COVID-19 Developing Patience, Bringing Ease and Insight

Have you ever thought about why they say "Patience is a virtue"? Virtue is not only meant  as an inherent moral goodness but also as a quality that we can develop if we apply ourselves to it over time. It is not necessarily easy to cultivate. Patience is  a coveted character trait. During the times of great challenge, we naturally want the hardship to be over. We want to return to a life of relative ease, stability, and familiarity. The reality is, upheavals of the magnitude we are experiencing now have ripple effects extending well into the future. There are many uncertainties. Many unknowns. Many contingencies. Cultivating patience through the emotional and practical ups and downs is essential for our own well being and for us to be positive guiding forces in the lives of the students we teach and the colleagues we supervise. 

Mindfulness teaches us to be patient and interested in what is. It teaches us to work with the immediacy of our experience, to watch sensations, thoughts, and feelings arise and pass away. It reveals how within a great unchanging concern, there are infinite small pieces that are constantly vacillating. Our experience is not static. Becoming aware of the constant movement supports the practice of patience, it captures our attention, it keeps us alert and watching rather than bored, apathetic, or resigned. 

Work with the contemplations this week to open your own ability to be interested in your experience. Notice how that interest brings about a willingness to be with what is. That willingness enables you to be patient and allow. 

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 environments. I'm your host, Amy Edelstein, and I'll be sharing transformative insights and easy-to-implement classroom supports.

That is 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.

Welcome. We're gonna have a great session. I wanted to talk about patience and acceptance today, and we'll do some practices for that as well. We're certainly needing to have a lot of patience with ourselves and with just the situation that we find ourselves in, how are we managing? The situation, the uncertainty, the needing to build the tracks as the train is driving off the cliff.

All of those things, how are we in, in any regular school year? This time of year, you start the March towards graduation. You start the March towards the end of the year, and we're working with students, getting them to. Do your best to push them. If they've fallen back, encouraging them, praising them, really preparing them to take that leap.

They're moving into that maturation phase for this grade level. And in the middle of it, we've had this hiatus. Of school and classes. And now all of a sudden the students are being pulled back from disconnection into connection, trying to get them to show up to virtual classes, communicate with teachers, and try to get teachers learn how to use digital media.

And it's, very hard to do our jobs well. And also to be patient with ourselves because everything takes time. Everything takes time to learn, you know, moving to Google classroom was a big deal where you had to post homework, but you were at least gonna see them every day. So if something didn't go right, they were gonna let you know in person.

And now it's, you might not hear from them again because they didn't get what you posted or it didn't upload. And then everything becomes a challenge. And. When I was thinking about, well, what do we wanna talk about today? And I felt that cultivating patients and acceptance is important because this is going to empower you.

To be steady and to be in an appropriate way, detached, because we need to develop our stability and resilience and good cheer and positivity and adulthood, knowing that we are gonna come through this. Yes, the world is gonna change, but humanity has faced all kinds of terrible crises. The changes have not always been for the best.

I'm not a Pollyanna in that way, but if we're going to make the changes as positive and forward-looking as the potential is for them to be, then we need to be somewhat detached from the constant daily churn. We just really cannot keep it. Being pulled by everything. That's not going well. It, we just won't survive.

Well, we'll lose our enthusiasm. We'll lose our inspiration. What I've seen the students want is they want connection. They want, they wanna see each other and they miss their teachers. So. Yesterday was it yesterday or yesterday? I think it was, or Monday was a Monday. It was a great session.

So after trying some online classes at a few schools, which either nobody showed up or. Three kids showed up and were not that interested. We had classes at central and invited all the, all these juniors in health. We had 250 kids online and at least another a hundred tried to get on. And they couldn't because the max is two 50 and I'll tell you the energy was just exploding off the chat.

To be honest, I need an interpreter to tell, to explain to me what the students were chatting to each other. And maybe I won't really wanna know a lot of those acronyms. Stand for, but they were so excited and they saw their teachers and they were saying hello to their teachers in a very vernacular way.

