As I mentioned before, I’m spending this spring learning about the work of my uber-cool colleagues at AUNE. Since it’s January- and January is all about resolutions and starting fresh and that sort of thing- I decided to start with the idea of self-renewal and managing stress better. That led me to two books that I’m loving:
The Mindful Child from Susan Kaiser Greenland (recommended by Susan Dreyer Leon) and
Finding Your Self by Torin Finser.
These two books? Not obvious in their overlap. In fact, I intended to read The Mindful Child first and started it at work but left it on my desk and had Finding You Self at home, so I tossed it in my bag to look over while waiting for my daughter to finish at ballet.
The key idea I’ve taken from both is this: there’s something to be said for non-judgemental observation, for making space for breath and silence, and for uncovering and recovering the “self” that we all learn to cover up during our time in the world.
I have more to say, but it’s going to take me a while to get there. For right now, let me leave you with this from Torin:
Silence is not just to the pushing aside of external stimuli; it can also be cultivated in the small in-between times of life. Even a very small space, such as the interval between two notes, is a moment that can be magical. Life is very full of in-between moments: riding on an elevator, waiting for a phone call to go through, listening for the thunder after a lightning flash – they are all pregnant opportunities. The spiritual question is: “What do we do with these in between moments?” Do we simply rush through them, growing inpatient, try to fill them with mufti tasking? Or can we be more like the human heart, which actually arrest the movement of blood for the slightest moment, a time in which much can happen to further human consciousness. If we can expand those small moments of silence in daily life, we can open up opportunities for something else to enter, something that might be pure spiritual content. (Finding Your Self, Finser, 2013)
I’m looking forward to exploring more ways of expanding those small moments of silence in my life. I hope you’ll join me again as I dig a little deeper!
The Critical Skills Classroom 