COVID-19: Building Capacity, Let the Lima Bean Grow

In this episode of special support for educators during the time of school closures looks at how we build our inner capacity so we have a little more strength. Our inner systems feel like they have very little give right now. How do we create a little more space for all the frustration? We'll talk about expanding our context, deepening our understanding of interconnectivity and using awareness to focus. By expanding our context, we'll look at the miracle of how our world came into being, the beautiful evolutionary story. We'll also explore interconnectivity, how everything emerged from something else and how if you trace back far enough you can see that none of us are actually isolated and separate from everything else around us. It doesn't mean we won't keep missing the people we love, we are social beings, but we will see that we are deeply interconnected. In two long guided contemplative practices, we'll look at how to cultivate ease by being patient, even if we believe we are not very good at letting go. 

Transcript

Welcome to the conscious classroom podcast, where we're exploring tools and perspectives that support educators and anyone who works with teams to create more conscious, supportive, and enriching learning. I'm your host Amy Edelstein, and I'll be sharing transformative insights and easy-to-implement classroom supports that are all drawn from mindful awareness and systems thinking the themes we'll discuss are designed to improve your joy and fulfilment in your work and increase your impact on the world we share.

Let's get on with this next episode.

Today, we're gonna talk a lot about awareness and. How we think about what we're thinking about helps support us and create,  compassion in ourselves so that we avoid we're living in times of tremendous stress. There's no doubt about it. At the same time, there are ways that we can work with our experience that are gonna make our experience manageable, and that are gonna help us strengthen and deepen and grow during this time.

And also think in a way so that when we come out of this time, which we will, we're gonna be in a better position to make the changes that we need to make. I wanna talk about some of that in, this session today, awareness is an amazing human capacity. So we talk about, well, human beings are called homo sapien sapiens, which are doubly wise humans.

And the reason why we're the doubly wise humans, sapiens is because we are aware we can be aware that we're aware and that's something to reflect on now. We're so pressured by incoming right now. It's such a tense time. You know, we are trying to retool all of our lessons to teach students online.

We're not even sure if they're gonna get online. We have no way of reaching them and forcing that we're trying to like have all kinds of meetings with our colleagues, but meetings in front of a video screen are exhausting hours after. It's tiring because we're just staring at a machine and we see people, but it's not the same give and takes.

As when we're sitting in a room together, you can't turn around, you can't look away, you can't get a drink of water. There are all kinds of ways that we relate when we're in the room together, which humanize and warm up our experience. So there's a lot, of stress and. So how we bring awareness to this time is gonna help us manage this.

Now, mindfulness is often thought talked about as moment-to-moment awareness or being aware in the now or the present. I don't usually teach mindfulness. I've found that, that can be quite confusing because if your experience is you just watched the news and felt incredibly frustrated or infuriated by things that seem common sense that isn't happening to everybody's detriment, focusing on the now is not necessarily that helpful.

we can focus on the now in a way that exacerbates our sense of frustration our sense of fear or our sense of grief. It's the, as the weeks go by the loss is starting to touch all of us in closer and closer ways. There isn't a call that I'm not on that somebody hasn't immediately experienced. A loss or somebody who's ill.

It's just that way. These are very difficult times. They're sad times. So how do we hold that without micro-focusing on it? How do we create some space so that we allow ourselves to? Not push away or avoid the reality of our situation, but without telescoping in, in a way that depletes our well-being and resources and sense of optimism and possibility.

So when I think about mindful awareness, what I like to focus on is awareness itself. So we're aware of the things that arise in our experience, but we're aware that we're aware because when we start putting our attention on, the quality of human awareness of human consciousness, we start to experience a sense of mystery.

Nobody knows exactly what consciousness is. Nobody knows when exactly it began or ended. Nobody knows whether we're conscious in utero or it arises, you know, everyone thinks we are, but we don't exactly know what's the moment. Some people say that there is consciousness that can continue right at the moment of death.

People come back from near-death experiences and they seem to have had consciousness. What does it all mean? We don't know. We don't even really know why we're C. Like, how did that arise? So, yes, there were single-celled organisms and they advanced and complexified and advanced and complexifies. We went through all these species and hundreds of millions of years and low and behold, we have human consciousness of how amazing.

Nobody knows how it happened or why it happened or when it started. So in times of stress like this, when we start putting our attention. In that field of awareness, not just the things that arise in our awareness, it brings in a sense of the unknown in a positive way, the mystery that is human life.

And when we get in touch with that, we have a little bit more space and reserves to deal with the extraordinary complexity that we're working with right now. Because we do have to radically shift our economic system in the short term, as well. In the long term, we have to radically shift our healthcare system.

