Unlock the synergy between mindfulness and innovation as Amy Edelstein explores the relationship between these two orientations in this episode of the Conscious Classroom. Imagine a learning environment where the air is alive with creativity, and students and teachers alike are inspired to view the world through a lens of fresh possibilities. This discussion unearths the possibilities that contemplative practice can reveal, and shows how marrying innovation and inner exploration is working. In Inner Strength Education's pilot project with 10 student interns explore the XPRIZE Connect innovation curriculum and Inner Strength Education's tools of open awareness and paradigm shifting. Students learn to tap the inner freedom of shedding outdated paradigms, and discover how to loosen their unconscious hold onto fixed reference points. Through contemplative practice and mental habits, they learn to work with a 360-degree perspective that challenges, refines, and enhances their understanding of education and purpose, and their ability to envision a healthy and holistic world we'd all want to live in.
Guided by Amy Edelstein, you will practice the transformative exercise of open awareness, a technique that transcends the noise of everyday distractions and brings into focus our own field of awareness. Open awareness is a tool educators can weave seamlessly into the fabric of school life. Discover how this technique aids in academic pursuits like group work and test preparation and also enriches the teaching experience. By fostering a more conscious learning environment, we lay the groundwork for an educational future that resonates with our highest ideals—a future we can imagine and work to bring to fruition together.
If you enjoyed this episode please leave a review!
Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms.
The Conscious Classroom was honored by Feedspot in their Top 100 Classroom Podcasts. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible.
Subscribe so you don't miss a single episode!
Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom.
Want to train to teach mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to students? Courses are available at The Conscious Classroom.
Get your copy of the award-winning, bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.
Episode Transcript
Welcome to the Conscious Classroom podcast,
where we're exploring tools andperspectives that support
educators and anyone who workswith teens to create more
conscious, supportive andenriching learning environments.
I'm your host, amy Edelstein,and I'll be sharing
transformative insights andeasy-to-implement classroom
supports that are all drawn frommindful awareness and systems
(00:33):
thinking.
The themes we'll discuss aredesigned to improve your own joy
and fulfillment in your workand increase your impact on the
world we share.
Let's get on with this nextepisode.
Hello and welcome to theConscious Classroom podcast.
(01:04):
My name is Amy Edelstein and I'mthrilled to be here today to
talk with you about a subjectthat's near and dear to my heart
, which is all about therelationship between
contemplative practice andinnovation of a fixed
(01:25):
relationship to the objects thatarise in our awareness and
seeing them freshly, enabling usto shift the paradigm in which
we interpret reality.
You know, in many ways,mindfulness is about letting go
of attachment, letting go offixed relationship to the things
that we see and think andcontemplate or experience.
(01:50):
It's about being able to thenconsciously choose to locate
ourselves in a differentrelationship towards our
experience, in those things thatwe see, think and believe our
experience in those things thatwe see, think and believe
(02:10):
Innovation, and innovation thatreally involves step changes in
how we do things requires thatwe loosen our tight grip on
reality as we currentlyinterpret it, to rest our
interpretation loose from fixedand assumed beliefs about how
the world is ordered and allowourselves to see and think
(02:34):
differently, to create a stepchange of possibility.
To observe the customary with afresh eye.
To observe the customary with afresh eye.
So really being able to shiftour awareness, to be like an
astronaut floating free from thetie of gravity, allows us to
(02:59):
imagine and recreate in ourmind's eye the world in a way
that we would rather see it andthen figure out the steps to get
there.
We all carry dreams of an idealworld clean water, clean air,
enough food for everyone, nofear, no harm, no war, no
(03:24):
pollution, healthy selves,healthy minds, healthy hearts,
healthy species, where we'refree to explore and wander, and
laugh and love.
We carry those visions ofreality as we'd like it to be
(03:46):
and, as educators, part of ourwork is to inspire our students
to keep their sights set high onthe world as it could be and
then to see how to get frompoint A to point B.
But if we can't envision thisideal world.