And it was just so delightful. You just felt the enthusiasm of, instead of connecting with one or two friends that they're used to being in touch with of just being able to really. You know, just see their junior class on mass and be able to be with each other, not the ones they like and the ones they know, but just everyone and you felt, this is the spirit of high school.

It's the spirit of adolescence. It's the spirit that we wanna bring back and we'll find creative ways to do that. And to be honest, it doesn't matter if our teaching isn't perfect or our. Connections with colleges. Aren't the best. If we can create environments where students can meet up with each other we can facilitate that.

And if we can create environments where just that human spirit is allowed to be rough and ready as it is, then we're doing what we need to be doing right now. And we do need to be patient with all of the other specifics. And I, I can imagine, I don't know for sure, but I can imagine that you're getting all kinds of direction and instruction from the district and they're telling you to need to do that and you need to do the other thing and you can't do this.

And the very thing that you wanna do, you're not supposed to do. And the very thing you, you don't wanna do, and you don't think is gonna work is what you're supposed to do. And you're being pulled in different ways. You just have to be easy with it. You just have to be easy with it and patient with it and allow yourself to.

Rest in what is going to be relaxing and restorative and rejuvenating for yourself. So you can be there to host the students and the fun when it appears, and you're not too stuck behind what isn't working to be able to be there for that moment. Why don't we just start with a little bit of movement and we'll be doing some, mindfulness practices afterwards?

And however, you're sitting, let's start with the feet and take your, take one foot and do some ankle roll, rolling clockwise

with one foot, and then counterclockwise. When we sit for too long. Fluids build up in the ankles, the blood doesn't flow as well. Our toes don't get the circulation. They need. Usually, if we're a teacher, administrator or staff in a school, we're walking up and down the halls all the time. You're constantly jumping up for this and jumping up for that, or you're standing and moving.

And now all of a sudden we're glued to our screens.  like, help. So let's give our feet and flex them. Flex that one and pull it, pull the toes back towards you, flex again and pull the toes back towards you. And let's take the other foot and do some ankle circles clockwise. And then again, counterclockwise.

Feeling the cracks. When we, when we do, rotations like this, and when you're standing, you can do them with your whole body ankles, knees, hips, torso, neck. What we do is we're lubricating the joints with what's called synovial fluid, and that synovial fluid helps our joints work properly. It lubricates them.

Helps prevent arthritis and flex the foot and pull your toes towards your knee. Flex your foot again, pull your toes towards your knee. Now set both feet on the floor and notice how they feel. See if they feel a little bit more energized. Yes, a little happier minded too. Let's do the same with our hands and we can take both hands at once and do some circles, really allowing our risks to be lubricated.

You can feel if you go, if you really like extend that circle, you start to feel it in your forearms and your elbows, and let's go the other way. Mine are cracking. Yes.

And let's gently push your fingers down, stretching your wrist and bending your fingers back.

And again, down.

Not too hard. So it's uncomfortable. Just that little bit of stretch and back again,

and the other hand

and, and back

and stretch down.

And stretch back. Good. You can just shake them out and see how they feel and don't drop your lunch.  you're shaking your hands and let's do some shoulder roll.

I should do these every hour. I'll tell you I really need these.

So mine are popping and cracking and, and let's reverse direction.

You'll notice one direction forward to back may be harder for you. You may be feeling it in your neck, also. Interesting,

good. And scrunch your shoulders up to your ears and drop them and up to your ears and drop them. And then let's do some neck rolls, drop your left ear to your left shoulder. Actually, whichever one you want and roll backwards, go to the side. These hurt the gentle,

our necks are, they're an incredible part of the body. There's so many small vertebrae in that narrow column

and it holds our head, the command center of our body and our minds. And we really want to remember to protect our necks and. To nourish them with some gentle movement

and some ease and let's go the other direction. Yes. And if you wanna,

if you often find yourself having headaches, I. Or feeling very irritable when you haven't moved. There are two things I'd recommend right away. And one is notice how much water you're drinking, how much you're hydrating. And the other is remembering to massage your neck gently or rotate it like this. And we can look over your right shoulder.

