Creating Positive Spaces with a Grateful Mindset

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Creating Positive Spaces with a Grateful Mindset

It's so simple, could it really change our outlook, experience and classrooms?  In this episode of the Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein looks at ways that gratitude can transform our experience and deepen our understanding of presence, interconnectedness, and awe. 

You will see how we can shift our perspectives, working with everyday events like traffic irritation, and cultivate a very different mindset. It's not lightweight, it can have a real impact and reveal profound truths about the nature of our world. 

Discovering how when we foster gratitude we not only improve personal well-being, we also build a deeper sense of connection and belonging. This can create  a ripple effect in our classrooms and communities.

Step into the Conscious Classroom with Amy as she explores practical tips and educational insights to nurture mindfulness and awareness. This episode is designed for anyone passionate about making a positive impact, particularly educators working with teens.

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Episode Transcript

Amy (00:10):
Welcome to the Conscious Classroom podcast, where we're
exploring tools and perspectivesthat support educators and
anyone who works with teens tocreate more conscious,
supportive and enrichinglearning 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

(00:32):
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.
Share let's get on with thisnext episode.
Hello and welcome to theConscious Classroom podcast.
My name is Amy Edelstein and I'mvery excited today to speak

(00:55):
with you about gratitude or, asthe dear brother David
Steindlrast calls it,gratefulness, the quality of
being grateful and the attitudeand approach to life which is
one of gratitude.
It's a very profound and movingcontemplation.

(01:18):
It's also very practical inthis day and age to focus on
gratitude and having an attitudeof gratefulness.
It's a real antidote andcounteracts a lot of the
negativity, frustration,victimization and complaints

(01:41):
that we see and hear and aresubjected to in our contemporary
culture.
It's no surprise to everyonethat we're living in a time of
fragmentation and a time ofgreat frustration, short tempers
and imagining ill intent wherethere may not be any, and once

(02:08):
that attitude becomes popularand common, it's hard to stand
against it.
The beautiful thing aboutpracticing gratitude and
cultivating an orientation tolife of gratefulness is that you
simply start in the privacy ofyour own heart and mind.

(02:31):
You don't need to change peoplearound you, you don't need to
talk about it and in many ways,you don't even need to assume a
particular posture or practice,although it can be helpful to do
that done or has done to ourdetriment, to shifting our
attention to the good qualitiesthat are present.

(02:54):
So, first of all, it developsmindfulness.

(03:17):
Gratitude and that presentmoment attention are deeply
intertwined.
We become aware of oursurroundings, we become aware of
what's occurring and as webecome aware, we rest our

(03:37):
attention on that which weappreciate, which we're grateful
for, which we appreciate, whichwe're grateful for, and that
appreciation, when we really letourselves drop into it, is a
type of awakening.

(03:58):
It forms this sense of therichness of life, the
interconnectedness of life, thefact that we're not alone and
the fact that, even in the midstof the most difficult
conditions, we can findsomething to be grateful for, to

(04:22):
be grateful for.
So this requires a tremendousact of faith and courage.
But let's start with a verysimple example.
If you live anywhere where youneed to drive or take public
transportation, which is prettymuch everywhere in our

(04:47):
contemporary world, there arevery few places left where
people only move by foot or byhorse or donkey or yak or Joe,

(05:16):
and being in a car can evokevery strong feelings of
frustration.
And then there's inevitably oneperson who just has no patience
and is trying to weave in andout when there's a little more
than a foot and a half betweenbumpers and you start to feel
your frustration rise.

(05:36):
You start to feel angry,annoyed by the selfishness and
the lack of patience.
And the more you feel angry andannoyed by the lack of patience
, the more you start feelingthat and exhibiting that
yourself.
So in those moments they'reperfect to practice gratitude

(06:00):
and simply shift our attentionoff of what's causing
frustration, since we can't doanything about it anyway, and to
what we appreciate.
So maybe you appreciate the carthat you're in, the fact that
you have a car or, if you're inpublic transportation or a

(06:22):
rideshare, the fact that you'rebeing carried and you don't have
to navigate the traffic behindthe wheel.
Maybe you appreciate the feelof the steering wheel or the
upholstery or the color or themusic you might be listening to,

(06:44):
or the upholstery or the coloror the music you might be
listening to, or the weather.
Maybe you're in a rural areaand you're passing some
beautiful trees.
Maybe you appreciate the factthat you, of where you're coming
from, that you have a job thatsupports you and a home that

(07:08):
you're going towards.
Maybe you appreciate one smallthing that happened at work.
And all of a sudden, as youstart to look for these things
that exist in your experience noneed to fabricate them you

(07:29):
start resting your attention onone thing after another that
brings that quality ofappreciation, of awareness and
of gratefulness and ofgratefulness.
And if you're in the midst ofdeep suffering, whether it's

(07:50):
physical pain and illness orconflict in your immediate
environment, or if you'resuffering in a greater conflict
and now you live in a place ofnatural that's just experienced
natural disaster or profoundunrest, appreciate that you're

(08:18):
safe, appreciate a moment ofkindness from someone,
appreciate the clean water thatyou had, it's not to avoid the
reality of difficultness, it'sto fortify ourselves with that

(08:44):
heartfulness, that sense ofwell-being.
When we feel fortified withthat upwelling of good feeling
and of positivity, no-transcriptmistakenly feel that if they

(09:16):
feel gratefulness, they're goingto become selfish.
If they're looking for what'sbeen given to them, they're all
of a sudden going to beself-focused.
And really the opposite is true, because the minute that we
start resting our attention onall these different things in

