MBSR on ZOOM, Winter/Spring, 2021 seminar
Bonjour Sylvie!
Although many of the themes were beneficial to my life, I chose class # 2 "Perception and Creative Responding" and #4 "Communication" for my survey.
For most of my life I have been a "reactor" during communication or during events (stressful or otherwise). I tend to react/respond quickly and from the "top of my head" whether it is perceived as a negative or positive response. I tend to interrupt people with my own take or story regarding the subject. Maybe I saw this as trying to relate to others with my own perspective or story. Depending on the other person's personality, he/she would either decrease his/her sharing to listen to mine or he/she would respond similarly with neither of us truly deeply listening to the other person although not realizing this was happening.
After experiencing the mindfulness classes, I realize more than ever that this is not a healthy, effective way to communicate. Now I am working on active listening without interrupting so I can more accurately hear and understand the other person's communication. This includes thinking about his/her perspective according to his/her age, gender and life experiences. I'm working on letting him/her finish without interruption of my own thoughts! 🧐🙂 I'm attempting to be more mindful of my body language and non-verbal presentation.
During stressful situations I'm realizing that if I feel that someone is verbally "pushing" me, I don't need to verbally "push back" as though defending myself. Rather than reacting, I need to take a breath and mindfully choose a response according to the situation.
Although I do have many good friends and enjoy interacting with them, I know that these practices will improve my relationships with family, friends, co-workers and anyone that I encounter. It will help me to listen to and understand them better. As well as gain a better understanding of myself! Also during stressful situations if I can remain calm and resist the urge to take it personally, I can better choose a positive response. One that is more helpful.
I also plan to use mind calming and yoga (a mild meditation) as one way to improve my physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. Thank you so much Sylvie, for leading these classes for us. You projected a calm, caring presence while leading us on this path. I also loved your choice of music! 😊 - Julie H.
I find it difficult to choose one theme from all our time together, as it feels as though they have all melded together now, but if I were to choose just one, I suppose it would have to be "The Beginner Mind" where we began this journey together.
I find "The Beginner Mind" personally important because I have been living mostly in the future and the past - my mind always planning, ruminating, having conversations that may or may not ever occur. In the meantime, I am missing NOW. I am missing my life, which is passing by at a record pace. I have learned that my busy mind is not "now" or even necessarily "real". I have learned to pay attention to all my senses and feelings to be truly present.
Since using this theme (and the others), I find myself less anxious in general, and I think I am sleeping better as a result. As I mentioned in class, I used the Body Scan during an MRI to help me cope with claustrophobia. Paying attention to my senses and feelings takes me out of my head and into the present moment. Sometimes I just use breathing for a few moments to get me back to myself, or to get oxygen to a headache or other body discomfort. I find that I am less reactive in general (class 2 - reacting versus responding). I also notice that my posture is greatly improved, whether sitting or standing, as I am mindful of suspending myself from a string above and putting space between my vertebrae. I am learning to embrace being non-judgmental in my practice. The tools that we have learned can and have most definitely been applied to improve my life, stress, and work.
Thank you for helping me to wake up to NOW Sylvie : )
- N.K.H.
Testimonials from the Fall 2020 MBSR Classes on Zoom
What does the MBSR program represent to you ?
The program represents a new view of what I do and how I approach things, being sure to take care of me . As educators, we are often like hamsters on a wheel. We are continually thrown tasks to complete until we are allowed off the wheel at the end of the year. With the alternative ways we have been offered to look at things, we can look at those things thoughtfully and think of what we need to prepare ourselves. That allows us to take care of ourselves first, enabling us to focus, then organize and complete tasks more efficiently.
M.B.W. December 2020.
The MBSR program represents a time to connect my mind and body. It has given me skills to reduce stress and feel healthier mentally during these trying times.
E. H. December 2020
What did you get from the class?
I have gotten so many different things from class. First, it has given me a way to connect to new people when we have so little interaction with people outside of our bubbles during the pandemic. It has also given me skills to use when I feel stress and I have also been using these skills with my students once a week to help with their stress.
E. H. December 2020.
I learned several ways to slow down my life and recenter myself.
G.G. December 2020.
In what ways might you use what you have learned in the scope of your work at Columbus City School (CCS)
I have learned a few things taking this class:
1) When I am able I would like to make yoga part of my life.
2) If I manage my mind, I manage my life.
3) If we slow down long enough we can put things and situations in their proper perspective.
4) Most things aren’t that important in the scheme of life and the world.
5) We make our own peace if we focus long enough.
6) Taking care of “self” is our first order of business. If we don’t take care of ourselves, we can take care of nothing else.
M.W. December 2020.
I have already shared my experience with several colleagues and have put a few of the of the relaxation skills into my daily life. Hopefully when students return I can share some simple things with them also.
G.G. December 2020.
Dear Sylvie, Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this class. I can’t begin to tell you how valuable it has been for me. To have attained this status in life (my age) only to realize that not only have I been doing it all wrong, but missing so much.. This experience has changed my outlook so much. Not only will I be making physical changes when I am able, but my outlook and approach to situations and how I manage them is/will be managed differently, as well. Thank you for bringing this to us. It was timely and much needed. I intend to share it where I can. I hope that you continue to share this program, particularly after winter break or in the spring. It is desperately needed.
