2014 Climate March with Mum (my inspiration)

One of the critiques levied against bringing mindfulness to schools is that it is meant to create unquestioning automaton students who exhibit peace and calm in the face of a broken system (a more in depth response to that critique can be found here). The same has been feared of introducing it to educators: do the self care so you are more amenable to untenable conditions.

From my experience, if shared appropriately we gain the insight needed in order to see our conditions clearly, unflinchingly. We are more closely attuned to what works for us and what doesn’t. We are more able to speak our truth and act in healthy, effective, compassionate ways.

In fact, as I shared a few days ago, one of my students wrote this about the impact of learning mindfulness:

“I've found that I can be more calm about situations, take time to think and then speak up about things. I've had a lot of troubles in the past talking to people and confronting them about unhealthy things they are doing to me/others but I've been able to do that a lot more confidently lately.”

Go get ‘em.

If mindfulness had taught me to close my eyes and turn away from the world, I would have been gone a long time ago. We can’t afford to be governed by knee-jerk reactions, overwhelmed and incapacitated by despair, or blissfully ignorant. We need to go in, eyes wide open, find our voices, and use them.