The post Hello world! appeared first on Breathing Room Mindfulness.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus your own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.

The post Introduce Yourself (Example Post) appeared first on Breathing Room Mindfulness.

I am here to share why teaching Mindfulness to students and sharing Mindfulness with staff, teachers, and administration is so important to me.  Those who know me know that sitting quietly and paying attention to my breathing has not always been my thing. I am a talker!  If you don’t know me well, here’s a little bit about me.  I just finished my 16th year teaching 2nd grade at Del Mar Elementary in Santa Cruz, California. I came to teaching fairly late in life (33 years old) and on the reverse teacher trajectory:  I started working in Classified Human Resources at the District Office for San Jose Unified School District and after working in Academic Human Resources at University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC), decided to get my credential and go up the ladder to the classroom.  

So what does this have to do with Mindfulness?  As a worker, I have always liked a job that kept me busy. Like many others, in the course of our working lives,  I have worked in a lot of different jobs. Restaurants, retail, baker, cake decorator. I actually left my office job at USCS because it was too quiet.  Yes, be careful for what you wish for.  About 6 years ago,  I noticed that teaching hadn’t gotten any easier with experience; after a decade it seemed to be getting harder. I had a parent complaint that went all the way to the Superintendent and I disagreed with how it was being handled. I got pissed. Really pissed. Pissed at the parents. Pissed at the district. Pissed at my union. I dropped all but one of my many school volunteer jobs and my union site representative position immediately.  I stopped working for free as much (I was working at least 15 extra hours a week for free.)  I stopped caring about nonsense busy work the district assigned and just filled out the papers, folders, and safety quizzes and turned them in.  Unfortunately, that didn’t change the difficulty of the job.  It STILL kept getting harder. 

So I did some research and it seemed that I wasn’t alone.  I listened to some speakers and found out about trauma and adverse childhood experiences.  So maybe there is something that is traumatizing my students and their families.  Maybe there is something traumatizing me.  How about school shootings?  Active Shooter training? Lock down drills?  How about personal loss?  How about anxiety?  How about CPS calls? How about student/family/colleague trauma?  How about not being able to get students all the support they really need? How about yard duty?  How can we not be traumatized?  Am I the only one? 

I am a talker.  I am a doer. I also like free stuff.  About two years ago, I got a free offer from Calm.com. I thought, “Why not give it a try?” Since the fall of the 2017-18 school year, I have learned a lot more about mindfulness and how it can open up awareness as well as space.  I have personally found it supportive for working with grief and loss.  I have found it helpful in giving me permission to stop and respond, rather than react. I have found it helpful to send my ego into the back of my classroom and bring someone who doesn’t have all the answers to the front.  I have found that I am a better teacher now because I really want to know “How are you today?” and if you aren’t fine, I see you. I hear you. I might not be able to help fix what isn’t fine, but I can acknowledge your feelings.   I can notice that you might need something different today or this hour.  

Mindfulness helped me give myself a little breathing room. I hope it can help you give yourself some breathing room between the every day annoyances and giant punches in the gut that life sends our way. While my intended audience was students, I have found that an important component of student social emotional support are the adults that surround them. I have found that the challenges of life do not end at the door to my classroom or the door of my house. I want to share my learning with students, their families, and those who work in education, but I have found many of these practices are helpful for those in other careers as well.

oint.

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.

The post Giving Myself Some Breathing Room appeared first on Breathing Room Mindfulness.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus your own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.

The post Introduce Yourself (Example Post) appeared first on Breathing Room Mindfulness.