Calm

How are you doing?  With your instructional planning, with your students, with your own personal lives?  For me, mid-October often marks a shift in my energy and I feel a bit frantic about how little is getting crossed off my to-do list.  With so much pulling at our time and energy, how do we stay calm when teenage attitude enters the equation?  

Maintaining a mindful presence is challenging when everything is going well, finding a calm space when things are hectic and behaviors border on outrageous can feel impossible.  And yet our best outcomes are waiting for us in our fully intact, calm brains.  Here are some of my tricks for keeping my prefrontal cortex in control, my limbic system untriggered, and my responses solution-focused.

• Imagine myself as a tree: solid, unmoving, roots going deep into the ground, impervious to shifting winds.
• Think of myself as clinically managing a clinical situation as opposed to having a personal interaction and thinking of it as personally about me.  
• Give myself a few minutes to process.  They can wait in another room.  The conversation that must happen will be on my time, not theirs.
• Think about the loudness of my voice and get quieter.  
• Think about firefighters, paramedics and police officers.  They get calm and quiet as a situation escalates, they don't yell and frantic.  I like to imagine myself being as professional and controlled as they are.
• Drink water.  Funny how easy it is to forget that.
• Sleep.  Another easy thing to forget
• Exercise.  Outside.  In nature. Also easy to not do.

In the interest of keeping it real, I have some other. less Zen-like mantras and habits that help me keep my calm.  What do you do?  It helps to have a plan in place before things feel frustrating.

TBRI:  This video is worth the 15 minutes.  But if you don't have 15 minutes, the last 8 minutes are especially valuable.

Video Link

Bus/Parking lot duty: Cooley and Smith

Monday 10/17:  Non Work Day

Tuesday  10/18: Kaiser out

Wednesday 10/19: Kaiser out

Thursday 10/20: Kaiser out Extended learning    

Friday 10/21: 3rd Wellness

Bus/Parking lot duty: Baker and Doering

Monday 10/24:  Non Work Day

Tuesday  10/25: 

Wednesday 10/26: Kaiser out@am

Thursday 10/27: Extended learning    

Friday 10/28: Picture Make up day, Halloween BBQ and Field day

Bus/Parking lot duty: Mazhan and Posey

Monday 10/31:  PD- Certified Staff: agenda

Tuesday  11/1: 

Wednesday 11/2:

Thursday 11/3: Extended learning    

Friday 11/4: 4th Wellness