Mindful Listening – crash course

January 14, 2020 by talkingnow Leave a comment

This post features highlights of the week in Class Relax meditation lessons including a crash course in mindful listening, being given the chance to experience someone else’s attention and then offering it, and a little story about Judih’s beloved mom.

♥Morning Meditation Class Relax

My Class Relax weekly schedule includes short morning meditation sessions to focus the mind and body using the breath. For these sessions, I need to be very clear of my own presence and the task I wish to share. As teachers of mindfulness know, the teacher bears the message far more clearly than the words used.

Listening was the key this week – starting with the invitation to listen to the Singing Bowl and spreading to sense the body with that same sense of undivided attention.  We then move on to attention to the body during breathing and we direct ourselves to clean out unwanted thoughts or debris with a huge out breath and then replenishing ourselves with energy with a full inhalation. This we do 3 times in order to realign the mind and body into a clean state, ready for what may come. We shake out the body, stretching and offering ourselves a warm hug “There’s nobody like me!” – and with the caveat to apply that warm loving embrace as needed (whether actual or imagined).

♥Full Class Relax Mindfulness Lessons

With Special Ed classes, I work in the homeroom with the homeroom teacher present. I offer the singing bowl introduction in order to bring the pupils to inner stillness, enough to allow them to check their current state of being – from the most obvious physical sensations such as heat or cold, or muscle aches or itches. Then we shift to any obvious thoughts or feelings. I ask for a show of hands to indicate who feels tired, energetic, interested or bored, and then I adapt my methods accordingly. Sometimes I use artwork on the board, sometimes  drama, or interactive guessing games.

This week’s theme was Mindful Listening and I offered a personal story about my beloved mother and my discovery of what was stored inside her kitchen closet. I like to share and often pupils are eager to know hidden bits about my life. (But I activate their interest in order to see who’s with me while I’m relating my tale). This time, I took a few detours to make sure they knew what I was talking about. For example: “I went to visit my parents in Toronto, Canada and I couldn’t sleep. Do you know what jet lag is?” There’s always someone who can answer such a question, and if not, everyone gets to learn what it is.

I told a version of the story you can find in this post (August 3rd, 2014), and added some mime and sound effects (the sound of my parents’ creaking stairs). At the end, I asked:

1.Who was able to listen to the whole thing?

2. Who found themselves thinking thoughts while listening?
3. Who didn’t listen?

To my surprise almost 99% of pupils were able to hold attention till the end.

Why was that? I asked them. They responded: ‘It was interesting.’ It made me curious.’ ‘I was waiting for a twist at the end.’ ‘I wondered what the house looked like.’ ‘I wondered what was inside the kitchen cupboard.’

Ah,ha! I said – you were curious to know more. Very interesting. Maybe we can use that while we’re listening to something else.

The Task

Now, the task is this: in couples one will tell a story and the other will listen, without speaking. The topic will be either: something that happened this week that got you angry, or something that happened that surprised you.

I counted off the couples: 1,2   —- 1, 2—-

The ‘1s’ will begin and tell the 2s the story. 2s, remember not to speak, only to listen.

After a minute, I will give the signal for you to exchange roles.

This was the interesting part – the kids told their stories while their partners listened. Mostly there was silent listening and a few kids really got frustrated when they hadn’t finished their story when the gong rang out. But they switched.
Each class that underwent the exercise – first listening to me, then listening to a partner got a chance to experience listening and being listened to.

We shared a few observations. Only one pupil out of over 100 stated that being listened to was a regular experience. One only. The others commented how good it felt to be receiving that attention.

In most of the classes we went on to discuss how to use listening skills in class when a teacher or a subject wasn’t terribly interesting. This topic, we’ll pursue next week.