**Note if you don't want to read the information, you can listen to the recording

My Intention For This Program

This program is the result of unraveling the work I have done for years in the classroom with students. You want to support your students mentally, emotionally, physically and academically to meet their greatest potential in life, right? For too long we have followed this intention in the most obvious way: support the student, give them all that they need. Although I think this was an ok way of doing things, what I am seeing more and more is that educators are being asked to teach and use these social emotional tools that they haven’t had the opportunity to fully explore and work with themselves. There are a few problems with this:

1. A teacher is someone who so fully embodies something that they have no choice but to share it with others. The teacher is the apex authentic-expressor. Their love of what they do comes through them, with ease, inspiring and exciting others to want to know more. Thus, how are you supposed to teach something that you do not know or connect with yourself? It's about walking the talk- doing, exploring and making your own before you share with others. This program gives you lots to work with and explore, so that you can build practices and make them your own, both in and out of the classroom.
2. How are you supposed to fill your students cups from a cup that doesn’t even fully exist for yourself (because you never learned it)? This isn’t saying anything wrong about you, rather we as a society a decade or more ago were not discussing emotional intelligence the way we are now, so yea a lot of people, not just educators, are behind the curve. We learn best from experience, if you want to learn social emotional intelligence then you must explore it within the context of your own life. This program is teaching you the skills, building your toolbox so that you can know how to fill both your own cup and your students. 
3. If you are looking to support your students’ social and emotional needs then you must be able to support your own social and emotional needs as well. This can’t just be about them, it must be about you too. I believe that we only fully understand the value of a gift when we receive it as well as give it. You know how powerful a hug can be because of that awful day where you wanted to give up and suddenly someone approached you and gave you one. The more you are able to walk the talk of social emotional wellness the more you will understand the value and impact of it. 

I developed this program to address these concerns. My intention is to support YOU as educators in exploring and applying mindfulness tools to better support yourself, your life and the lives of your students. These tools raise emotional awareness, reduce stress and further connect you with the many elements of your life. The more you practice the more your life will benefit, the more positively you will show up for your life and those in it each and every day.

I am grateful for the opportunity to share this work with you and am honored that you are choosing to do this work with me. I look forward to this very special year together!

How It Works & Other Tips

The first week of each month I will post a module which covers a specific topic related to mindfulness. This topic will be discussed in the realm of your personal life and your classroom, it will be accompanied with suggested activities for yourself and your class for the month. I am a big believer in free will and authenticity, which means that I always mean to guide you, so that whatever you do is always what is best for you and is your own idea, so take what I share with you and make it your own because it's about you, not me. 

Some tips:

• Don’t overthink... most of these activities and exercises are intended to be done in an intuitive way. For some of you this may be how you do things naturally, for others this may be hard to understand. Just do what you can and if at any point you feel your head starting to hurt to come up with responses then just walk away and come back another day (or even another month)
• This isn’t school! You’re not being graded on this, nothing is due at a certain time. Catch yourself putting pressure on yourself to complete anything in a specific way at a specific time
• Pay attention & be curious… we are hardwired to be judgmental and definitive with everything but this work is asking you to be the opposite. Be honest in your responses and try to just be curious about why. This work is intended to be done with love, not judgment, if you feel the judgment rising then walk away.
• Stay as focused on yourself... for some of you it may be very tempting to want to keep this work in the classroom and secondarily on you, but the intention is to be the other way around. The primary focus is on you, trust that this focus will have some amazing benefits in the classroom. If it feels like a lot, skip the classroom work for now and stay focused on you and let it come back to the classroom when it makes sense for you.
• Be committed and be kind... Ideally you are doing something small every day, but be loving of where you are today, regardless of whether or not you are where you thought you should be today. I am asking you to do things that you have not quite done before, there will be discomfort and potential frustration in this process. Be kind to yourself, do the best you can and let go of the rest. You need to put in effort and you need to be willing to try what I am asking you to do but I always encourage you to do what you can, when you can, without force. Doing activities all the while being frustrated or anxious is a way of helping yourself to gain comfort with then eventually overcome your frustration and anxiety, but this takes time. So until things change, be kind and stick with it. 
• Pay attention… notice what you feel throughout the week of doing this work. It may be positive, it may be negative. Remember that this program isn’t intended to get rid of the negative, but to help you live with the negative and respond to it in a more positive and productive manner. If you dislike something, think you know how to do something better than me, love something or keep forgetting to do something- that is OK! But don’t give up, try to notice your reactions and just let it be.
• Center Yourself… Take time to center yourself before you work. Before you sit down with this work (the workbook or the online modules), take a moment to sit, relax, bring your attention back to yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, take a deep breath and then dive in.
• Try to limit your dwelling… You’ve got ten months ahead of you, don’t reread and rewrite and redo things, even if you didn’t do them as well as you wish you would have. Just keep moving forward and reflecting and give yourself a second chance every day.
• Remember why you are here… check in often and remember why you are here and what your intentions were upon signing up. 

