Transcript: 

Welcome back. I am thrilled to tell you that I am enrolled currently in a two year mindfulness and meditation teacher program. And the teachers are just very, very well known. If you, uh, follow go gurus in the meditation mindfulness realm, maybe you’ve heard of these people. They’ve written books and they’ve taught many, many, many classes and courses. Their names are Tara Brach and Jack Cornfield. Maybe you even are enrolled in this program or have been in the past or are applying for it. I have just started, so I’m just in the second month of the program, and next year I will have the opportunity to do a practicum where I host classes and teach meditation and guide students in meditation and not necessarily kids. Uh, these are, could be adults as well. And I feel like this time of year is really, really challenging for teachers and that’s why this episode is a guided meditation for teachers right now at the end of the year, and hopefully it will help you.

This guided meditation is actually called Dropping the Suitcases of Worries and Regrets because at the end of the year, I think that a lot of teachers, myself included, feel like they didn’t do enough for their students or their students didn’t grow enough, or they didn’t help particular students enough, not enough. And I wanna help you through this guided meditation to maybe drop that and go through a process of calming your nervous system and your mind. And I also wanna recommend my favorite app. I have used many, many apps to meditate, and the one that I’ve landed on, and that I still use pretty regularly is called Insight Timer. And it’s not just an app with guided meditations. There are timers with like singing bowls that the bullet, it chimes when your meditation starts and it chimes when it ends. There are courses on there, there’s instrumental music that’s just absolutely beautiful and always it surfaces.

When I listen to instrumental music it surfaces my emotions very easily, and I’m a pretty sensitive person though, so I can get emotional pretty easily. But if you would like to participate in this guided meditation right now, you shouldn’t be driving or doing the dishes or any of that. I mean, you’re free and welcome to listen and, and just listen and not really participate fully, but to get the full experience. I do recommend that you listen to this in a place that’s quiet and relaxing and where there won’t be distractions or where you won’t have to worry about someone you know coming in and interrupting you. Maybe you could tell the people that are living with you or around that you don’t want to be interrupted for the next maybe 10, 15 minutes. Welcome to the Empower Students Now podcast. A podcast about equity, neurodiversity, mindfulness, and student engagement. There’s a lot that needs to change in our education system. The good news is teachers have the power to make these changes. Now, okay, so this is good practice for me as a meditation teacher, and this is going to hopefully be helpful for you. So we’re gonna go ahead and get started

To help you reduce anxiety, start by taking a moment to find a comfortable place. This can either be sitting upright with your feet flat on the floor, or sitting flat or laying flat on a bed or a yoga mat, or even in a hammock. That sounds nice. Just make sure that you have a comfortable place where you feel relaxed. And I want you to start by taking a moment to relax your body. Soften any unnecessary tension that you might feel in your belly or your shoulders or your neck. Act. Find a position that feels both relaxed and alert. Now, if you’re comfortable, close your eyes if they aren’t already closed, or you could look downwards and rest your hands in an easy, effortless way. Take a few moments to scan your awareness through the sensations of your body and wherever possible, soften and release obvious areas of physical tension. But don’t worry too much if it still feels painful in certain areas. Try to draw attention to places in your body that are already relaxed and softened. Aware of your body, your body breathing, your chest rising and falling with each breath. You might take a few deep breaths right now in through the nose and out through the mouth.

You might even let out a sigh. Now, imagine standing in the street outside of your home or your apartment with two heavy suitcases, and know that one of those suitcases is full of worries and stress and overwhelm and feeling like you didn’t do enough. And the other suitcase might be full of worries about the future, worries about your job next year, or how your students are gonna do in their classes and with the teachers coming up. Take a moment. You’re standing in the street holding these two heavy suitcases of worry and overwhelm and feeling like you’re not enough and reflect about each one, reflect about the future…

It will come on its own accord whenever it comes, and most of what we worry about will never happen.

Now, standing in the street with the other heavy suitcase reflect about the past. Consider how the past can’t be changed. All we can do in the present is to learn from it. Put in whatever corrections, make sense, become more skillful, become a better person, and move on.

Standing there in the street, feeling the weight, the heaviness, the burden of these two suitcases and absorbing the wisdom of your own reflections. Right now, make a conscious decision. Do you want to drop the suitcase of worry about the future? If so, simply drop it. Simply drop it. You might even take a sigh, a big breath of relief. It’s gone. Then standing there in the street with the other suit, cat case so heavy about the past and what you didn’t do and how you’re not enough and you didn’t do enough for your students. Make a conscious dec decision right now. Do you want to drop it? If so, just drop it. Drop it right now, and as soon as you’ve dropped the two heavy, burdensome suitcases, walk into your home

And take your seat where you are now. Plop down, so relaxed like someone coming home from a long, long journey, dropping suitcases and just finally relaxing. Resting right now in the present, just breathing. Resting in the natural well-being of the parasympathetic nervous system, resting in the fundamental well-being of awareness itself, awareness of your body and your mind. Of course, you’ll never get rid of those thoughts, but you can redirect those thoughts to right now, the relaxing breaths that you’re taking in and out. Allow yourself to simply rest, feeling a sense of peace, of lightness, of joy, of well-being, a natural happiness, always your true home without caring heavy suitcases of worry about the future or full of regrets about the past. Simply rest here in your body right now with total relaxation throughout your entire body and mind. If you have time, I recommend sitting in silence and stillness right now. You can stop this meditation at any time and just rest in the present, in the awareness that you are enough and that you have everything you need right here, right now. Thank you so much for participating in this guided meditation. If you enjoyed it, I would love to hear from you. You can visit my website, Amanda, right now.com. Look for this episode and leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you. Bye.