“When everything around you is crazy,
it is ingenious to stay calm.”
Mehmet Murat Ildan
Turkish poet and playwright

How to cultivate calm

In many of the workshops I facilitate, when teachers and leaders find a mindfulness practice of particular benefit they immediately begin to discuss how they might use the practice with children. Teaching mindfulness to children is complex, and training is required, offered by the excellent Mindfulness in Schools Programme.

However, even if we are not formally teaching mindfulness to children, we can model it. We can embody being present and calm and this will have an impact on the children, and those we meet in our daily work and life.

A recent tweet of a short video by Dr Jean Clinton explored the simple act of ‘lending the children our calm’. She notes that if we want to reach out to children and young people who are anxious, our first step is to check our own wellbeing and give ourselves small doses of calm. She poses the question, ‘how can we lend our calm to students if we are not calm ourselves?’

 ‘Lending our calm’ to others was a core practice of Thich Naht Hahn the internationally revered Zen Buddhist monk and peace campaigner who brought mindfulness to the west and died this week at the age of 95. He supported the many refugees who left Vietnam in boats in the late 1970s.

He knew the power of calm when in the midst of fear and anxiety observing; ‘when the crowded Vietnamese refugee boats met with storms or pirates, if everyone panicked all would be lost. But if one person on the boat remained calm, and centred, it was enough. It showed the way for everyone to survive.’

So why not cultivate small doses of calm for yourself? Why not practice offering the children and those you work with your own gift of calm?

How Mindfulness can help.

Mindfulness helps us to stay focused on what we are doing, right here in this moment. This is a powerful antidote to the wandering mind, the many distractions the world throws our way and the sudden disturbances that threaten to throw us off course.

When practiced regularly, it gradually strengthens our ability to be calm, handle stress, and stay balanced and secure even in the most uncertain of times. And it all starts with the breath.

In his book ‘Breath; The New Science of a Lost Art’ James Nestor says ‘there is nothing more essential to our health and wellbeing than breathing.’ We breathe in and out around 25,000 times a day, and every breath has an impact on our anxiety levels, blood pressure, and heart rate. The out breath in particular has a direct impact on our ability to cultivate calm and ease. So why not use some of our 25,000 daily breaths to cultivate this?

Use your breath to find calm at times of anxiety or overwhelm

Take a few intentional deep in and out breaths;
Notice where you feel the breath most vividly – in the nostrils, the back of the throat or the belly;
Use this point as an anchor for your attention;
Try gently noting ‘breathing in -  breathing out’ as your breath finds its’ natural rhythm;
As your mind wanders (which it will) notice that you have become 'lost in thought' and bring it back to the present moment;
Try naming the thoughts; planning, being self-critical , worrying.
As best you can, let these thoughts go and come back to the breath again.

Use your breath to release tension

Take a few intentional deep in and out breaths;
Once the breath has settled into a steady rhythm take slightly longer out breaths;
On each out breathe quickly scan those areas where you know you hold tension – maybe your jaw, your shoulders, your belly or hands are clenched;
As you breathe out gently allow any tension to soften, perhaps noticing a slight tingling in these areas as you do so.

Use your breath to cultivate a micro pause

Take a few intentional, deep in and out breaths;
Once the breath has settled into a steady rhythm bring your attention to the small pause between the out breath and the in breath;
Perhaps visualise a small cushion there, where you can simply sit in a micro moment of complete stillness;
Say to yourself ‘nothing to do, nowhere to go’, until the next breath comes around.

These practices might sound easy to do – it’s remembering to do them that’s hard! Why not find a regular time in each day where you remind yourself to breathe and cultivate a little calm?

• Before getting out of the car in the morning – sit, breathe, note your intentions for the day, experience a moment of calm. Then enter the building;

• Before switching the car on at the end of the day – sit, breathe, note what you feel grateful for in the school day that is almost over. Then set off;

• Get to assembly a few minutes earlier and stand, breathe, become still and ready to embody calm as the children arrive;

• Take five minutes before the class are due to arrive or the meeting is due to start and resist the impulse to complete another quick task. Instead stand or sit and breathe. Allow yourself to become calm. Then greet the children, or your colleagues.

If you have time to go a little further here is the lovely voice of Thich Naht Hahn guiding a breathing practice for greater calm and ease.