Don't stretch too much. So just look over your left,

sorry. And look over your left shoulder and your right shoulder and then drop. Yes.

Great. And just sit, sit steady. Just notice how you feel. If you need to stretch your back at all. I think we might need to stretch our back. Why don't we, CLA your hands, lift them over your head and look up. And stretch backwards a little bit

and look forward and then stretch to the right or left and stretch the opposite way. Oh, and

back again.

Another side, bring your hands down. And we'll just close with a short twist. So putting your right hand across your left knee and allowing your body to twist, like you're ringing out a wash rag, just ringing out your spine, seeing if you can. Twist each vertebrae independently. So they're not locked as a whole, but they're moving independently

and we'll go to the other side.

And when you get to your full twist, where you feel that your spine is curling, like a quirks group, breathe into your spine. And send the breath into the vertebrae.

So, you know, what we, what we have is we have that challenge of learning so much. And

the reason why I felt like mindfulness is a good. Tool and connection with this is because mindfulness, when we're, when we're practicing mindful awareness, whether it's in a formal practice where we're seated and paying attention, or whether it's, In our day to day moving about, but we're keeping that we're keeping both feet really grounded in awareness and attention and not knowing even while we're engaging our minds and we're doing what we're doing and interacting and planning and teaching and whatever we're doing, building websites, learning how to do video conferences, all of the other crazy things we never thought we'd have to do, but practicing mindfulness really.

Teaches us to be with things as they are not out of passive, passive acceptance or resignation, but really, because that is the way things are. They're that's what's happening. Hi, welcome it. What's it learning to be with the way things are enables us to be on solid ground. So right now, the way things are is chaotic, it's uncertain.

It has, it's filled with potential. It's also filled with grief and loss. We see a lot of suffering. We see suffering that was there before,

you know, that was hidden before and now the suffering's exaggerated. So you wonder, like, why would I wanna be aware of that even more? So with mindful awareness practice, we're not telescoping in, we're not like taking a microscope and telescoping in, in this very narrow way. Well being with what thing, being with things as they are, being with things the way they are means that we're not fighting against reality because when we're fighting against reality, we're, we're fighting a losing battle because reality is the way it is.

So what mindfulness helps us do is it helps us learn to be present. To be able to expand the context or shift our focus shift, the, the lens that we're looking through. So it isn't so overwhelming. You know, it always, it always feels like it's really hard to be with things as they are until we do it. And we say, oh, this is a lot easier.

You know, it's like, you know, when you were a kid and you had to pull the bandaid off yourself, you know, and you try to do it really slowly and it hurts bit by bit by bit by bit because you don't have the courage to do it quickly yourself. You know? So when you're four or five, you go to your parent or your older brother and sister, you say, well, you take my bandaid off and rip it off really fast because you just wanna deal with it.

And mindfulness helps us do that. It helps us take away our resistance. To being with things as they are so that we can be patient with ourselves with the situation. And that patience fills us with energy fighting against reality, depletes our energy. It makes us feel, first of all, it's futile. We can't fight reality.

So it makes us feel like we're always losing. And if we're always losing, then we feel like, why bother? Try? Because this isn't gonna work. And of course it's not gonna work because you can't fight reality. So what mindful awareness allows us to do is it really allows us to be in a posture that is self-protective, it's not arbitrarily opening us up to the floodgate of intensity, but it's also, Allowing us to be on solid ground, cuz we're not fighting with reality as it is.

So let's do a guided meditation and in the guided meditation, we'll do a basic breath meditation. But my focus and the instructions is gonna be really on accepting things as they are with the, With the, intention of cultivating patients and great. Yes. Toddler nap, time for we're balancing so many things.

So allow yourself to be comfortable. Sit, you know, sit where you're alert, but relaxed and you can close your eyes for this. If you'd like, I usually like that and just allow yourself to rest and, and be patient be easy. We'll use the belt of focus and we'll start with just allowing the sound to carry us, putting your attention on the sound.

