Feeling Stressed? Have 3-4 minutes? Check out this Mindful Breath Synching video! Feeling Stressed? Have 3-4 minutes? Check out some Mindful Breath Synching ..read more

www.facebook.com/yogabyjen/videos/200757264710388 ..read more

Practicing mindful breathing for a few minutes every day gives you an evidenced based tool to help you eliminate stress and stay focused on tasks. The exercises we will practice  can be used regularly in classrooms and personal mindful breathing practices at home! Follow these tips to help you during your mindful breathing practice:  Put everything else aside. Everything you have to do will still be there at the end of your practice. Take a break from your phone, your work, your to-do lists, and maybe even the people around you. It might help to move to a quieter place.  Get comfy. Move to ..read more

“Maybe sometimes we should just sit, and in the sitting understand that life speaks in stillness and therefore on occasion we would be wise to join it there.” ― Craig D. Lounsbrough Our minds want to confuse us and make everything more complicated than what it really is. We constantly feel like we have to make to-do lists, and complete priorities. It’s why our brain will not easily settle down to do a simple task. The most difficult and simultaneously the simplest task we can undertake is to pay attention, to listen, and to observe. The most beneficial thing we can do for our mind is ent ..read more

Emotions are an essential part of who we are, but they can be messy, complicated, and downright confusing sometimes. Knowing how to name them and talk about them with your students (and yourself!) — is a key part of helping your students develop their social and emotional health. But why do we need to name them?! The answer is that naming our emotions tends to diffuse their intensity and lessen the burden they create. The psychologist Dan Siegel refers to this practice as “name it to tame it.” … Sharing what we are really, deep-down feeling in simple terms helps us to better contain and ..read more

Welp, I am starting a weekly installment of “WHY MINDFULNESS?”. You knew it was coming. I am so passionate about teachers who are teaching mindful minutes, or community circles having their own personal practice. There are so many important reasons why. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. If you haven’t explored your own quiet mind, confronted your own silent demons, or come face to face with your own humanness, it is impossible to guide others in exploring theirs. If you don’t have that intimate understanding of how anger, love, joy, fear, jealousy, greed, sadness, compassion, and ..read more

Free App Subscriptions, Research, Articles & More! This is a compilation of mindfulness resources for educators. Just like any skill, mindfulness skills take time to develop. There is a reason it is called a practice. If you are going to teach mindfulness, I recommend having your own daily consistent mindfulness/meditation practice at home. The best way to do this is to commit to sitting for 15-30 minutes each day, paying attention to your breath, noticing when your mind starts to wander, and then gently bringing attention back to your breath. If your interested in beginning a practice ..read more

It was right around the time I saw him spit on a teacher and scream, “FU, IDIOT, I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU” and I thought about yelling, “The power of Christ compels you,” repeatedly at him that I realized .  . .  Maybe we should try another tactic.  What works for one kid, doesn’t necessarily work for all kids. Sometimes we meet that one kid that makes us wonder why we even decided to go into teaching to begin with. But then we, hopefully, remember that this kid is just a product of his environment. He has been through some real trauma and, as we know, trauma has certain neurological effec ..read more

“Our children are our greatest treasure. They are our future…” Nelson Mandela spoke those words at a march in Pretoria, South Africa, in November of 1997. Twenty-two years later, those words are just as true. As leaders, teachers, parents and, quite frankly, just humans, it is our duty to lead them towards the acknowledgement of their own great worth.  Yeah . . . Okay, but what does that mean? That sounds awesome, doesn’t it? Lead them towards the acknowledgement of their own great worth—Doesn’t that just make you warm and fuzzy? Probably not. My husband would quote the Grinch here (“Oh ..read more