A note before we start.

If you are new to this mailing list - welcome! You can find past editions of these e-letters on the Practical Guidance page of the website including how to savour joy, be kind to yourself and find resilience in the world of school leadership. But for now, let’s turn to today, and the year we have just had…

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.
Now is the time to understand more so that we may fear less.

Marie Curie

Turning towards this past year.

Here in the UK we are entering the last few weeks of the most extraordinary school year we have ever known. A year when we have experienced anxiety, fear and loss and led colleagues experiencing similar, with extraordinary bravery. 

In her recent blog and a short video for Empowering Leadership Rachael Horne, Headteacher of Mount Street Academy talks about how Mindfulness practices have changed her relationship to fear this year. She has cultivated the skills to come up close to fear and explore it with curiosity and with kindness - she has found her inner courage. 

As we start to move toward the summer our thoughts will naturally turn to how we might bring a sense of ‘closure’ to this year. As we talk to our teams and staff members and have our ‘final meetings of the year’, we will want to offer words of thanks, encouragement, condolence, hope and optimism.  

Do we now have the courage to turn and face the year we have just experienced? Can we contemplate it in such a way that we understand it and ourselves more, and so fear less?

How Mindfulness can help.

In Mindfulness we learn to sit with our experience as fully as we can and allow whatever is here to arise. When life throws us the unexpected we can give ourselves the permission to slow down and turn towards these complex feelings, and be with them long enough to understand them fully.

Mindfulness teaches us that more we can meet our experience of this year with presence, self compassion and kindness the easier it will be to move through - and indeed beyond it.

This is not the same as a ‘review of the year’, it goes much deeper than that. Mindfulness helps us to contemplate the year -

• Without judgement – it was as it was.

• Without over analysis – this is the reality as I experienced it.

• Without getting caught into how things should have been – if only…

• Noticing any tendencies to blame, justify and defend our actions – yes but…

• Without filtering our experience through how I think I should have been.

• Noticing and savouring gratitude, joy, generosity and hope - this gladdened my heart.

• Noticing tendencies to underestimate our own amazingly heroic leadership – I was only doing my job.

As they arise we name them - frustration is here, sorrow is here, exhaustion is here, joy and appreciation is here. Below is a practice to take you through three simple steps to try. A chance to turn toward the year, be open to all it reveals and acknowledge our own extraordinary leadership.

A note on this practices. These are very simply an opportunity for you to try a practice and see what happens without expectation. Self judgment and doubt may arise in thoughts such as “am I doing this right?” or “I am not sure this is for me”. Notice these thoughts and, as best you can, be curious, be kind to yourself and let them go!

Be still, let be, be kind.

Step One: Be still

Sit for a moment in stillness, ground yourself and allow yourself to roam back over the year, noticing the images that come to mind, the thoughts and feelings that arise.

You may want to have the voice recorder open on your phone so you can name what arises.  Sit for slightly longer than might feel comfortable and see what comes up.

Step two: Let be.

Notice what hooks you, as the narrative analytical mind takes over. Notice any thoughts of self judgment, feelings of anger, frustration – name what’s here, acknowledge it and let it go.

Equally acknowledge feelings of gratitude, pride and appreciative joy – name them and let them go.

Step three: Be kind

Practice self kindness and wish yourself well. Be your own best friend - ‘you did a good job’, ‘you did the best you could – no one could have expected more’, ‘you kept everyone safe’. Choose phrases that embody self kindness and compassion, savour them, feel them in the body and pause, sit and let them drop deeply into your sense of self.

One of the greatest gifts we can give to ourselves and our staff this term is the time to recognise the experience we have had. Acknowledge the common humanity we share, the joy in coming to end the of this school year mourning our losses, being thankful for our strengths and appreciating still being together.

Perhaps if you try this exercise you might then share the insights you had, and how it made you feel with the staff, or guide a similar practice with them? 

If you have time to go further now, check out Rachael’s short blog on how Mindfulness has impacted her experience of fear and helped her fall back in love with work.

And remember…

Want to develop your leadership practice further?

Ease into the summer with the Summer Series, free, online, drop-in sessions designed to restore and renew you this summer term. A unique opportunity to spend a few hours cultivating resilience and composure in your leadership whilst helping you to fully ‘let go’ during the summer holiday. 

You can attend one or multiple sessions, the next session takes place Monday 21st June, 4pm. Find out more and sign up by clicking below.

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Maggie
maggie@maggiefarrar.co.uk