And

as you sit begin to notice your breath in the way that it goes in and oxygenates your entire. Torso you feel it past, through your nos, you feel your chest gently expanding and contracting. You feel your stomach and rib cage opening up just a little bit,

creating just a little bit more room for the air. For the freshly oxygenated air to nourish

us.

Just noticing the breath going in and noticing your entire torso. Just, just, just like a gentle wave.

Just those little waves at the beach, not the ones that crash down, but just those little ones that come up and. They just sort of scamper up the shore and then flow back into the ocean. Just notice the breath going in. Notice the torso expanding and notice the breath receding.

And now let's expand our awareness just a little bit,

moving our awareness into our whole body and

letting the whole body.

Enter the field of awareness.

Notice from let your attention move from the top of your head slowly down your face in the back of your head. Mentally, just letting. Your attention, go to your scalp and letting your scalp just relax. Have a little more space, a little more give. So all the skin is not so taught. We're not carrying so much tightness in the face, in the head.

Let your attention roll down

so that you're noticing the length of your neck

and you're scanning your whole torso and your arms and your fingers and the hands.

Rolling down over your legs and knees and shins and feet. And on your next breath, let's use the

breath. To just relax and ever so slightly expand the sense of space in our whole bodies.

Making a little bit more room for what is.

And now let's expand even more spatially using our sense store of hearing.

and take in the room that you're in and any sounds or silence in the room that you're in right now,

maybe there's a brief or pre from activity as your toddler falls asleep.

Or maybe it's very, there's a lot of commotion at this moment. Just take in the room that you're in and any sounds within the room.

And now expand the sounds that you're taking in. So that you're listening for, but not forcing yourself. We're not trying to expand our hearing. We're just noticing what's there. What naturally crosses our field of awareness, noticing the sounds outside the building we're in. And maybe right now you can't hear any, or maybe right now there's noise and commotion.

Whatever sounds you can take in that are outside the building.

And now turn your attention away from those sounds. And imagine that you could listen to sounds that were far, far in the distance,

resting your attention as if you could hear sounds from a hundred miles away.

Still letting your breath be calm,

gently rocking your torso with its each inhalation and exhalation.

and now with the space that you've created

with that ability to shift your attention, to expand.

The fear of activity you're paying attention to, from your breath to your body, to the room, you find yourself in to the neighborhood to, as far as the horizon, notice that what's constant is your own attention.

You activated your own awareness

equally, whether you were noticing sensation nearby or far away, and you

were directing your attention.

In ways that allow you to create a sense of space and a sense of calm,

that ability to create space enables us to be with what is it enables us to hold room.

For the sadness

and to hold room for exuberance and possibility

and to be steady and secure and content in ourselves.

And when you hear the bell, we'll bring this practice to a close and bring your awareness back.

When we're feeling very uncomfortable. And when we're feeling like we are at our wits end. Which happens fairly regularly. These days sometimes instigated by something external and sometimes just because stress accumulates. Or sometimes because you turn on the television, you go, I haven't watched the news for three days and they're still shouting about the same things.

Is this really helping us as a culture? Is this really helping us get anywhere? Are we seeing the big picture? As we start engaging more with students more directly now that everyone has Chromebooks and they're supposed to be going to class. And they're really, we're trying to motivate them to get going again.

We're gonna often feel like a broken record, reaching out, getting rebuffed, reaching out. Encouraging a student reaching out, finding that student hasn't done anything, reaching out to the district, getting told one thing, getting told another thing, doing something, getting criticized for it.  getting criticized for the very thing that seemed to work

the best,

all of those just general frustrations. And we, we can't let those rule our day and we can't let those be. The definer of the context, we can't let the external define our inner context. We have to allow ourselves to focus and keep creating space so that we're solid. And then within that solidity, we have to deal with everything.

It really does make a difference. It really does allow us to roll with things to remember. People may not be the most skillful communicators, but they're also equally under stress. And maybe we don't know the whole picture. Maybe they're not telling us the whole picture. Maybe they're being, they've got information that we don't know about and they're trying to process it and they're doing the best.

