Self Development

"The ultimate truth of who I Am is not I am this or I am that but I Am."  says Eckhart Tolle.  I should probably hook up with these authors/books that I continue to cite on here and their publishing company or Amazon.  If I do so and you begin to notice ads and links to their websites then feel free to stop reading my blog if you consider me to be a 'sell out'.  I, on the other hand, do believe in abundance and do believe in paying off my credit card and school loan debt.  I also have been considering another idea about schools and mental health being considered charity work to some extinct.  Sometimes I feel as if those of us that work in these areas believe in what might be a socially contrived story that teachers don't teach for the money.  As long as that belief is entrenched in us then we will continue to earn a wage that seems like an inappropriate sum of money to live on.  I say this because it does seem that collectively those of us that live in developed countries tend to largely spend money on what is important to us.  If mental health and public education are important to us as a society then money might not be considered such an obstacle in getting those particular needs met.  As one that works in the school system my observation is that many teachers are impacted.  One's student/child may not appear to be directly impacted, but impacted teachers leave schools and teacher retention does seem to be a risk factor for education. It's not always the salary where the impact hits the most...it is also the resources offered to support the school environment - including perhaps how many teachers are hired...classroom size possibly being another risk factor.  I'm not one for controversy so I will stop discussing this now.  The title of this blog is self development.  An author I like is referred to as a leading expert in self development.  I like that word self development so I have begun to use it in what I Am teaching to students within the greater context of SEL (social and emotional learning).  I Am developing in my own teaching of self development and at this time I consider three areas of growth to measure with students to be awareness, acceptance, and compassion (all related to the idea of self - 'I'm angry.'  'I'm lonely,' 'I'm happy.'...who is this 'I' we speak of?).  Students have commented on this as the teaching of being 'stuck up' or 'self important'.  The idea I have right now is that we need to cultivate these areas within our self before we can express them to other living systems (humans, earth, animals, etc).  When working with young people who have been hurt by people I often add other living systems to consider when we discuss different concepts (if a person is hardened it seems they will shut down if you are suggesting to them they need to have compassion for others...it might be less invasive if you begin suggesting the idea of compassion and how it can be practiced with animals or the ecosystem).  The three areas of growth:  Awareness (noticing thoughts, feelings, sensations, and impulses), Acceptance (practicing present moment awareness and accepting things as they are in that moment), Compassion (without judgement, ridicule, or comparison).  A student that self harms may learn to notice an impulse to hurt him/herself...with practice the student is able to accept the experience the body is having...the student will learn to be aware and accept the impulse to harm self without judging the impulse (shame can be a piece of this), ridiculing (blame may play a part here), or comparing self to others (belief: I don't fit in).  Without learning how to notice what the body is experiencing in an effort to contribute to one's well being rather than take away from one's well being, a person may continue to allow a trigger (two students in the classroom are talking and I feel left out) to lead to a behavior (physical harm to self) and then feed the negative thought cycle (I don't fit in) to further perpetuate and contribute to a limited experience of life.  Can you see how the skills developed in mindfulness practice can help one create a better sense of control over one's life?  Just like practicing strength building exercises helps one become physically stronger, so too does mindfulness practice strengthen the 'attention muscle' (says Jon Kabat-Zinn...cha- ching$$).  Learning to pay attention to our emotions in the body will help us develop healthy interventions that will add to our life experience as opposed to taking away from the experience. One last thought that I will quickly touch on and then most likely add to in additional posts:  The corporate world seems to have bought into SEL and the idea of mindfulness as they have noticed its contributions to the end result of their success/earnings (see anything Daniel Goleman/Emotional Intelligence or Chade-Meng Tan with Google/Search Inside Yourself...or others).  The medical community seems to have bought into mindfulness practice too as they can't ignore the research and healing presented as evidence of effectiveness (see anything Jon Kabat- Zinn and his stress clinic or MBSR/MBCT...and there are other great medical doctors as well contributing to this research).  So being mindful and operating in the present moment adds to corporate success and medical healing...could it possibly contribute to learning and education?  I suppose if that is true we would have to believe that learning best takes place in the present moment...it does make sense.  Actually there seems to be a lot of effort toward bringing mindfulness into the schools.  A website called mindfulnessinschools.org was helpful to me this past school year...or just google mindfulness in schools and see what comes up as far as specific curriculums (I think there are several that are already considered to be 'evidence-based').  I would like to begin my own little effort with the teachers themselves and offer them the experience of mindfulness practice...and they can incorporate it within the classroom in a way that is natural and meaningful to them.  Let's teach the fullness of attention as opposed to diagnosing the deficit of it.