(04:07):
We'll never come up with theinnovation to get there, and
mindfulness is a really valuabletool to allow ourselves to
settle deep into our hearts andhave the faith and confidence
and love to imagine the world asit could be, as the great
(04:36):
mathematician, philosopher andcreative thinker Alfred North
Whitehead once said "it requiresa very unusual mind to
undertake the analysis of theobvious.
I love that.
I love Whitehead because he wassuch a rigorous mathematician
and yet he was such a creativesystems thinker where he really
(05:01):
lived in the time of the GreatWorld Wars and was able to
really think creatively abouthow all the pieces fit together
and to envision a world thatwould work and inspire people in
some of the dialogue salonsthat he would host at his house
(05:26):
to come together and reallyexplore, explore philosophically
, explore creatively related tothe arts, explore related to
math and science and explorerelated to aspirations for a
(05:46):
noble human life.
So what does it take to inspirestudents to think that
creatively and to instill inthem that love of the adventure
of ideas in them, that love ofthe adventure of ideas?
In our strength education, myorganization, I do that, we do
(06:09):
that with students through themindfulness practices and
curriculum.
And now also we're partneringwith XPRIZE Connect.
XPRIZE, the great innovationorganization founded by Peter
Diamandis, has this outrageousmission to inspire breakthroughs
(06:30):
for the benefit of humanity,they use incentivized
competitions to do that.
Those are competitions thatcatalyze the birth of the
commercial space industry.
They are now competitions withmonetary prizes to solve the
potable water crisis, to look athow to foster better health for
(06:55):
the aging, to build empatheticrobots, to assess and be able to
control extreme wildfires.
They are really looking atinspiring and galvanizing the
best creative minds of our timesto solve problems at a big
(07:20):
level.
And now they have a youthprogram and we have a group of
10 interns who are getting paidto meet all day on Saturdays to
practice new ways of thinking,to understand what paradigm
shifting is, to question many oftheir current and our current
(07:43):
beliefs and assumptions thatseem intractable and to start
envisioning a solution that theywould like to see invented.
And then they'll create a prizeand compete with other XPRIZE
Connect students and competewith other XPRIZE Connect
(08:05):
students.
I love the XPRIZE mission ofcreating step change and I love
the idea of galvanizing mindsand hearts to focus on an issue
together and support each otherin that innovation and I love
with our students marrying thatwith contemplative arts,
(08:30):
marrying that with aphilosophical mind that looks at
ways of creating space betweenour customary identification
with the objects that arise inconsciousness, with thought and
feeling, to identify with thefield of awareness.
(08:55):
And when we identify with thefield of awareness, we can look
around the objects ofconsciousness, the things we
think and see and experience.
We can look at them 360.
We can examine them from adifferent perspective and we can
disembed ourselves fromcustomary ways of thinking.
(09:18):
And one of the great examplesof how we are so attached to
beliefs and ideas and ways ofseeing the world that we know
(09:38):
aren't true is something that weusually notice every day.
So every day we notice themorning and the evening.
Every day we notice when daybreaks and when night falls.
Now, customarily we andeveryone around us thinks about
(10:01):
it as the sun rising and the sunsetting.
And yet we all know, as we'velearned from a young age, that
the sun is the center of oursolar system, that it stays in
place and the earth and theother planets are spinning madly
(10:25):
on their own axes and thatspinning of the earth is what
causes our perception of day andour perception of night.
So the sun isn't really rising,the earth is rotating and
spinning towards and away.
(10:45):
How would our world bedifferent if we looked out and
said, ah, the earth is fallingtowards, ah, the earth is
falling away Rather than the sunis rising and the sun is
setting.
It sounds so odd to our ears,it sounds so incongruent, it
(11:10):
sounds so silly.
It evokes images of a worldspinning and us falling forward
or backwards.
But it would inspire us tothink more deeply about the
forces of gravity that stick usto the earth.
It would inspire us to thinkmore deeply about how the world
(11:37):
turns and different parts of theworld experience light and dark
at different times of the day.
It might inspire us to thinkabout the equators and the poles
and their different orientationto the heat of the Sun, which
might inspire us to thinkdifferently about climate change
(11:57):
and how it's impacting areas ofthe world differently.
