“Your school is on fire!” I received this text from a former band parent and long time friend last Saturday. Wait, what? Almost immediately I went onto all things media to find out more details. As the days unfolded the extent of the damage, total loss of a couple classrooms, and our entire leadership/activities store room became sadly evident. Personally, my band room is 1 of 20 rooms that could be inaccessible for a total of 3 weeks. Some of these rooms will be unavailable the rest of the school year!

Displacing twenty teachers and hundreds of students to new spaces is no easy task. Our school is the oldest in our district with no extra rooms for 1500 students.

The drama classes are in a regular classroom, the choir classes are in the teachers lounge, and I and all my band classes plus guitar/keyboard class are housed in my Mindfulness room. How ironic, right?

Can you imagine a classroom with no chairs or desks, let alone music stands in a room with only yoga mats and meditation cushions for the school band?

Luckily. in some weird way we made it through finals week in our new rooms! But, Monday is the beginning of 2nd semester with new kids coming to classes in rooms that don’t normally work for the curriculum or activity.

How does a band move forward with no insturments and no place to play?

Thankfully, I have been teaching Mindfulness and practicing it for several years. Time to walk the talk in an extreme long period of discomfort.

Educators know that students feed off our energy and respond accordingly. If the teacher is calm and rolls with the punches most likely the kids will to. That was Plan A.

However, the night before the kids came back to school, after the initial outbreak of the fire, I was

in bed ready to fall asleep and noticed I wasn’t breathing normally.

My jaw and body were abnormally tight and my breathing was shallow My thoughts were minimal.

Thanks to Mindfulness my body was telling me

that I was on my way to a possible panic attack.

How could this be? My mind was calm and my classroom was as ready for the kids as possible.

The answer, I had absorbed all my stress and the stress of others.

Although, my thoughts and actions were handling this new crisis in stride my body was telling me I needed to go deeper into my Mindfulness practice.

Back to basics more frequently was the answer. I didn’t meditate more because I meditate every morning and afternoon, but I focused more on my breathing and physical cues.

Breathing calmed down my nervous system.

Teachers get the message that they must schedule and control every element of every day for their students well-fare, whether that message is sent directly or indirectly it is the undercurrent of what we do. Mindful Concepts of allowing, living in flow, and letting go, when implemented into our school lives, will help to manage the enormous sense of responsibility we have.

Yes, prepare your fanny off, but then tap back into your breathing and let go. Honestly, that is the only time this past week my belly relaxed enough to take a truly full breath.

For now my students are rolling with the punches and trusting we will get through this stronger and more Mindful together.

Thankfully, we had prepared mini-Mindfulness lessons for the entire school in preparation to lower exam anxiety.

Wow, was that timely or what?

The staff is being reminded to take care of each other, help, offer, and ask for assistance.

Honestly, I don’t know how it will go. But, I am following my own advice; Plan A, B, and C are in place.

Now it is time to let go and live in flow.