The power of choice in social distancing

Apr 8, 2020

by Michele Minehart, Community Educator

Last week our Governor announced that Ohio would be staying home from all school, play, and non-essential work until at least May 4. Many of our clients came to us with a similar question: How will I survive this for another month?

Therapist Holly Schweitzer Dunn, LISW, suggests we reframe this to view quarantine from an empowerment place rather than experiencing it only as a victim provides freedom and even a sense of autonomy where we once felt powerless. Try on one of these:

Instead of “I have to quarantine” try “I’m staying home to bring safety to myself, to spread safety and to love to the world.”
Instead of “I have no other option” say to yourself, “I choose to follow these guidelines for the good of all.”
Rather than “I am helpless in this” remind yourself that “I have control over how I handle this.”

By viewing your actions as an empowered individual and keeping in view the larger goal – public health and personal safety – we can feel differently about our living conditions with all their restraints. You still might long for a leisurely trip to the mall or wish you could gather with friends for dinner, but shifting from “I can’t” to “I choose not to at this time” keeps you mentally in the driver’s seat.

The Unexpected Virtue of Anxiety

Mar 20, 2020

by Holly Schweitzer Dunn, LISW

In a time where the whole world feels that nagging sense of worry and concern, we can take wisdom from those who have experience in this area: those with ongoing anxiety. Holly Schweitzer Dunn, LISW, has heard this three times already this week: “Having anxiety has helped me know what to do during all this craziness.”

There is a lot we can learn from people with anxiety. As one client said, “I’ve been preparing my whole life for this.” People who manage their anxiety daily are well-equipped to handle their emotions during this coronavirus unrest. This is important to remember: You’ve got this. We’ve got this.

Here are a few of the good reminders we’ve heard over the last few days:

Pausing to be in the moment makes all the difference. It allows me to remember I am safe in this moment.
It is most helpful to focus on what is within my control. How I act, how I think, what I do with my time- these are controlled by me.
Balancing out fear thoughts is key to feeling balanced and stable.
Challenging my irrational fears by focusing on what I know is true- based on the evidence around me- brings me back into safety.
Thoughts lead to feelings lead to behaviors- when I am in control of my thoughts I am in control of the rest of me.

Our clients with anxiety are showing us the importance of practicing mindfulness consistently. We build the skills of paying attention to thoughts, feelings and sensations when we’re not in moments of panic. Then when bigger threats do arise, the skills to navigate the stress are more accessible to us.

Contact Us

Mindful Educators

Feb 10, 2020

Mindful Educators:

Monday, June 15, 2020, 9 AM – 4:30 PM

At Toledo’s Wildwood Metropark Ward Pavillion

Mindful Educators is a day-long retreat experience designed to help teachers return to the spark of joy that drew them into their profession so they can return to the classroom ready in heart and spirit. We will apply the concepts of mindfulness to your role as educator, providing tools for the mind and body that will help nurture your passion through the stressful challenges of teaching to the souls of our children.

Those who will most benefit from Mindful Educators are those who:

See how the effects of trauma are changing our schools and neighborhoods,impacting the classroom experience for all students
Hear in the media and scholarly research about the effects of body-centered and mindfulness-based classroom interventions and want to experiment with them
Taste the bitterness of burnout and “helper’s fatigue” and wish to reconnect with a deeper sense of gratitude for their work
Feel as if they’ve tried varying methods of connecting with students yet feel some are still “unreachable.”

Mindful Educators is led by Holly Schweitzer Dunn, LISW – and facilitator of Mindful Parenting – along with Landon Dunn, LISW, LICDC, of Mind Body Health Associates. Holly, Landon, and the MBHA team have been working with educators for a collective 25+ years to help them learn to manage the stress that comes from the unique role of teacher. They will offer specific interventions and practices for educators to integrate into their lives, both personally and professionally, to help teachers reconnect with the sense of fulfillment of their work.