We have to radically shift our ways of relating. We have to radically shift our relationship with our environment. When we come back online and start running fossil fuels again, to the degree we were before, do we really wanna do that? Maybe we don't. Maybe we don't need it. Maybe that's a source of jobs. There are a lot of big things we're gonna be thinking about.

So we need that space to be able to think about them because otherwise we're just gonna be moving to pieces around the chess board, all of our incoming. So thinking deeply and philosophically, during these times is extraordinarily helpful. And. I think what I wanna do is, during the hour, just do some practice and then talk a little bit more conceptually and philosophically, because there are a couple of different things that we're experiencing right now.

Being alone, together with being one of them, which I'd like to talk about more from this perspective because we want to find ways to engage with reality as it is. We don't wanna avoid avoidance. Isn't helpful. We can't push this away. It's too big. It's too much, but we can think in a way that.

Starts to activate our interest in a way that we might have forgotten about because we all lead such busy lives. So we're all busy doing, doing, doing, and running from one thing to the next and grading papers and writing reports and applying for grants and working with our colleagues and creating curricula or whatever else we're doing or managing budgets.

Whatever we're doing. And we are proud if we accomplish a lot, but we don't give our spa ourselves space to be proud of ourselves when we think in new and challenging ways. So that's really what I was thinking about because when I think about self-care, we have to activate our curiosity. We need to, we need to calm.

We need to create a loving environment. We need to create, a sense of compassion. But we also need to activate our curiosity because that has a restorative quality in and of itself. Let's do a simple centring practice. And in this one, we'll focus on sound. We're gonna focus on sound first using the bell, and then we'll focus on sound in the room.

And then we'll focus on sound far away. And I'll guide you through what this will help with it'll help focus your own, mind, your own emotions, create some grounding and allow you to not worry about whatever you're thinking about. So you can be thinking about it. Whatever is going on. It doesn't matter, but I would ask you to resist the temptation right now to multitask.

So for the next few minutes, turn off your emails, stop making the list, stop reading something that you had to read while you're listening, and just do the practice. And you can always feel free to chat during, so we. How kind of dialogue. So allow yourself to sit in a comfortable, but the alert position with your feet on the floor, your spine tall, so that you're relaxed.

You don't feel like you're, you know, tense in holding yourself up, but you're allowing yourself to be easy. You're allowing yourself to be held by the chair, be held by the floor, be held by gravity. And I'm going to sound the bell, hopefully through the mic. It won't be too loud. And just put your tension on the sound and the texture of the sound.

That's all. You don't need to do anything else.

Now take a moment and

notice how your body feels what's happening. If you'd like, you can close your eyes to this, you don't need to. And put your attention, imagine that you could listen to sounds that are, at the edges of the horizon. So we're not listening for real sounds, but imagine you could listen for sounds that are very far away from my house.

That would be the Delaware river I'm in the centre city or the Schule river on the other side, imagine that you were listening for sounds far. Away at the edges of the horizon. And notice, just listen and let your body be still.

Be easy, not strained and just listen.

and you can bring your attention back.

And if you would just type in a few words or you can just unmute yourself, what did you notice?

Oftentimes, when we focus in that way on sounds that are far away. Yes. Trees blowing. It's nice to have some silence, birds. It can create a sense of peace. Your mind went to the ocean? Yes, we all have our go-to places. So that type of soft listening, which you can do anywhere. You're not listening for anything in particular, but, it opens these inner qualities of attention in a relaxed way.

And that tension in a relaxed way. I feel it in my body, I feel like, oh, I'm. Softer I've arrived. I'm not so wound up just by listening and it's that quality of not listening for anything in particular, but listening to something that far away does that for us, we're gonna do some mindful breathing now as well.

Before we talk a little bit more, we use the breath because it's immediate. We're always breathing.  everyone has it. The human experience is universal and it allows us to think whatever we're thinking. So you don't want to fight with your thoughts. We're not trying to make ourselves not think thoughts are there, they're there, but we're allowing ourselves to be with the immediacy of the experience of being alive.

So our breath is happening right now. It's sustaining us. It's oxygenating our body. It's releasing all of the stress toxins that build up. It's releasing carbon dioxide. It's helping our cells release cortisol and just all the other enzymes and, and hormones and chemicals. That is waste by-products of the natural course of living.

So the breath is the big cleanser and it's immediate. We have a lot on our minds. We're thinking about the future. We're thinking about other people we're thinking about ourselves. We're thinking about all kinds of issues when we're focused on our breath, those thoughts and concerns don't go away, but it keeps allowing our whole system.

