the pause button

SESSION TWO

 

We begin by summarising our previous session:

• what did we do?
• what for?

• what did we create?
• what for?

• what did we talk about?
• what for?

 

Students give answers:

• we were breathing-in and breathing-out to learn how to build up our attention muscle – focusing only on breathing in and out through our nose
• we started up our emotional diaries to express how we feel, and it is ok to have a mix of feelings
• we talked about things we are grateful for because they may help us when we feel upset

 

I ask the students to please try and keep quiet while their classmates are doing the practice. This smart boy says «Respect»  🙂 and I go on to say they don’t need to do it, they can just remain respectfully silent. We manage to SIT IN SILENCE just breathing for half a minute. Being in silence works on the idea of non-striving. “Just being” without having to say or do anything. Silence gets us connected in the here and now.

After the practice they get ready for new creations on their emotional diaries. This amazing girl brings the most beautiful emotional diary that she has kept at home during the week. Every day an “emotional pie” . Wonderful! Everybody starts drawing and writing about how they feel today to the sound of me singing this time (instead of playing music). This amazing boy seems hypnotised with the song, eyes wide open, like he wants to learn the lyrics. Very attentive. This other amazing girl mentions “sad” is always in her emotional diary.

When they reckon their new creations have been completed we share our feelings and emotions with the rest of the group, using the “feeling faces” chart as this one boy has difficulties in trying to find a feeling he never has. New feelings and emotions are discussed and they are reminded to add the line: Today I am grateful for…

 

THE PAUSE BUTTON

I start telling them about this lady who wanted to take my parking space at the shopping centre today and how my first reaction was probably more impolite than the actual reaction I had. I tell them about “the brain in the palm of your hand” based on Dr Dan Siegel’s Hand Model of the Brain and explain that Mindfulness helps us press the pause button before we over react. So by building up this attention muscle we will be able to slowly and gradually ACT instead or REACT.

 

 

The students make fantastic comments on crocodile brains and how monkeys live or the importance of breathing. We play The pause button from «Miss Frog».

 

Time just flies… so we need to get ready for our last practice. Following the order of volunteer facilitators, the second student gets the bell to show he is in charge! Sharing he is feeling really nervous today he begins to conduct today’s Mindfulness practice. This boy who is normally a bit restless, does really well, gets focused on giving clear instructions for his classmates to be able to follow, and they all keep more or less quiet. I am just really looking forward to our next session.

 

go to session one: the attention muscle            go to session three: the spaghetti test

 

 

La vida, sin prisa