This week focuses on the need to seek out periods during the day for quiet and reflection; especially in uncertain times where one’s thoughts can create stress and anxiety. Students will explore the idea of “paying attention to things in a different way” and how they can shift their daily experience by creating a space between stimulus and response. This week teaches focus/mindfulness and visualization in a simple and accessible way.
Watch the video introduction and lesson by David Levine, Director of the Teaching Empathy Institute.
Listen to the song, A Quiet Place.
After listening to A Quiet Place, I want you to go on a search for two quiet places where you live – one inside and one outside. A quiet place is where you can sit or stand quietly, breathing slowly and listening to all the sounds you can hear. I had one student tell me his outside quiet place was a chair on his porch where he liked to sit at night and look at the stars, and his bedroom was his inside quiet place.
Once you have discovered your “quiet places”, choose one and describe it in one of the following ways:
Tomorrow we will focus how to get “quiet” when you are in your quiet place.
Download: A Quiet Place lyrics
Today I want you to please listen to my recorded words. I call these words a visualization. Get into a comfortable position and follow my instructions.
After listening, write down what it was like to go through the visualization.
You can listen to this visualization at the end of your day of classes, at night before bed, or any other time that you feel the need to get “quiet”.
Yesterday I had you go through what is known as a visualization, (using your imagination to quiet your thoughts and feel relaxed). When I go through this visualization, I sit in my quiet place and I breathe slowly and quietly. Whenever I do this, I feel relaxed and peaceful. Did you write down similar feelings yesterday?
Sometimes you can’t go to your quiet place when you want to. When this happens, you can find a place to sit or lie down and imagine you are in your quiet place. This is called doing your own visualization.
I want you to listen to the recording of A Quiet Place and as you listen, close your eyes and imagine you are in your quiet place (inside or outside).
How did that go? If you were able to imagine you were in your place, that is called doing “creative visualization”. We will learn more about this next week.
Until then, take care and have a relaxed week.