I often wonder if we as living, breathing, and communicating human beings are aware that sometimes, it is okay to not to be okay. Every day may seem repetitive in a sense, but each of our individually different days consist of different emotions, situations, and outcomes that can either have a positive or negative affect on each of us. My ultimate goal in promoting #MindfulLearning is to create a protective and open atmosphere by using this post and future blog posts to acknowledge my everyday thoughts and feelings about being a young woman who is currently a full-time master’s student and a part time teacher with two other jobs outside of school.
When you are practicing being #Mindful that means you are making yourself aware of your thoughts, emotions, and how you are feeling mentally and physically. I am #mindful that I am an emotional and sensitive individual. I cry a lot; I get overly upset at small things when I am under a lot of stress and pressure. Most of the time, I get so overwhelmed to the point where I shut down and shut everyone out. On top of my crippling anxiety and chronic depression, I am a Black woman that is constantly reminded that I do not look black, so I must be mixed. I am a black woman so I must have at least two children by now. I am a black woman so I must be insane. I am a black woman, therefore anything and everything I do or say matters ten times more than the next race because Black women are heavily stereotyped to be angry, poor, miserable, loud, uneducated, aggressive, unapproachable, and or “ghetto”. I constantly have to fight the stereotype placed upon me and be #mindful of how I may be perceived ultimately for the comfortability of others.
Gendron (2019) developed a mindfulness program referred to as Acceptance Commitment Training (ACT) in effort to develop students’ emotional competencies. Rather than teaching individuals to control their thoughts and feelings, the ACT promotes individuals to observe, accept, and embrace their feelings and emotions (especially the ones we do not want to talk about). Implementing this training can promote better “self-esteem, self-knowledge, and relation with others as empathy or conflict management”(Gendrom, 2019). I am teaching myself how to unlearn this practice of shrinking myself and my personality to make other people fit when they never belonged in the first place. I am ready to learn how to accept myself and be accepted while being my true authentic self, including all of the emotion, stress, and sometimes negative thoughts that can come with being me, without judgement. The Acceptance and Commitment training can help us all learn how to cope and fight through our painful thoughts, emotions, memories, and perceptions in order to reach our goals and concentrate on what is most important by using six processes: cognitive diffusion, acceptance, contact with the present moment, observing the self, values, and committed action (Gendrom, 2019).
In the cognitive diffusion process, we will be #learning how to reduce our natural tendency to conceptualize thoughts, images, emotions, and memories. During the acceptance process we will be #learning how to not struggle with our thoughts by allowing them to come but also allowing them to go. When #learning how to stay in contact with the present moment, we will concentrate on the here and now, not yesterday or tomorrow but right now. In the process of observing the self, we will be #learning our values and what is most important to our true selves and in the process of committed action we will be #learning how to set our goals in alignment to what we value the most and responsibly carrying out those goals (Gendrom, 2019).
In order to teach #MindfulLearning to our students, we must first engage and practice learning about ourselves and be comfortable in verbalizing who we are and how we feel.
If you are open to growing and being venerable with me, I would like to invite you to engage with me in the therapeutic technique of #MindfulLearning. I look forward to learning with you and learning more about you.
Mindfully,
Chrissy Stephenson
Source:
Gendron, B. (2019). Emotional Capital, Positive Psychology, and Active Learning and Mindful Teaching. New Directions for Teaching & Learning, 2019 (160), 63–76. https://doi-org.libproxy.library.unt.edu/10.1002/tl.20365
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