Body emotional system and mental system to keep in a flow to keep processing. We're not holding our breath. We're not elongating our breath. We're not forcing our breath. If it's shallow and soft, let it be shallow and soft. If it's short and fast. Let it be short and fast. It fits deep and relaxed. Let it be deep and relaxed.

It doesn't matter. This is not a special breath exercise. It's not, we're not doing some of those. Chiko una Yama-type breath exercise. It's just watching the breath. And by watching the breath we allow ourselves to be with ourselves. The breath is a very intimate thing. We can, we breathe ourselves all the time.

And yet it also, as we focus on the breath together, allows us to do the same thing as those we're with right now, without having to create a connection. One of the things also that you find at this time is it's nice. Everyone's reaching out, but sometimes I don't feel like reaching out yet again or talking yet.

Again, I have a nice connection with a very old friend of mine. I haven't been in touch with for, for 40 years. We haven't talked. I think we talked once 25 years ago and we were best friends 40 years ago. And that's great, but sometimes it's just too much effort.  right now. So being doing some mindful breathing practice, we're allowed to be in our own space.

We're allowed to be with ourselves, but we're also doing it together. And because it's such, you know, it's so close to our own lives. Being breathing is life. That it's a very intimate thing to do together. So when you do a little bit of mindful breathing practice, you don't have to know anything about anyone, but you feel like you've shared an experience.

The breath meditation doesn't push it. Can, you know, for some people, if, if you're experiencing a lot of anxiety, sometimes that focus on the breath can agitate. So just be easy. This is not the, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger school, of mindful breathing, where we're pushing, we're coaxing ourselves to be with ourselves.

We're coaxing ourselves to relax. We're coaxing ourselves to. Let go and we're not trying to force calm. We're not trying to force insight. We're not trying to force growth. We're allowing ourselves to be. As we are. Oftentimes when people start doing some mindfulness practice, they like to push and they like to force things to happen.

And that usually isn't a very good idea. It reminds me of you, you all might have done it as well, being educators and school teachers. But when I was in kindergarten, we always. Had Lima beans and blotter paper, we would put them Lima beans in a jar with the blotter paper around it. So we would put soil in and keep them wet and you keep watering it every day and watch the Lima beans sprout and eventually grow.

And it'd say, oh, this is how plants grow. So when I was just little, I always tried to take the Lima beans out and pull full of the little sprouts out to make them grow faster. And when I tried to pull the little sprout out, it didn't grow faster. It stopped the process. So it's the same with meditation.

We just wanna be easy. We wanna watch. We wanna be interested in the little things that happen and, you know, we might have a breakthrough moment. We might see the little sprout. We might notice a little leaf come out, or it might be a few days where the line of being is still hard and hasn't started sprouting.

It doesn't matter. It's the practice of observing it's the practice of awareness. That helps us cultivate that curiosity, accept ourselves as we are allow for some space, allow for ease, and allow for wellbeing. And that's what the practice of mindful breathing does. So take a scan of your body. Just notice how you're feeling right now.

Hopefully, you know, things are loosening up a little bit more. We'll use the bell to focus and then we'll go for five minutes or a little more just to allow ourselves to experience some space and peace.

So you can notice the breath at the tip of your nose or on your lungs or your belly really

being restful, being easy.

even if what you're feeling is not easy or restful, be okay with that.

You might feel on your exhalation, that you just sink a little bit into yourself, like sitting back in an easy chair, you sit back into yourself. You're okay. As you are.

For

these few moments, you can let go. You can let go of what you need to do. You can let go of unanswered questions.

Spending time with ourselves and rejuvenating is one of the most important things we can do during times of stress.

Even though it seems like you're just being still, you're allowing the thoughts to come and go noticing that they arise and pass away. Even the repetitive ones, the persistent ones arise and pass away.

and there's a place in you that is observing it all that is aware. That is always conscious

and that is steady.

You can keep observing your breath, or if you find a breath to be hard to follow, notice the contact of your feet with the floor, or notice your weight on the chair. Or notice wherever your hands are resting, the small sensations.

Keep allowing yourself to

be easy, appreciate your breath, and appreciate the extraordinary way that it oxygenates.  our entire bodies and how miraculously our bodies work for us.

and you can begin to bring your attention back. And when you hear the bell, we can finish.

Thank you for listening to the conscious classroom. I'm your host, Amy Edelstein. Please check out the show notes on inner strength, and foundation.net for links and more information. And if you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend and pass the love. See you next time.