Practices from the book

This exercise is an excellent way to ground and stabilize your attention whenever you’re getting overwhelmed, upset, or anxious. It involves taking your attention away from your head, which is where the mind often creates the stories that cause such big emotions, to the place farthest from it— the bottom of your feet.

Self-compassion practices make use of loving-kindness phrases to support positive self-talk and better our moods. Research shows that loving-kindness meditations are dose-dependent: The more you do, the more powerful the effects. The phrases may feel clumsy or awkward the first few times you use them. However, keep at it because the more you integrate these phrases into your body and heart, the more likely you’ll be able to fall back on them when you are most challenged.

In this exercise, you’ll practice offering loving-kindness to someone in your life whom you hold dear and then expand this same goodwill to yourself.

I want to offer what is perhaps my favourite mindful self-compassion practice because it helps us use our breath to offer loving-kindness to the world. To extend compassion to others, we have to fill ourselves up first. We must inhale compassion, love, and strength for ourselves so that we can then exhale support and care for those around us. I hope you enjoy this meditation. It is a powerful practices you can use as an educator.

Experiencing difficult emotions is necessary to practice self- compassion and courage. However, we don’t need to jump into the deepest end of the pool of our dark emotions. Just wading in them—in the shallow zone—is enough to start to offer ourselves the compassion and kindness we need. We want to gradually meet our difficult emotions, not overwhelm ourselves. This is the practice of meeting difficult emotions with courage.

Whenever we settle into a mindfulness or meditation practice, our inner critic often seems louder and more pronounced. These self-critical thoughts can cause us to get on a “thought train,” and we end up leaving the platform before we realize we don’t want to travel in that direction. When we use curiosity, we can slow down and become more aware of what is going on around us and within us in the moment, allowing us to get off the train. We can then meet our critical voice with self-compassion and kindness, rather than harsh judgment. So before you get on the train, slow down, find an anchor, and enjoy this practice.

Equanimity is especially important for people in caregiving professions, like educators, because it reminds us of how little control we have over other people’s suffering, and it gives us perspective so we can meet each moment and each individual with compassion. In this exercise, you’ll practice repeating phrases that help bring greater equanimity into your life. However, please know that you can always tailor the equanimity phrases so they feel authentic for you.