Clearwater bay Mindfulness matters Week 4: Seeing what you want

Today we looked at their 'movie mind' and having faith in the future. The were students really engaged, interested and focused, and it was hard to stop the discussions and keep to time! 

Visualisation is a difficult skill to master but they really had a go at it including the wonderful but tricky wishing tree activity where they try and visualise a heartfelt dream/ desire and let it go, and have faith that this positive change will happen at some point in the future.

Their practice with mindfulness is really paying off, and you can feel the increase in focus, and attention. One student has already mentioned using the spaghetti test each night as when she does she gets to sleep really quickly instead of it taking and hour!

We finished the sessions off today with a great mindful movement activity. and if you'd like to try it out with your children, here it is!

Next week: Emotions and the world of thoughts

Raisin' the Bar: Paying more attention to the everyday things that we do!

This week was focused around sensory exploration, paying conscious attention to things that perhaps we take for granted.

For the students the session started off with an activity around checking out the internal 'weather forecast' of their feelings, and a discussion of how quickly the 'weather' can change. Although easy for some who were able to say for example that the weather was 'Foggy' (They felt sleepy) or 'sunny' (they felt happy and energetic), for others this was a tricky task.We had a good discussion about the idea that it was checking how you feel rather than the imagery that was important. For one group the discussion got on to the movie 'Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs 1+2' Some of the students said they could equate emotional states and mood to the food that came from the sky, or to the 'Foodimals' different moods and characters! 

All the students got the idea that their mood affected how they felt during the day, but that this mood was as changeable as the weather i.e. they were unlikely to be angry for a whole day or happy for a whole day, and it was useful to notice how they were feeling at particular points.

All four classes had a great discussion about paying attention to routine things. I asked them all whether their parents  asked them about their day when they got home? There was a unanimous raising of hands! and a pretty consistent set of stock responses that the students gave:

'So what did you do today at school?'

• 'nothing'
• 'stuff'
• 'writing'
• 'maths'
• 'break and lunchtime'
• 'I forgot'

The students really got the idea that it was hard to remember specifics about what they had done each day because it was encased in a routine framework that varied little on a daily basis. We talked about what parents could ask instead and they agreed that 'Tell me one interesting or exciting thing that you did today?' might be a question that got more information out of them!

Its interesting to think form a parental perspective what would you say if every day your children asked you 'So what did you do at work today?' How many days would you respond ' oh emails, meetings and reports' or just...'stuff'!

Illustrating our discussion around not paying attention to routine things we discussed the idea that most car accidents take place on roads familiar to a driver and close to their home. The next activity asked them to try and regard a very familiar object  as if they had never seen it before, and describe it using the senses available to them.

The student's  approached the task of trying to see, hear, smell, touch and taste a raisin as if it was the first time they had ever seen it with a lot of interest and enthusiasm! 


There was a lot of great discussion following around thinking about the food we eat more mindfully, in terms its appearance, taste, texture etc. We also talked a lot about considering the journey the food makes to be in front of us.

The students have been tasked to pick a mealtime this week and to try and eat mindfully during this meal or just for 5 minutes of the meal. I've promised them that if they do they are likely to notice new things about the taste of food they take for granted! You could join in with them if you want and have a discussion about your experiences. 

Another suggestion is to take time on a walk you do regularly to stop for 10-20 seconds to consider what you can see, hear, smell and feel.

Next week, How we deal with situations when we long for them to change: Patience and faith and letting go

For those of you who missed the parent talk last Wednesday I mentioned a number of resources that can be used to explore mindfulness outside of this program if you wanted. For adults and older teens there is the Headspace program http://www.getsomeheadspace.com/index.aspx which gives an introduction to mindfulness through 10 minute meditations. For all ages there are free mindfulness programs available through The Smiling Mind website http://smilingmind.com.au/.

Happy to have any questions about these to tim.conroystocker@esfcentre.edu.hk

The Spaghetti Test: Year 6 students at Clearwater bay school learn some ways to refocus and increase their performance!

So this is the second week of the 'Mindfulness Matters' program at Clearwater Bay school. All four year 6 classes are having once a week lessons, learning about focused attention and awareness techniques. The course forms part of the provision supporting student wellbeing, and will give the students useful tools to ensure a positive and successful transition to their next school.

Today's focus was to help students to pay mindful attention to signals from their body, and to share a technique for relaxing their body to increase focus.

We first did a short meditation looking at how breathing deeply or breathing shallowly affected how you are feeling. We followed this with a discussion of how your body shows different emotional states: Happiness, anger, sadness and worry. 

I asked the question 'What do you notice in your body when you are worried?'and got a lot of responses about things the students were worried about. Many were worried about the Mandarin test they had that day and said that this was on their mind. Many more talked about what it was like when they worried:

• 'Worry makes everything seem bad and a lot worse than it is.'
• 'If you're worried you get upset. Sometimes I need to tell someone. It feels better when I tell someone.'
• 'When I'm worried I think a lot of 'what if's'.'
• 'I Can't think properly.'
• 'I get hot sweats.'
• 'I Try to concentrate but I get too anxious.'
• 'It Stops me sleeping.'

A follow up question to all 4 groups indicated that a significant minority sometimes found it difficult to get to sleep at night. 

There was a big consensus that when they were happy they had loads of energy and liked to do lots of things! There was also a discussion about doing things for others, and whether that made you happy, or whether you were more likely to do it if you felt happy?

As a way of preparing their body for a difficult/important/scary task, to help with worry, or to help them get to sleep I introduced the group to the spaghetti test. The students lay down and tensed and relaxed face, arm, stomach and leg muscles in turn, and paired this with belly breathing to achieve a relaxed and calm state.

The students were fabulous at this! and about half said they might try it to try and help get to sleep at night. With a couple of the groups we talked about just doing this with your arms and using breathing to calm yourself down in an situation were they were wound up or angry.

Next week we will explore how expectations can affect your experience and how to make the senses sharper!