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

Closing the year

I am so very grateful to all the leaders I have worked with this year, from whom I have learned so much.

As we start to move toward the summer our thoughts may 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, hope and optimism.  

We will also want to learn from the year and in order to do that we need to be kind to ourselves as we reflect. We know as teachers that learning happens when we feel nurtured and supported. This year we may have done things we are not proud of, or had conversations we wish we could go back and have again. Allowing ourselves to feel regret, guilt or sadness is the catalyst for wisdom enabling us to accept what happened and be more likely to do things differently next time.

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 can understand it more clearly and perhaps fear less? Can we give ourselves space to lean into that which was good so we feel a deeper sense of our achievements?

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 these thoughts, feelings and tendencies arise we name them - frustration is here, sorrow is here, exhaustion is here, joy and appreciation is here. gratitude is here.

This is skilful practice because it helps us to remember the year with greater clarity, without clinging to feelings or stories we may have told ourselves about a particular incident or event. It helps see the year through the clear lens of ‘simply knowing’ without the drama we may have built up around it.

Below is a practice to take you through three simple steps to try. It’s an invitation to turn toward the school year that’s almost over, stay open to all it reveals and acknowledge our own extraordinary leadership.

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 also.

Step three: Be kind

Practice self kindness and wish yourself well. Be your own best friend, your inner coach - ‘you did a good job’, ‘you did the best you could – no one could have expected more’, ‘in that moment you dd what you felt was right’. 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 your team, or guide a similar practice with them?