Mindfulness and Leading with the Heart

Spending time in nature can reduce stress

Life will constantly teach you lessons even when you don’t realize it. Using mindfulness on a daily basis can assist with life’s challenges and celebrations. There are many resources out there to assist with the daily practice of mindfulness. This is my humble attempt to share what helps me and what others have suggested.

How can you integrate mindfulness into your daily practice as an educator? Here are 5 suggestions:

  1. Take a daily temperature of your mindfulness. If you use a scale (like 1-5) how would you rate your day? A follow up question to that would be ‘what would have made it higher?’ Be sure to do this in a non-judgmental manner. This activity is designed to help you track days to maybe identify trends. For instance, if Mondays are always tough, this could give you an opportunity to focus on being pro-active when Monday rolls around.
  2. Daily gratitude list. Either in the morning or the evening be sure to identify at least 5 things you are grateful for. This could be a simple thing like sunshine or more specific. It’s your list so you can write whatever you want.
  3. Use your heart. It is very important to exercise and get your heart pumping. Another activity to get your heart going is meditate on your heart. Are there people in your life that you want to send love to? These people could be family members or friends, and it could even be people you disagree with. Send love for healing!
  4. Get out of your head. Thinking, over-analyzing and catastrophic thinking (thinking the worst case scenario) will not get you very far. If you find yourself in your head try to do something to get grounded. Grounding activities include working out, meditating, cleaning, listening to music or even talking with a trusted friend. Whatever “story” you are telling yourself has to be let go. Maybe just changing your perspective on the story could help. Tell yourself that whatever you are worrying about as already happened. Whatever the outcome it is important to remember, you can not control it. You can only control your reaction.
  5. Stop judging yourself. We can be the toughest critics on ourselves. This doesn’t help our mindfulness practice. You have to forgive yourself for mistakes, accept how you look, and send yourself love. Similar to number 3 (send live from the heart) it is imperative to send love to yourself.

Do you have any mindfulness activities? Be sure to comment and share your ideas.

Spike Cook, Ed.D., Principal, Lakeside Middle School, Millville, NJ. In addition to being a Principal, Dr. Cook published two books through Corwin Press (Connected Leadership:It’s Just a Click Away; Breaking Out of Isolation: Becoming a Connected School Leader). He is the co-host of the popular PrincipaPLN podcast and his blog, Insights Into Learning, was recognized as a finalist for Best Administrator Blog by the EduBlog Awards. Spike earned his Doctorate from Rowan University and is featured in their Alumni Spotlight. Connect with @drspikecook via Twitter.