WEBVTT

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[Soft music]

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Speaker Tish Jennings]:
So what is mindfulness?

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Mindfulness is a state of mind.

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It's a state of mind where you are
bringing your attention fully to the

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present moment with an attitude of
openness and curiosity.

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It's a state that some people are just
naturally more mindful than others.

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So in a, in a sense, it's a,
it's a trait that some people have,

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but it also can be cultivated
intentionally through practice.

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And with practice,
when we practice mindfulness,

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we become much more aware of our habits
of body and mind that we were talking

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about, our scripts.

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And when we notice them,
then we're able to overcome them

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intentionally so that we respond to
situations thoughtfully rather than react

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automatically.

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So when my stress response starts to rise,
I can notice the tension in my shoulders,

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the, the tension in my jaw.

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I also notice sometimes I feel warmer
because my blood pressure is going up.

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I notice all those signals inside my body
and then I can intentionally calm myself

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down.

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I can also notice the thoughts that are
going along with this feeling,

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the sort of the anxiety, the rumination.

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I can start noticing, oh,
that's just the stress response.

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That's this automatic habit that I have,
this automatic tendency of body and mind.

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When I notice it,
then I can calm myself down intentionally.

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We've been doing a lot of work with
teachers in this area for a long time and

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all of them say to us, this is the key.

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This is the key.

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Noticing this,
the problem is remembering what to do.

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So the, the thing that you can do when you
start noticing that your stress level is

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rising,
the first thing I recommend that you do

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is take 3 slow, long, mindful breaths.

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When I say a mindful breath,
what I mean is we want to focus our

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attention on the sensation of that air
going into your nose, down your windpipe.

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Your lungs are filling up.

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You might notice your chest expand,
you might notice your abdomen expand as

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your diaphragm rises.

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There's a lot of things going on when we
simply take one breath and we're focusing

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our attention on that sensation.

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When we teach this to children,
we often encourage them to put one hand

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on their chest and one hand on their
abdomen so they can feel that movement

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more explicitly.

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So there are many mindful awareness
practices that we can engage in.

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This simple three breath activity is a
really simple,

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basic way to practice being mindful.

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There are formal and informal mindfulness
practices where we focus our attention

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for longer periods of time.

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We can also practice having a open
awareness.

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It's a another kind of mindful awareness
practice which we can learn.

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We can engage in physical activities
mindfully.

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We can do a mindful walking where we
focus our attention on the sensation of

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our soles hitting the floor or the ground.

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We can notice how our body is moving in
space and bring mindful awareness to

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movement.

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This we can do in yoga practices or other
kinds of physical practices like Tai chi,

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other martial arts, dance.

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We can even bring mindfulness into the
arts and in some cultures like in Japan,

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they intentionally bring mindful
awareness into artistic endeavors like

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ikebana where they do flower arrangements
mindfully.

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We can also bring mindfulness into our
daily activities,

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our informal daily activities.

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So just noticing what you're doing,
for example,

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washing dishes can be very mindful.

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You can notice the sensation of the water
and the soap on your hands while you're

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washing the dishes.

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You can bring this mindful awareness to
any kind of activity that you're doing

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anytime.

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You can teach mindfully.

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You can bring this mindful awareness into
every moment of your teaching day.

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And while you do that,
when you bring this to your daily

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activities,
you bring a kind of richness of the

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presence of the awareness of this present
moment.

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Because most of the time as human beings,
we spend a lot of our days with our minds

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focused on the future or focused on the
past.

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When we're thinking about the future,
we're planning the future,

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we're worrying about the future,
we're thinking about what we're going to

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do.

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We're planning lots of scenarios,
but we're not present.

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And sometimes we focus on the past.

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We worry about what we did before.

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We feel bad maybe about what we did before.

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And having the ability to think about the
future and the past is very important to

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our ability to do things.

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But we can get fixated on those two parts
of our thinking,

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thinking too much about the future,
thinking too much about the past when we

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really don't need to.

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And it keeps us from being present in the
moment and enjoying what's going on in

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this present moment, being here for it.

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[A few notes of transition music]

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While you were doing this,
you may notice that you get distracted.

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Your mind might wander off into the
future.

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You might start thinking about your next
meal or what you have to do, your To Do

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List.

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That's, that happens to me all the time.

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The key to this practice is to notice
that that's what's going on,

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that your mind has become distracted and
intentionally bring your attention back

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to the sensation of the breath.

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That is the practice.

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It's the practice of noticing and
bringing the attention back.

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Many times I have people say to me,
you know,

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I can't practice mindfulness because I
can't stop thinking.

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And I tell them, you know what,
I've been doing this for a really long

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time and I can't stop thinking either.

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So don't worry about that.

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It's OK.

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Because that's not the idea,
we're not trying to stop thinking.

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We're just supposed to,

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we're,
we're intending to notice that our mind

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has drifted off somewhere.

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Once I heard somebody say that the mind
has a mind of its own.

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And so the mind just does that naturally.

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And as we practice this,
we become much more aware of the habits

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of our mind, what our minds tend to do,
because we are intentionally bringing it

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back.

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And so when it, when the mind wanders off,
we can be more aware of it.

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When you first Start learning to practice,
it's fine to take short periods of time

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to practice,
maybe only 5 minutes to begin with.

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Over time you will learn to extend that
time a little bit and you also will learn

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ways to build these practices into your
daily life.

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What I have learned over many years of
practicing is that it really helps to

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have a variety of different practices
that we can draw upon to support our

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well-being.

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And as we are learning about what we need
and how to care for ourselves,

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we can draw upon all of these different
activities to support what we need in the

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moment.

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[Soft music]