Teaching made easier

Every week I ask myself five questions. I have a document where I write my answers to the questions week after week. I’ve found that this document really helps me have some good perspective on my week to week experience. The questions help me pay attention to my aha moments. They also help me let go of negative experiences more easily.  The questions I ask are the following:  What is a new idea or aha I had this week?  What were the best parts of my week? What were my biggest challenges of the week?  What did I do that was new (or that I haven’t done for a really long time)?  What are my top priorities for the week ahead?  Every Saturday I get up before my family because I take a Mandarin class. After my class, I open up my document and I start by copying what I wrote from the week before. I read what I wrote the previous week and take a moment to think about it.  Then I delete the details in the copy and write my new answers.  Here is a sample we...

Is it possible to use mindfulness techniques to interrupt my emotions? Is that a bad thing to do? I've been meditating for a year but I still find myself triggered by strong emotions.  First of all, not matter how long you have been practicing mindfulness, you are going to have strong emotions. Strong emotions are what make life wonderful and beautiful. You can not have high wonderful feelings like love without their inverse. That is to be human and is beautiful.  But, it is no fun to be trapped in negative emotions and our thinking when we are angry is not to be trusted at all. Thoughts when angry might sound correct, but they should be trusted about as much as you trust thoughts when you are very drunk, totally high or in any other very strongly altered state.  Here is what I do. I sometimes use a hand tally counter for my thoughts when I meditate. (f you don't know what a hand tally counter is, do a google image search). I will use the hand counter tally for 10 minutes...

What about thought? Have you ever tried to erase a thought or scribble over a thought?    As a teacher, I get to see this frequently. A student will write something that they decide they don’t like. Sometimes the student will try and erase what they wrote. Other times they will scribble over their old thought.  If the child tries to erase what they wrote, they often create a much bigger mess on the paper than they had before. All of the aggressive erasing ends up creating a big smudge, potentially ripping the paper and wasting an enormous amount of time.  Erasing a thought would be like trying to not think something you already thought. You might laugh reading that sentence. How can you not think something that you already thought? But, I’m sure you have said, I need to stop thinking about this at some time in your life. That is trying to erase a thought. You can’t actually do it.  Other kids prefer the scribble over technique. They will start by making a few li...

  Aha thought: When should I listen to the voice in my head? I’m sitting in my house wondering - what should I do? I don’t know what to do. This  question seems like one I really need to answer right now. I have some free time and I want to do something but I don’t know what that something is.  But do I really want to do something? Is that a question I should even be listening to? Is it bringing me forward movement, joy or peace to my life?  Meanwhile I’m stewing about a situation at work. I have student has not been doing their work for weeks and they are about to do a presentation with their group. He then proceeded to delete the work of another student and pretend it was his own.   But I know I really don’t want to spend my free time stewing about this situation. I called the parent. I restored the presentation. It really isn’t a big deal worth my attention during this afternoon of freedom.  What should I do? I want to do something.  The though...