Aug
29
Mindfulness Series: Breathing and a Beginner’s Mind
Image courtesy of Pixabay
While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.
Angela Schwindt
Possibly the most important self-discovery I’ve made since teaching young people about the mindbody connection, is that they are teaching me just as I am teaching them. Each class, each group of children, and each individual child has taught me something new about myself.
I’ve discovered that a need for control comes from my own fears, however by taking a beginner’s mind and learning from the kids that I meet, I am letting go of this control step by step.
A beginner’s mind is considered one of the foundations of mindfulness practice, or one of the seven attitudes we can and should bring to our practice. It might be explained as being curious and open to the richness of the present moment experience as if you were experiencing it for the very first time. Babies and young children react with curiosity when they experience something for the first time. They have an inquisitiveness, an openness, that older children and adults have forgotten.
Everything changes, no moment is the same as the last or the next, but our minds, our thinking, and our beliefs, can prevent us from seeing things as they really are. Taking a curious beginner’s mind to each moment can reveal new insights that can allow us to react or behave in a different, possibly better, and certainly kinder way.
I took this approach as I recently stood before a large group of students on the first morning of their Year 12 induction. So here I am, an external guest speaker talking to over 100, 16-17 year olds, on their first day back at school after the long summer holidays, first up on their three day induction. I absolutely had pre-conceived notions (fears) of how they would react to my talk on using mindfulness to manage stress, which included, they’d get bored, most wouldn’t do the three mindfulness activities I built into the presentation, and they’d be glad to see the back of me when I was done.
All of these fears were rocked as I stood before this attentive gathering of teenagers.
They were attentive from the get go, with everyone of them participating in the guided meditations, as well as many of the teachers. Quickly I knew I had to chuck out my fears. I breathed, and I bought forward my beginner’s mind as I talked to them about pausing, breathing and noticing. I was curious about their attentiveness and engagement. I looked into many eyes whilst scanning the room and saw a presence in them too, they were sponges taking in the experience of their present moment. A beginner’s mind helped me to overcome my fears and attitudes and allowed me to really experience the richness of each moment with these wonderful young people, to simply accept them and how they engaged with me, in an open and kind way.
Breathe like you’ve never noticed it before
Taking notice of our breathing and the quality of our breath at any moment is central to mindfulness practice. We talk about right from the outset, with stories and exercises where the children focus their attention on breathing. “Our breath is always with us,” we tell them, “you can’t leave it behind, you can’t drop it, and nobody can take it away from you.” Simple right, except that I’ve noticed that some children breathe with short shallow breaths, like a lot of adults do, rather than belly breathing.
For adults deep breathing can be quite unfamiliar as many of us are shallow, chest breathers. That is, we tend to take short shallow breaths and we often breathe with our mouth rather than through the nose. Shallow chest breathing only uses about a third of our lung capacity and doesn’t support relaxation or bring calmness to our physical or psychological self. Actually this type of breathing is believed to accentuate stress, anxiousness and the ‘fight or flight’ state. Shallow breathing can lead to hyperventilation or over breathing, and causes dizziness and even fainting as the blood vessels going to the brain contract resulting in less oxygen flowing to the brain. Chest breathing simply requires more work, which in turn requires more oxygen resulting in shorter shallow breaths. The heart also has to work harder to get enough blood to the lungs.
Time for a deep breath!
Changing our breathing patterns to belly breathing or what is known as diaphragmatic breathing, can trigger a relaxation response, and is a means to turn off the ‘fight or flight’ state, which in turn alters our emotional state. Belly breathing also supports physiological changes that benefit the brain, muscles, organs and the whole body right down to the cellular level. The abdominal organs are supported as they are gently massaged by compression in the diaphragm, leading to improved circulation.
Babies and very young children breath like this, however as they grow some children become chest breathers and after a time may forget how to calm themselves. As I guide children in the mindfulness exercises to breathe into their belly are they really able to? Using a beginners mind and taking notice of each child’s breathing whilst in these exercises I can see if they are breathing only as far as their chest or deeper into the belly. While my observations can help guide them, what is more important is what they notice themselves about their own breath.
To do this we can guide them to observe their breathing and the quality of their breath. “Is it smooth or choppy? Is it short or long? Is the in breath shorter than the out breath? Where do you feel your breath, in your chest or your belly, or perhaps at the tip of your nose?”
Practicing these techniques early-on children learn to observe the quality of their breath and this is especially helpful when they are having difficulties. For instance, if they are angry, sad, or anxious, they can pause and notice what their breathing is like when they feel this way. We are asking them to use a beginner’s mind, a moment to moment awareness of the quality of their breathing and to notice and be curious about how their emotions, thoughts and feelings are affecting the flow of their breath. Over time the breathing and observation will lead to deeper breaths as they seek out a desire to respond to any difficulties in a measured and calm way.
The next post in this Series on mindfulness for children and teens will introduce breathing tools and techniques for all age groups. Some tips you can try at home.
Interested in Mindfulness courses for your child or teens? I have courses scheduled through Hong Kong starting in mid September. Course details can be found on the website here.