(09:38):
our immediate vicinity that welove and appreciate, that give
us delight and good feeling,that bring a sense of safety and
warmth, that invite humility,we immediately see that our

(09:59):
experience and existence is not,as we might have been
emotionally feeling, isolatedand alone and separate.
We're inextricably intertwined,interdependent with everything
around us, independent witheverything around us.
Those feelings of isolation andseparation can melt as soon as

(10:34):
we start feeling gratefulnessfor the world around us.
We recognize that we actuallyare connected.
There are so many things thatinteract and intersect with our
world.
We're not fundamentallyseparate from all that exists.
And when we start allowing thatsense of gratefulness, that
feeling of being in the rightplace, of belonging, even if

(11:00):
we're in a very difficultsituation or we're suffering an
illness, we recognize our placein the grand scheme of life and
the people around us and themedical community supporting us
and the farmers bringing us goodnutrition, we start to see that

(11:21):
we are not separate from life.
And we can dissolve thosefeelings of alienation and
difficulty when we allowourselves to put our attention
on the small things that we aregrateful for and cultivating

(11:41):
that sense and seeing theinterconnectedness and extending
that circle out and out and out, that attitude of gratitude.
It lifts our heart and mindbecause we all want to be
connected, lifts our heart andmind because we all want to be

(12:18):
connected.
And that connection, part of themystery of the fabric of being

(12:44):
formal or informal, whether itis something we sit down to do
or write about or keep agratitude journal, or we
cultivate a practice of noticingat random moments throughout
the day, we develop this habitand touchstone of gratitude and
that starts to infuse ourconversations, our interactions,

(13:07):
our interpretations, our way ofseeing.
It starts to develop that senseof immediacy, that sense of
being present with what is andwith all the invisible aspects
of what makes this presentmoment.

(13:28):
When we start seeing how muchwe care about, whether it's the
beautiful shape in a picturethat we're looking at, or an
unbelievably vibrant color, orthe sunlight reflecting off the

(13:53):
trees, or the change of weatherand the scent of a coming new
season, or the voice of someonewe care about, we start to feel
how full the immediate moment is.

(14:16):
And when we feel how full theimmediate moment is, and when we
feel how full the immediatemoment is, we realize that each
drop of presence containseverything and we no longer need

(14:39):
to be off balance, leaningforward, wishing we had
something we didn't orregretting something we've lost.
It allows us to accept and letgo.
It allows us to feel a sense ofawe at how everything works and

(15:02):
how much love there is in life.
When we work with our students,cultivating an attitude of
gratefulness teaches them a goodand healthy orientation to life

(15:24):
.
If you have a visitor to class,having them write a thank you
note that's authentic andpersonal.
If a student has done somethingsupportive, having the class

(15:48):
appreciate them and expresstheir support, which is another
form of gratitude.
And having students keep agratitude jar all the things
they're grateful for and fillingup that jar so that they don't

(16:09):
feel frustrated and they don'tfeel hard done by.
And they start seeing that jarbeing filled with beautiful
colored pieces of paper, all ofwhich are expressing thanks for
something that happened that dayin the classroom or another day
in the classroom.

(16:36):
You can practice directgratitude with mindfulness,
practice adjusting the love andkindness.
So it's more related togratefulness, and let's try that
now.
This is something simple thatyou can do with your students.
You can invite them to tell youone thing that they're grateful

(17:11):
for, or you can evoke ityourself and have them sit in a
mindfulness posture, taking adeep breath in and thinking as
they breathe in.
I'm grateful for my breath.
It oxygenates my whole body,helping me move and think and
digest and live, and, as theybreathe out, invite them to be

(17:38):
grateful for their out-breath.
I'm grateful for my out-breathbecause it carries out the waste
that my body does not need, thecarbon dioxide that is no
longer needed.
I'm grateful for my breathbecause it makes me know I'm

(18:02):
alive.
I'm grateful for my exhalebecause I love how my body
relaxes as I release.
I'm grateful for my senses,being aware that I'm sitting and

(18:28):
I can tell the temperature andI can feel the softness of my
clothes.
I'm grateful for my sense ofhearing so that I can learn when
people are talking, and I'mgrateful for my speech so I can

(18:51):
communicate and connect andshare.
I'm grateful for my schoolbuilding, having a community to
come to where I can make friendsand learn.
I'm grateful for the waterfountain for when I'm thirsty,

(19:35):
I'm grateful for my teachers whohelp me grow and I'm grateful
for the homework, even if Idon't like it, because in the
end I do love to learn.
We can close our practice bytaking a deep breath in and a

(19:57):
deep breath out, and anotherdeep breath in and another deep
breath out, and let's bring ourattention back to our shared

(20:24):
exploration.
So you can see, it's so easy tofind things to be grateful for,
it's so easy to cultivate ahabit of shifting our attention

(20:46):
from what's not going right towhat we're so grateful for
grateful that it exists,grateful that it's in our
immediate surroundings and thatrefocusing, that shifting of
attention softens our sense ofbeing, softens our attitude,

(21:06):
softens our frustrations,softens the way we want to
negotiate and deal with problems.
When we do this with ourstudents, we can picture the
adults in our school, we canpicture our own spheres and what
we're grateful for, and thatcan truly make a huge difference

(21:31):
for our experience of teachingand for our engagement with our
students and for our orientationto life.
So I hope that you practicethis.

(21:52):
I wish you well and I lookforward to talking again next
time.
Well, and I look forward totalking again next time.
Thank you for listening to theConscious Classroom.
I'm your host, amy Edelstein.
If you enjoyed this podcast,please share it with a friend

(22:16):
and pass the love on.
See you next time.