Allow us to take care of you in the peaceful setting at Toledo’s Wildwood Metropark in the Ward Pavillion. You’ll receive a full day of therapeutic tools and interventions used by our therapists who regularly work with educators. Our approach integrates the body-centered practices with mindfulness to help aid relief from the physical manifestations of embodied stress. You’ll be guided in mindfulness exercises, including nature walks and time for solitude and reflection, along with an opportunity to explore yoga movement and breathwork. There will even be a chance to discuss how these personal practices can be translated into the classroom.

Don’t forget to bring your Yoga Mat or Pillow!

Cost and Registration Information:

Cost: Before April 1: $75 individual, $400 group of 6

Before May 15: $90 individual, $500 team of 6

Please complete the following registration form after completing your payment. Thank you!

Ready to Register?

Self-Care for Teachers

Jul 17, 2019

Self Care for Teachers

The concept of self-care is catching our collective attention. We’re being admonished to “put the oxygen mask on yourself first” and now we have research to support the claim that self-care helps people manage job-related stress.

So what exactly does self-care look like? Is it simply taking more bubble baths and scheduling a spa day? It could be, but self-care reaches beyond pampering, specifically for teachers. When we work with educators in our offices, we hear about the need for something to help in the heat of the moment, keeping the pace of the day with younger and older children alike. Often times, the stress our teachers carry has more to do with the burdens carried by the children they teach than it does the job description they’re trying to fulfill. Especially after many years of experience, our teachers know about delivering content and differentiating instruction. What teachers ask for more often is knowing how to continue to show compassion to children and families when the heartbreak feels unrelenting.

While burnout is an issue for the education industry, the bigger threat is heartbreak. Teachers are seeing more and more students show up in the morning hungry because they’ve not had breakfast, or – even more challenging – children starving for connection. Our educators could go broke with the granola bars and markers they stock. They know how to keep their classrooms supplied with academic tools. A tougher obstacle is helping teachers learn to sleep at night when their hearts are filled with worry about the student whose life outside of school is unsafe.

As Chick Moorman (author of The Spirit Whisperer and Parent Talk) said once to Holly, when you teach to a child’s spirit, you’ve got them, no matter what the subject matter. The best teachers are working from the heart-level. However, opening yourself to the heights of joy that come with heartfulness also renders you vulnerable to the depths of grief that come with the territory.

From our perspective, the core of self-care for the educator lies in keeping the heart both soft and strong. To be good at what we do in helping professions, we need to continue to cultivate compassion, empathy and acceptance. Our practices center around quieting the talk of “not enough” and incorporating moments of gratitude and joy, even in the midst of challenges.

Mindfulness expert John Kabat-Zin teaches about the “acceptance of what is”. When a student comes from a home without running water, it’s hard for a teacher to accept that he cannot change the situation. But the teacher can offer a learning space that helps hold for the student the various stressors and hurts they bring into the classroom. In the same way, a teacher might come to school tired after his own sleepless night. Self acceptance, i.e. “today’s lecture may not be as energetic as last week’s and that’s okay,” may free the teacher to offer what he does have to give rather than focusing on deficits.

When we learn to recognize our limits, specifically as they relate to our roles as educators and helpers, we can acknowledge and celebrate the victories we do experience. When working in a capacity that will never “finish” – the students we teach will never be done learning and developing – it’s easy to overlook opportunities to feel like we’ve done enough. A daily celebration and gratitude practice for the small successes keeps the heart open and strong, ready to return the next day.

The Heavily Meditated Teacher

Jul 12, 2019

The Heavily Meditated Teacher

When you come to the Mindful Educators retreat, one of the elements woven into the day is the importance of establishing a personal meditation practice. The elements of quieting the mind, noticing the breath and allowing thoughts to slide through awareness are essential to living and teaching mindfully.

It’s okay if you’re not ready to sit on your zafu pillow for an hour each morning! Taking a quiet 10-minute walk or spending the first 90 seconds in your classroom with eyes closed and breathing deeply are valuable forms of mindfulness. Small doses repeated through the day are powerful ways to keep your steady pace.