So when I tell my students thatthere's something that we
usually think about every day,or assume every day, that we
blatantly know isn't true, theyoften expect me to come up with
(12:19):
erroneous beliefs about culture,about race, about politics.
And they get ready.
I can see them.
They get all fired up ready fordebate, and when we talk about
sunrise and sunset, is thatmistaken way of phrasing
(12:39):
something we know occursdifferently?
I can see on their faces itdawns on them that there are
many things we can questionabout the way we move about the
world that are not necessarilyantagonistic or confrontational.
There's simply new ways ofseeing and examining the obvious
(13:06):
so that we can see afresh.
And when we change our ways ofseeing, we change what comes
into view and we change what'spossible.
Now I deeply believe thatchanging our beliefs in what's
possible and inspiring the youngpeople we teach to change their
(13:30):
beliefs about what's possibleis critical to our future as a
planet.
It impacts everything from thequality of life on earth to the
richness of our relationships,to the safety of our societies,
(13:50):
to the continuation of so manydifferent cultures and ways of
life and being and language.
It impacts the health ofecosystems and creatures and it
really truly impacts our abilityto reach for and fulfill the
(14:16):
higher capacities of the humanmind and heart, of the human
mind and heart.
In much older times, religioustraditions held that place and
culture where they held thatideal of the awakened individual
(14:37):
, the noble saint, the wise one,in whatever term or tradition.
I don't mean to limit this toany particular culture or
philosophy, but to point to apart of our culture that all
(14:58):
around the world, in differentways, was held as so important
and where that position of thewise one was revered and exalted
as teachers.
Now, with our world so plaguedby so many problems, inspiring
(15:20):
and really providing a pathwayof thinking and practice and
exercises and habits andcultivation that our young
people can follow to reallybecome extraordinary expressions
of innovation, creativity, love, connection, care, is something
(15:47):
that we must hold near and dearto our hearts as educators.
Mindfulness and the extendedtoolbox of contemplative
practices and exercises, whichis expanding more and more every
(16:07):
day as new people innovate, aspeople mix from different
traditions and customs, aspeople look towards elders and
try to study the depth ofdifferent systems, those tools,
(16:30):
while superficially they'reoften reduced to being used for
stress relief and traumaremediation, health and wellness
, which of course is veryimportant and foundational, but
sometimes we forget that thosetools carry keys and ways of
seeing that open up newpotentials and capacities of
(16:53):
awareness, interpretation,energetic response, connection,
as we look towards an educationfor the future.
(17:16):
An education for the futurewill need to cultivate the
wisdom and care of human natureand ways of seeing, interpreting
data, working with artificialintelligence that collaborates
(17:36):
with those tools, that hasaccess to knowledge and data and
analysis on enormous scale andthat asks the right questions to
see the world afresh and toreverse engineer from that
vision of the possible to findthe solutions to get there.
(18:02):
To find the solutions to getthere, laying the flagstones on
the path that will lead us fromour dysfunctional world to a
world that is truly an amazingand wondrous and beautiful and
healthy and safe andcollaborative place to be.
(18:27):
One of the practices that youcan bring into your classrooms
and do with your studentsregularly, if not every day, to
allow them to let go of fixedand customary ways of seeing and
allow them to let go ofwhatever's on their minds and
hearts and allow them to let goof ideas and beliefs and
(18:54):
self-doubt, hurts and harms,things that have been said that
undercut their confidence, theirself-worth, their sense of
place in society.
One of the practices that we cando every day and enable them to
(19:15):
really let loose of that is thepractice of open awareness.
Open awareness is one of thosevery, very simple practices
where we're shifting ourattention from identification
with and minute focus on theobjects that arise in our
(19:39):
awareness on thought, feeling,sensation, experience,
observation to the sense ofbeing aware itself, without
shifting the objects in any way,without trying to control
thought, without having do's anddon'ts and shoulds and
shouldn'ts about what can arisein awareness.
(20:00):
In the open awareness practice,we simply adjust our lens.
And when we adjust our lens tofocus on the field of awareness
rather than the objects thatarise in awareness, we can see
things differently.
It's an easy practice forstudents.
(20:23):
It's an easy practice at anytime of day.