They can. Some people are doing a poor job. Some people are doing a better job. Some people are better in emergencies. You know, everyone said Churchill was a great wartime leader, but he was a terrible peace time leader. He was just horrendous, but he was a great wartime leader and we have that in our own lives.

In each one of us may better under stressful situations or under useful situations. Use the time to actually enjoy part of this again, in terms of mindfulness is being mindful about what we're doing, not just going for a walk and rethinking what you just watched on the news and how you're angry about this, that, and the other thing and how you're worried about this one and the other one, but really be outside.

Notice the walk, notice the air, notice the birds notice, notice what's different. Notice the rainbow pictures in people's windows, you know, be present cuz we're living through history right now and taking it all in as it is, is a really interesting thing because we're the ones who are gonna be reshaping the world on the other side of this and we need to take it all in it's it's almost like a, a, it's like a visceral gestalt of the surrounding.

So being very present, being very present with cooking, you know, and what you're making and shopping and for, and what you're noticing about that, the connection with the kids that you're teaching to cook the connection with the young adults being present, being intentional, being available. For it is part of what both nourishes us and gives us stability, cuz that's what mindful awareness does.

But it also it's, it's like opening the pores of our perception so that we're aware of what is happening and we're able then to synthesize what's going on. So are all of you counselors? No. I mean, well, besides Tracy. Yes, but the are the rest of your counselors. Yes. So you are virtual museums. Yes. So you are gonna be guiding students moving forward.

You're gonna be guiding them in how to relate to this. And the most important thing you can guide them to is, is to really guide them towards their higher potentials and their capacities. And you're gonna be able to do that. The more you open up your own perception and that you're really with what is, because you're gonna be able to be with them.

You're also gonna have a bigger context. You're gonna have a sense of what's opening. In culture and what's closing, you can have a sense of what the fears are, so that if you hear those fears coming out of your students, you can calm them down because we pick up societal fear. We just pick it up and it becomes contagious, but it's not necessarily the only way to look at it.

So you're gonna wanna be strong for your students in times of uncertainty. And if you're guiding a school, you also need to do that. Or if you're, you're trying to be Ballas for the leaders of your school who are  overwhelmed and freaking out, you're also gonna have to do that, providing that calm, which comes from awareness.

It really does come from that patience with not trying to force solutions, but to be able to discern what's the appropriate next.  and that appropriate next step might be pushing the kids who are not willing, not willing to make the effort to graduate, or it may be calling on another resource to send your kids to some nonprofit that they might relate to more who can, you know, inspire them.

Well, you know, with the possible. And you know, what happens is we start to feel like we need to be the yellow pages for everything. I know yellow pages is an old metaphor, but I think in this company I can still use it. You know, we think we need to provide all the solutions, but what happens when we're open and aware in that way, we only need to come up with one right next step for a student.

So resist the temptation to overwhelm yourself with needing to become the resource directory for everything under the sun. And remember that your, your, your humanity and your hu your relationships with either your colleagues, the district, or the students. Is gonna be what the quality of that relationship is gonna be.

What helps people get through this the most easily? And in all the studies they've done of large scale cultural trauma, the tsunamis hurricanes, you know, big natural disasters, that's nobody's fault, relation the quality of relationships is what helps people. Move through with the least amount of fragmentation of self.

So that's what we wanna do. So we'll finish with a love and kindness.

So let's bring somebody particular whom we really care about to mind somebody we wanna send good wishes to.

and let's send them, you know, this wish

may you be healthy

and have ease.

May you be supported? 

And free from fear.

May you be without lack or

need?

and may you experience that? You're surrounded by love and kindness.

Really sending that individual, those wishes

and let's send ourselves these wishes really picturing yourself and allowing yourself to receive good wishes.

May I be patient

and easy. May

I be flexible and open?

May I see the small bits of progress as bright lights.

And may I be surrounded by love and kindness?

May I be patient and full of ease.

May I be flexible and open

may I see small signs of progress? As brilliant, bright lights.

And may I be surrounded by support, love

and kindness.

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, foundation.net for links and more information. And if you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend and pass the love on. See you next time.