A meditation practice puts space into your day and into the way your brain functions. As the training ground for patience and peacefulness, it’s a way to practice slowing down our reactions. Much of the hurried day, we have a thought that we automatically believe. A mindfulness practice teaches us to notice first that a thought has arisen, and then gives us the opportunity to decide if it’s true. From that moment, you move from reacting to responding. Ideally, mindfulness gives us permission to allow the thought to pass without response. We become less automatic in our need to do something about the thought. It is just a thought.

Mindfulness is the space that allows you to breathe through your day. It’s this space that allows you to thrive in your work and can prevent burnout by allowing the emotions and the thoughts to move through you, rather than overcome you.

So what does this actually look like? A heavily meditated teacher is one who likely:

Responds rather than reacts
Draws emotional boundaries to keep from over-personalizing others’ behaviors
Feels a connection with students that goes beyond academics
Changes the pace of the day and activity to best suit student (and teacher) needs
Feels the freedom to be creative in their unique art of teaching- even within the confines of traditional educational expectations
Has a peace corner or quiet zone in the classroom that anyone can use at any time
Understands his/her energy drives the energy of the classroom and self-regulates accordingly
Exudes joyfulness and contentment
Refuels the passion that drives their work

With cramped classrooms and schedules filled to the hilt, teachers are the first to recognize a need for space and time. But as one teacher has said, “you will never find time, you can only make time.” Creating space in your life to breathe and move mindfully might be one of the best and healthiest adjustments to your lesson plans you make this year.

What yoga pose will make this kid listen?

Jul 11, 2019

What yoga pose will make this kid listen?

Embodied Education

Thanks to a new study getting fabulous publicity, yoga is making its way into classrooms everywhere. At Mind Body Health Associates, we’ve long recognized the importance of bringing the body into the educational setting because of the way it is intimately connected to our brains. Children, especially, need their whole body to be engaged for maximum learning to occur.

Our in-house yoga instructor, Michele Minehart, has worked with school districts offering yoga as part of their professional development, both as an experiential practice and as interventions for test anxiety. Education is eager to implement these simple tools that utilize the power of mindfulness. You don’t need to get your RYT 200© certification to reap the benefits of helping kids move their bodies and pay attention to their breath. If you’re looking to add a few tools to the toolbox, here are some suggestions:

Start with breathing. Ask your kids to take a big breath before starting the next activity. Our classrooms are filled with hurry and taking a brief moment in the transition will help them to fully arrive at the next activity.
Give it only 2 minutes. Let go of ideas that you need to devote an hour of classroom time to yet another thing. Science says that 60-90 seconds is all that is required to return an activated stress response (fight or flight) to one that is ready to learn. A few deep breaths with arm movement followed by a standing forward fold, or a balancing pose on a day you feel fancy, is plenty for them to begin.
Name your targeted outcome. You’re probably not looking for kids to be able to wrap a leg around their neck. What are you looking for when you institute some form of classroom yoga? One of the most noticeable benefits is behavior change, specifically in the realm of self-regulation. You can create a habit with the children to take a deep breath when they’re angry before responding by practicing taking a deep breath while they’re not angry; over time the habit will develop.
Remember: Where the attention goes, the energy flows. Some kids may not like the classroom yoga because new things are frequently scary things (this is the body’s protective reaction). You could meet reticence. That’s okay. Don’t use your energy trying to convince the apprehensive students. Instead, direct your attention to the ones who are participating and appreciating the experience. Success is the best PR, and the kids who are more slow to adapt will eventually want to join along.
Practice what you preach. You don’t need to join a fancy studio, but you can intentionally find ways to mindfully move your body. Walks in nature and running are great alternatives, especially if you already have a practice. A home yoga practice can be led via youtube or free apps (Michele recommends Down Dog; therapist and yoga instructor Rachel Tincher loves the practices available on Amazon’s Audible).

Kids have a BS sniffer and can sense if you don’t believe what you’re saying. Integrate the idea of moving your body as you notice your breath and the present moment so that you can teach the tools with honesty and integrity.