessarily about chucking in your job, it's about identifying what it is that lights you up and finding ways to fulfil that part of yourself. The neat thing is when you do get to that place, even in a small way, it has a habit of brightening up everything else that you do… like my love for our wee man makes the housework less of a chore, and as he gets older we can do it together and it’s almost truly enjoyable.

Let’s try a theatrical analogy… if you imagine that we are all performers in our own play then our passion/bliss/element could be the play itself- what would your passion play be called I wonder? We can perform this play on any number of stages... it could be in our work, it might be a hobby... it could be something we have done since we were very young, something we pick up along the way or something we are inspired to do in our old age. The character may change over the years i.e. we may be an active gymnast as a child/teen, a coach at some stage, an administrator at another, an avid fan and viewer in another. Performing our passion is pretty variable I guess.

For me so far I have had a few stages to perform on. I always wanted to be a teacher and taught in a regular classroom full time for seven years. Although I look back now and know that there were things I could’ve done better, I know I did the best I could at the time with what I knew and I loved my time in the classroom. I didn’t think there was anything else for me. How wrong was I? In moving to Life Ed I discovered a new tribe that I belonged to, like-minded people that believed in a beautiful philosophy and wanted to make a difference. Opportunities presented themselves and although my role shifted and changed during my work there, my passion for the organisation never waned, indeed it was what sustained me in the stressful times.

Thirteen years later my time with the organisation has ended and although it was the right time to step back, I ask myself so what now? Where is my passion? Is it still teaching I wonder? I went to a meeting recently and said that I wasn’t a teacher anymore but one of the other attendees challenged me saying that just because I wasn’t in a school classroom didn’t mean I wasn’t a teacher. He was right, when you look up synonyms for teacher we have words like coach, trainer, guide, mentor which are all words that feel right.

When I think back to times when I have felt in the zone or in my element they are times when I have been in a classroom humming and buzzing with my class, when I have been on stage, when I have seen a student, colleague or friend grow and develop, when I am singing with others, when I am presenting, when I am meeting people…

So recently I have been reflecting on what is the glue that ties these things together to quantify what my passion is. Firstly I think it is about connecting with other people and telling a story or creating something together. And it is also about inspiring and influencing others, with the ultimate hope of creating positive change.  

Clearly I still have work to do but that’s OK. I am not in a hurry. We can have more than one passion, we have a whole life to live and so there is space and time. It does not need to be forced but it is well worth having our minds and hearts open so we know when we are there and can really enjoy it. Perhaps this is another way that mindfulness is our friend?

When were you last in the zone? If you have a moment it can be lovely to remember and reflect. What is your passion or are your passions? And how do you express these? It would be great to hear about what your bliss is and how you follow it if you want to comment below. I know I find other people's stories really inspiring :) 
 
I'll close with another one of my favourite quotes, introduced to me by a semi blind cartoonist who wrote it with purple vivid marker on my palm... 'Follow your Bliss' by Joseph Campbell. I hope that at some time on this journey you get to do this.  

You are not Atlas carrying the world...

So it has been quite a few days since I last posted, I haven't been idle... the brain has been working away at a few things. 

One thing that has taken my fancy was a little quote that I came upon in a book store recently. Vandana Shiva, the philosopher said 'You are not Atlas carrying the world on your shoulder. It is good to remember that the planet is carrying you.'

There are a few ideas that spin from this for me, I apologise in advance for the meandering nature of this post. 

Firstly, it takes me back to thinking about leadership. We, as leaders, may have to shoulder more responsibility at times but that does not mean that the burden is all ours to carry. Indeed if we are the only ones invested in a positive outcome then there is something wrong and I would suggest we need to step back and take a good look at ourselves and those around us.

How do we engender that sense of shared responsibility (and this can be in our families, in our work, in a social or service group or in a classroom)? Here are a few ideas for a starter: 

1. Does everyone agree in what we are there to do? 
2. Does everyone believe in what we are doing? 
3. Do they know what their role is? Do they want to perform that role? Do they have the skills to perform that role? 
4. What does success look like to each person involved? How will they know they have succeeded with the mission? 
5. What turns them on and what switches them off? How can you find out? Think about the environment they are working in, how they like to be rewarded or recognised, where they get their energy from etc 

What else would you add to this list? 

Going back to the quote, another part that I take from this relating to leadership is the importance of nurturing yourself and realising you do not have to always be switched on and making things happen. Celia Lashlie talked about the importance of tending to your own soul to help you to fulfill the mission of giving your best to those you work with (although she was talking about teachers and children I see this relates to other leadership situations), in fact she went as far as to say if you don't look after yourself you will bleed out and potentially become soulless in your work. And we don't want to go there! So, how do you nurture yourself? As Celia asked at the Teachers Matter Conference this year, what boundaries do you put in place so you can replenish your soul? 

On a personal note, I have recently taken myself out of the rat race for a few weeks and have found that there was so much happening that I was simply missing because I was so wound up and go, go, go all the time. I was passionate about what I was doing, that was how I sustained it for so long, but I wasn't mindful enough to nurture myself. Once I had finished my previous role, for a short time, I just stopped and rested. Then as I started myself up again I have found I am able to access creative thought more easily, that I am more self reflective, that I am able to focus better, that I am achieving greater clarity, seeing more opportunities and I am more comfortable taking risks. I know I am lucky to have had this window of time to nurture myself but am now very aware of the merits of making this a priority going forward. 

It is said that engaging with nature is one of the most nurturing things you can do, and I have to say a few days camping near a lake with little technology but good conversation and plenty of fresh air works wonders. So the final insight that I have taken from the quote above is that if we connect to nature then it is easier for the planet to support us. Simple things like... eating food that is grown, nurturing a plant, growing our own food, walking in the bush, forest or a park, having a picnic on the grass, visiting a river or a beach, going swimming in a lake or the sea, fishing, picking apples... well the list is probably endless! These little actions show that in making a simple connection with nature our souls can be filled at the same time. How simply wonderful is that? 

I am sure that there are many more insights that could be taken from this statement, if you wish please feel free to share yours. 

Remember, you are not alone and the burdens you carry are not yours alone. 

'You are not Atlas carrying the world on your shoulder. It is good to remember that the planet is carrying you.' Vandana Shiva

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