An Educator’s Story about Mindfulness

I'd like to share a story from my elementary teaching days.  There was a boy who couldn't sit still in his chair.  He wiggled so much that he ended up getting his chair leg stuck in his shoe. We tried everything, giving him space to wiggle, giving him a wiggle seat, and anything else we could think of for him.  

I began to think of how we could support him in a better way, so I started investigating.  I started by talking to the occupational and speech therapists in my building, the directed me toward sensory integration and I started researching what we discussed.  

I took our conversations and my research and created a sensory integration program for my students.  By the end of the year, my little wiggler was able to sit and attend for periods of time.  He'd learned to control his wiggles and get them out when needed.  

You might be wondering how he learned to manage himself.  When I dug into the information and realized that my young friend didn't need more space to wiggle, he needed some deep pressure.  Sometimes, we need to step back and look at the bigger pictures.  Mindfulness is like this.  Mindfulness gives us a better picture of what we need.  It's like cravings, sometimes the thing we crave isn't what we need at all.  In this case, it was the opposite of what he was doing.  

How do you use mindfulness in your life?  Would you be interested in more information about it?

As always, Your life is your practice.