The workbook is in some ways the heart of this work together. I believe that the best changes happen from incremental, committed shifts and the workbook is designed to support this both through a constant questioning of your reality and how you perceive it and respond to it as well as the accountability of recording your actions regularly. 

Monthly Check In

Elements of Life are the different areas of your life. They all matter, equally! You tend to be really strong in one or two and really weak in one or two. The stronger you grow in your elements, the stronger you become as a whole. This is an opportunity to check in, so much of mindfulness is just bringing awareness to what is and trusting that that is enough, you don’t need to heap judgment on top of it. Pay attention & be curious to how you’re doing with your elements and just let it be, allow the awareness of how you are doing guide some of your goals. 

Loving Steps Are just that, steps towards goals that are loving, not aggressive. You have a lot of time with this work (10 months!) so catch yourself wanting to achieve everything, now. Come up with steps that you feel confident about taking, that feel really good and achievable and maybe even easy. 

Responsibility Sentences are a favorite of mine. I’m not asking you to be perfect, I just want you to consider how things would be if you just did a tiny bit more for yourself. 

Weekly Check In

How are you feeling about this week? What attitude will support you most this week? What actions can you take to support this attitude and yourself? Maybe as time goes on start noticing if there are patterns or themes, do you have similar responses every week? Or at certain times of the year?

How did you nourish yourself each day? This could be with food, time, a good connection with a friend/coworker, self care activity, some sweat, just about anything. What matters is that you do something nourishing every day. You could intentionally do something nourishing, or you could reflect back on what you did today and see what was nourishing (that maybe you weren’t aware of at the time). 

What can you let go of so that you can finish your day well? It could be big or small, specific or vague, doesn't matter but a big step towards starting the day off well is ending the night before well.

Mindful Observations

Most months you have a “Mindful Observations” sheet to work on. Note that it’s not called mindful judgments, it’s about paying attention from a specific scope. Catch yourself wanting to label things as right, wrong, good or bad. The activity is just intended to help you bring honest awareness to what is... trust me, you’ll work on it when the time is right.

The Mindfulness Log

This will be used throughout the months when I give you activities and things to try in class. This is intended to help you formulate what you do with your class and then reflect on how they went so that at the end of the year you’ll have a list of things you want to try again, things to edit and things to get rid of. A lot of my work in the classroom is spur of the moment stuff, going off of what is going on with the students that week/day so I have found that it is better for me to write down and reflect after than it is for me to prep and plan before. 

Your Resources I use this term a lot and what I mean is your time, energy and money. These are the three resources that govern just about everything you do on this planet. It’s what you put in, it’s what you get out. It’s important to know your resources, where you’re investing them (or depleting them), where you’re restocking them, how you manage them. 

*Important Note* I am committed to you! Please know that at any point you have questions, concerns or maybe some things are coming up and you want someone to share with my door is always open to you. Please send me an email at any time and we can set up a time to talk as needed. Also, there is a comment section below that you can use at any time to connect with me, ask questions or share with others.