Welcome Bend La Pine Educators and Staff
with gratitude to the Education Foundation for Bend-La Pine Schools
Mindfulness is training the mind to look inward for happiness and contentment
It is an honor to have you here and share a practice that has had a tremendous impact on my life. Mindfulness is a practice of both awareness and kindness… and it is a timely practice for this historical moment we find ourselves in with so much uncertainty and change. Through our six session together, you will deepen your understanding of the practice and how it can be a useful tool in navigating the ups and downs of life: handling challenges and difficulties more skillfully and in doing so, bringing forth more ease, contentment, and resiliency into daily life.
On this page, you will have access to the six prerecorded ~20-minute video or audio sessions (your choice in how you participate). Our first session together will be available on December 16th with session #2 posted on December 23rd during the holiday break. The four remaining sessions will be posted each Monday of the New Year. There are also additional guided meditations and resources to support and deepen your own personal practice towards the bottom of this page. Please know, once posted, all links will remain open throughout this school year.
I would like to extend a sincere thank you and acknowledgment for the work and generosity of the Education Foundation for Bend-La Pine Schools in making these sessions possible. The intention behind these sessions is to gift you with the practice of presence so that you too can share this gift with all the lives you touch within your community. They say, “Presence is the greatest gift we can give to another” … and to ourselves.
A note from the Education Foundation for Bend-La Pine Schools….
Dear Bend La Pine Schools Educators & Staff:
For over 30 years the Education Foundation has had a mission to support teachers and students in the BLPS by funding classroom grants and activity fee scholarships. We know that this unprecedented time we are living in is causing many challenges for you to be able to do the work you are passionate about in a Comprehensive Distance Learning format. We are expanding our mission this year and including efforts to deliver some support and appreciation directly to YOU. Our hope is that the more you feel supported and appreciated by your community the better you will be able to stay energized and resilient to persevere in your mission to serve students during this challenging year.
We are excited to partner with Banni Bunting to bring these mindfulness sessions specifically for you as BLPS educators and staff. It is an invitation to take some time for yourselves – to rest and renew in order to be resilient this year. It is with deep and sincere appreciation that we hope you will access and enjoy these mindfulness sessions. Whether you choose to sit down and listen to them with a cup of tea or as a podcast out on a winter walk – know that your dedication to the students in Bend-La Pine Schools is acknowledged and greatly appreciated.
Angie Cole, Allocations Chair on behalf of the entire Education Foundation Board
Mindfulness Sessions
Foundations of the Practice: Be Here Now
Session 1
In our first session together, we will set the stage for mindfulness and what it means to “be here now” while exploring the foundations of the practice through the body and the breath. We will discuss the benefits of the practice and finish with a guided meditation.
The Power (and Perspective) in a Pause
Session 2
The power of taking a pause is well researched. Not only does pausing promote relaxation, a break from noise and speed of our lives, it too regains balance and clarity during our often busy lives. Taking time to be still and quiet gives your nervous system a break and a chance to reset with more calmness and resiliency.
The Thinking Mind
Session 3
Continuing to deepen our understanding of the practice through the exploration of the mind; bringing awareness to our moods, attitudes and mental states while learning how to navigate this terrain in a more skillful and helpful way.
Heartfulness
Session 4
Heartfulness is a quality of warmth and friendliness that we can cultivate and extend to all beings. This benevolent quality is also a deep acknowledgment that our lives have something to do with one another, that we are in this together. With mindfulness, we are learning how to befriend the moment, but more importantly we are learning how to befriend ourselves.
Appreciative Awareness
Session 5
Mindfulness is a practice of awareness and ultimately choice. In this session, we will remember that we can choose appreciation and gratitude amidst all the challenges, changes and uncertainty that we are faced with in this historical moment. We can find meaning through it all.
Sky View
Session 6
Practicing mindfulness, both awareness and kindness, provide us with greater clarity and perspective as we navigate the ups and downs of life. In this session, we will discuss the value of “SKY” view.
Guided Meditations
Basic Breathing Meditation:
Use this short 5 five minute affectionate breath meditation to help bring a little more calmness, clarity and kindness to your busy days. [5 minutes]
Basic Body and Breath Meditation:
A guided meditation on the first foundation of mindfulness: the body. This meditation helps us get out of our thinking mind and down into our feeling body; moving from thinking and into feeling. [12 minutes]
Dealing with Difficult Emotions Meditation:
This meditation is for strong or difficult emotions and one way of doing this practicing seeing the difference between recognition and mindfulness… learning to be okay with what is in a kind and compassionate way. “It’s okay” can be a magical phrase for settling the mind into an acceptance of whatever the emotion might be and becoming the foundation for the appropriate response. [17 minutes]
Making Space Meditation:
They say healing is our acceptance of what is happening in the present moment, our allowing of whatever we are feeling, perceiving or experiencing. This meditation will guided you through the various emotions you might be feeling in these times of uncertainty and not knowing in possibly a more skillful and helpful way. May we all be well and take the next wise action. [13 minutes]
Gratitude Meditation:
“Gratitude can’t be forced or demanded but it can be cultivated. With an eye to what delights us, we can naturally find gratitude. What happens when we slow down and take notice of all the small things in our lives that brings us a sense of tenderness, of safety, amusement, beauty? We may find that the small things are not so small after all.”- unknown. Gratitude is probably the most studied and proven technique for rewiring the neural pathways in our brain and is often considered the remedy to all that ails us, focusing on the goodness in our lives rather than worrying about the bad. [10 minutes]