December 2020.
MBSR Alive in person and in class (before Covid 19)
DENISON UNIVERSITY FALL 2019
“I was very excited to see Denison offer the MBSR training, which brought together a community of people committed to cultivate the skills and habits of paying attention, non-judgmentally, to what is available moment to moment.
This recent training was a powerful reminder of the usefulness of both formal sitting practices—when you set aside 20-40 min at a time to sit or move with attention to your breath, thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations—and of informal ones. Of the latter, my favorite is tuning in and using a key phrase to reframe a situation. For instance, when presented with a difficult emotion such as annoyance, discouragement, or anger—let’s say when you get an assignment, as a student, or when you are in a meeting that doesn’t go where you’d like, as a faculty or staff— MBSR teaches to notice in the body that difficulty. It will show up as a loss of energy, as a tension in the muscles, or a shortening of the breath. Naming those sensations already moves you away from your automatic feeling and thinking reactions. A key phrase opens you up to a skillful response. My favorite is: “Is there a choice here?” I love this because, instead of succumbing to a limiting view of yourself and others, you give yourself an invitation to see clearly your available agency in the moment. Sometimes the choice may be of accepting what is in front of you. Sometimes you realize there is a way of intervening with an action (e.g., moving a discussion into another direction; asking the professor a question or making a comment). Whatever the response, by becoming aware of your somatic and emotional reaction, you slow down enough to allow more creative and effective ways to engage with what’s right in front of you.
I’m leaving the MBSR program with a commitment to ask more often, in the most mundane of situations, the question: “is there a choice?” And I’ll be inviting my advisees and students to ask the same in their everyday lives. Ask it with a softened gaze and an attitude of gentle curiosity.
Mindfulness is a practice, though. We get to become more mindful because we practice being in the present moment, in many of our available moments. So, I’m excited to see where we can take this practice in our community, how we can support each other in our practice, trusting from experience that it changes our creativity, discernment, and skillful communication with ourselves and with one another. “
-A. H. Ph.D.
Why did you take the class?
“I was curious to learn about a new form of practice. I have been practicing yoga for over 25 years and have found extended, multi-week workshops of this sort very rewarding in the past. This was an opportunity to deepen my practice and to broaden my repertoire to include mindfulness meditation. I was also looking to build and strengthen a community of practice. This was an opportunity to engage co-workers in a new context, outside of our usual roles on campus.”
What did you get from the class?
“I pay more attention to detail: I approach my almost 25-year yoga practice with an increased and renewed awareness of my body; I find I have a slightly new perspective on everyday life, seeing the positive more readily and being better able to shake of the negative—or at least to put it in perspective. The class’s focus on exploring body movement and body awareness internally, with our eyes closed, allowed me to explore, to feel, and to experience embodiment in new ways. The emphasis on informal meditation thematized and allowed me to pursue more explicitly habits that I was already trying to cultivate.
I have come to know new colleague-friends and strengthened or refashioned relationships with old ones. There is an amazingly robust support network here, so much strength and wisdom, but I think its potential usually goes unrecognized. Being part of that network these past several weeks has been a wonderful gift.”
In what ways might you use what you’ve learned in the scope of your work at Denison?
“I have already used some of the tools we learned in this training in my conversations with advisees to offer them ways to reduce their stress and anxieties. I was already using very brief yoga sequences in my classes to help students get centered and ready to learn and will continue to do so. (This semester, for whatever reason, students responded even more positively than they have in the past; maybe it was because I was participating in the MBSR training.) I began thinking about ways to incorporate mindfulness into my pedagogy in other ways since engaging with the work of Becky Thompson (Teaching With Tenderness, 2017), so this experience contributes to an on-going project.”
“I took the class because I've been interested in mindfulness for many years and have cultivated my own practice for much of my life. Primarily, I have meditated, practiced yoga and engaged in contemplative movement/dance. What I'm taking away from this class that I might use in my work at Denison is that the practices we learned in MBSR are useable throughout the day. They include not only practices that require me to set aside time away from it all, but also simple things that help me bring myself back into the present moment at any time. This includes awareness of the breath, paying attention to discomfort in the body and also doing a movement that feels right to respond to that discomfort, paying attention to how grounded I am through my feet and how I'm relating to my spine by grounding in my feet and being aware of how I am suspended from my head/shoulders, walking with awareness and being conscious of walking to and from meetings rather than just thinking about the future and getting to the meeting and what will happen while there. Beyond these practical things that keep me aware of being present in any moment, I think I can integrate ideas from MBSR into the classroom. For example, I might ask my students to engage in as simple practices to help them transition from whatever/where ever they are coming from to the class I am teaching. I think paying attention to the transition from previous classes, activities, etc. might help students be fully present in the class they're in right now. Finally, I'm sure I can be more conscious within my classes, meetings, committees, and other things during my day, in terms of when it might be good to pause and come up with a way to be present again. This might be particularly helpful if we have run into something that creates anxiety (such as introducing an exam prompt, or talking about a controversial issue in the classroom). “
Warmly,
T.K. PhD