There are no specificrequirements, you don't even
need a particularly quietlocation, which schools almost
never are and doing this allowsstudents to let their experience
settle, to let disturbingthoughts fall into the
(20:47):
background and to feel deeplyconnected with their own sense
of awareness and unbounded fieldof consciousness, to connect
(21:07):
with that part of themselvesthat is deeply home, that is
deeply them.
This is a different orientationthan the dispassionate witness
that sits outside of and behindone's own experience.
This is connecting with ourmost intimate sense of knowing
and being aware.
So if you're driving, pleasedon't do this.
(21:31):
If you're walking, be sure tonotice for oncoming traffic or
other holes in the pathway, andif you're seated at home, you
can really let yourself, enjoyand let go.
So I encourage you to do thispractice yourself in order to be
(21:55):
able to bring this subtlety ofshift to your students, and I
encourage you to bring this intothis class regularly so it
becomes a habit.
And maybe it becomes a habitbefore group work, so students
are open to each other's ideas,or it becomes a habit before
(22:15):
tests, so students can draw ontheir intuition.
Or it becomes a habit beforestudy sessions, so the
blackboard of their minds isclean and they're able to retain
and observe and absorb thematerial that they're learning.
(22:44):
So let's do a short practice now, allowing yourself to settle
with your spine tall.
Where you're comfortable andalert, where you loosen your
grip on the visuals, you canrest your eyes on a beautiful
(23:07):
color or shape or on the tablein front of you, or close your
eyes lightly, loosely, lightly,loosely, as you begin to settle
(23:31):
into your own experience,noticing the sounds, thoughts,
feelings, sensations movingthrough you.
(23:51):
Allow all of your experience tobe there just as it is, without
getting lost in making order ordrawing priorities or working
anything out, simply letting theactivity of the mind and senses
(24:12):
be what it is and as you leteverything be as it is, your
whole experience, allow theaperture of your mind to open so
(24:34):
that, almost from the edges ofyour mind, you're able to intuit
an unbounded sense of awareness, your own sense of awareness,
an open field as vast as the sky, noticing how your field of
(24:57):
awareness can take in even thebiggest objects as it thinks
about them, just as the sky canhold the largest objects the
planets and suns, the galaxiesand still have more room, still
(25:20):
extend back and back, and backand let your attention rest on
that open space of awareness,gently holding the intimations
(26:10):
of infinity.
And you can stay here as longas you like, allowing yourself
to enjoy, without grasping forany particular insight or
solution, letting the weave ofyour mind become loose.
(26:38):
And when you're ready, we canbegin to bring our attention
back onto the objects around us,pressing your feet into the
floor, stretching your hands,noticing what they're touching.
And as you reorient and shiftyour attention to the familiar
(27:05):
objects around you, retain thatsense of boundarylessness of
your own awareness, the openedges of your own heart, of your
(27:25):
own heart.
And we can finish the formalpractice now, and I encourage
you to tap back into this locus,this vantage point, as you're
teaching, as you're dealing withdifficulties with
administration, as you'renavigating the conflicts of time
(27:53):
and space and resources in yourschool environment.
And I encourage you to allowthat sense of your own expansive
awareness to fuel and fortifyyou and allow you to focus on a
vision of the possible, of whatyou'd like to see.
(28:15):
And, as you work with thisexercise with your students,
encourage them with somefree-form journaling to also
imagine the world as they'd likeit to be, imagining the
(28:46):
qualities and capacities thatthey will need to practice so
that they become a habit, sothey lay down the flagstones on
the path that leads us in anonlinear fashion, from where we
(29:07):
are now to where we could be.
Thank you for envisioning thistogether with me, and let's all
begin to work for our greaterdegree of consciousness and
conscience in our classrooms andfor a future of education that
truly matches what, as educators, we believe is possible.
(29:32):
Thank you.
Thank you for listening to theConscious Classroom.
I'm your host, amy Edelstein.
Please check out the show noteson www.
innerstrengtheducation.
org for links and moreinformation, and if you enjoyed
this podcast, please leave areview and share it with a
friend and pass the love on Seeyou next time.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.