What Happened the Day Schools across America Stopped & Practiced Mindfulness

Thanks for your insight and comments Jennifer! You are right on!

Connecting what we already practice within a mindfulness lens would have been the only way to open up this mindfulness world to me. I'm finding out that I'm not alone on this. Growing up as a runner, I enjoyed the results and benefits that running provided. However, I never knew the physiological or neurobiological factors that led to my enjoyment. Learning about mindfulness within this context made a lot of sense to me and led me to champion it to others in similar fashions. However, if you were to come into my school for the first time and begin teaching me about chanting yoga Om's, etc.- I probably would have checked out. I think it is so important for those that go into schools to remember their audience: The "consultant/mindfulness experts" are coming into their world (schools) and their present mindset (which is usually at the ground floor) v. a person already primed for mindfulness showing up at your yoga studio. It's a scaffolding process that hopefully will move practices into the creation of systems. 

Looking forward in learning with you on twitter!

Thanks for this article, Jim - I like the idea of helping people see how things they may already be doing/in the habit of doing are actually exercises in mindfulness. It helps make that bridge to something that may feel inaccessible - being 'mindful'. It can feel foreign, something other people know how to do, or just plain weird.

I often start meetings with a 'mindful moment' to help people settle in and get present, and it wasn't until someone approached me after the meeting to ask, 'what do you *do* during a mindful moment' that it occurred to me to offer simple prompts. These examples will now be folded into those prompts as something more concrete and relatable. Appreciated!! (and glad to be connected on Twitter) 

Such a great reminder!