Reconnecting with My Roots

August 2020. I awoke each day from a sleepless night with a nauseated feeling in my stomach. Most years, I use July to decompress and recharge; August is for some light planning that would help me get the school year off to a good start. But not last year. Summer of 2020 was all about keeping the panic monster at bay. Would my elementary-school aged children be in school full time? Would I be teaching in a hybrid or remote setting? And since neither of those were familiar to me (I didn’t count the spring 2020 emergency remote teaching experience), what would that even look like?

Each time I thought about any of those questions, my head started spinning and my heart started pounding.

When I was in my twenties, I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. Since that time, I have done a pretty good job of managing it. One of my main coping strategies is planning. I have learned not to get too carried away with the minutiae, but I feel less anxious—especially in August—when I can do small things to make sure my back-to-school nightmares do not become reality. (Those are very real, by the way. My school anxiety dreams ALWAYS involve me being unprepared for something, especially starting a new class or school year.) But I couldn’t do that last year because none of my questions were being answered. And I couldn’t plan for what I didn’t know.

There was only one thing I could do: practice mindfulness. So I restarted my daily mindfulness practice, committing to at least 10 minutes each day, every day. Doing this grounded me in my intention of being present. Each time an anxious thought about what the school year would look like entered my consciousness, I would take a deep breath and release it. (Well, that’s what I intended to do. Sometimes it felt like playing whack-a-mole. Especially when I talked to other people. So I also tried to avoid other people.) It wasn’t perfect, but the practice got me through the summer and the school year.

August 2021. All school year, I visualized the glory of summer 2021. Me at the beach, alone with my books. Extra yoga classes. Knowledge about what the school year would look like for both me and my children. Feeling safe because of that knowledge.

It’s now August, and none of those dreams have really come true. (I did go on vacation, and it was amazing, but it was not nearly enough to release the trauma from last year.) I am reading and going to yoga, but it doesn’t feel as relaxing as it used to. Probably because life is still not like it used to be—and who knows if it ever will be? I have hopes for a more normal school year, but COVID continues to throw curveballs, so I cannot count on those coming to fruition.

What can I count on? Mindfulness. I felt so much anxiety in my body the other day that all I could do was feel it. And that reminded me that just feeling my anxiety is probably the best thing I can do to work through it. Because I can’t really plan or know or force COVID to be over. But I can breathe. And I can feel. And I can help others give this gift to themselves and their students.

I have been teaching my students mindfulness for about five years, and this is repeatedly what they express gratitude for: Just the fact that I would care enough about their mental health to devote a few precious minutes of our class time to mindfulness instruction kind of astounds them. And this astounds me because it doesn’t feel like much—it’s just a few minutes, after all. But these few minutes help fertilize the classroom soil so that the seeds of trust and connection can take root and grow strong. A time investment that pays off again and again.

And the truth is, in spite of everything that happened last year, I had a pretty great school year. Somehow my students and I created a space that felt safe when everything outside was really freaking scary. Would this have been possible without mindfulness? Maybe. But I’m not going to test that theory by teaching without it this year.

So for the foreseeable future, I am going to post about mindfulness and teaching ELA and pointless grading—because that is all part of who I am as a teacher. I encourage you to treat this variety like a buffet. Take what you want, leave the rest, maybe try something new. Unlike a buffet, you won’t have to worry about other people’s germs or the food going bad: everything will be here, whenever you become hungry for it.