Mindful Interconnectedness: Seeing Beyond Personal Stress

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In this episode, Amy Edelstein explains why she included the lessons on systems thinking in the Inner Strength Teen Mindfulness Program. 

Teaching students how to understand their experiences within larger systems, helps them manage stress by seeing interconnections across time and society rather than taking challenges personally.

You'll learn why:
• Teaching teens to think in context allows them to see how their current stressors connect to broader historical developments
• Systems thinking serves as powerful self-care by revealing our interdependence and reducing feelings of isolation
• Understanding interdependence helps students not overpersonalize challenges, reducing depression and reactivity
• First graders successfully used systems diagrams to solve playground conflicts by identifying intervention points
• Looking at friend dynamics as systems rather than just individual personalities creates new solutions
• Focusing on what makes whole systems work well naturally leads to better outcomes for individuals
• Mindfulness creates space to acknowledge personal feelings while still seeing the bigger picture
• Systems thinking helps students identify upstream leverage points for positive change rather than just trying to "fix" themselves

As always, Amy invites you to experiment with systems thinking in your own life and practice. See what happens and whether you can internalize this profound shift in perspective! 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
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

(00:32):
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.

(00:55):
One of the unusual things we doin Inner Strength's Teen
Mindfulness Program is teachstudents how to think in context
, how to set their experience ina larger framework and to see
how interdependencies andlinkages over vast amounts of
time really influence theirexperience.

(01:15):
Now their stress isn't just theresult of something that
happened last period or whenthey left home in the morning,
or because of the test tomorrow.
It has to do with the fact thatthey're even in school, that
the transportation system iswhat it is to get them to school
, that they live in an urbanenvironment that didn't exist a

(01:40):
millennia or two ago, and oncestudents start to see how many
of the individual stressors thatthey experience right now are
the result of so many changesacross hundreds and hundreds of
years, movements over time,movements that impact people
locally and globally, they stopfeeling as stressed, they feel a

(02:06):
little curious about how theygot there and they also feel a
sense of appreciation for theconditions, many of which they
benefit from, that give rise tothose experiences of overwhelm.
And when we take a guidedvisualization back in all the

(02:28):
time that I've been teaching,there's only been one student
who really longed to go back toan earlier age.
What was unique about thatstudent was he was an immigrant
from Paschung.
The village that he goes to inthe summers to visit his
relatives are exactly like theguided visualizations that we do

(02:55):
in the class, where we travelback a thousand years to a small
village and we experience theclose-knit families.
And we experience theclose-knit families.
We experience how the foods youeat are all the same from
household to household and youlook forward to particular
months when the apricots areripe or the peaches, or the

(03:17):
cherries or your favorite greensthat only grow in a short
period during the summer inthose high mountain areas.
He said I miss my home so muchbecause everybody knows me and I

(03:39):
know everybody and I knowwhat's coming next and we
celebrate together.
It's less complicated.
There aren't so many choiceshere in America.
He said I live in a bigneighborhood but I don't know
anybody and they don't know me.
And when I go to school I seedifferent people every day on

(04:02):
the bus as I go, every day onthe bus as I go, and I'll
probably never meet them andthey'll probably never meet me.
That's not what it's like in myvillage.
And as he brought his ownpersonal experience to light,
the rest of the class living ina one of the ten largest cities

(04:23):
in America, in Philadelphia,could all relate to each other,
but not to his experience.
They couldn't feel what thatwas.
They couldn't feel the warmthand simplicity.
They didn't even really feel alonging for that.
They liked their busy lives.

(04:44):
They liked the hustle andbustle of the city.
They liked the choice of beingdifferent than everyone they
know.
They liked having so manyoptions for breakfast, for
snacks after school, for whatthey wore.
They love that sense of theycould find their own unique

(05:10):
expression in this world.
I could relate very much to thatyoung fellow who preferred the
earlier time frame.
I could relate to the feelingof the world speeding up,
inexorably, of the way thatwe're crowding the world, and

(05:31):
yet the more people there are,the further away we feel from
one another.
So that's why we teach systemsthinking in the classroom.
Why we teach systems thinkingin the classroom we teach a way
of seeing the world that looksat the details, looks at the

(05:52):
personal and human impact andwhere the mindfulness allows
space to drop into the depth anddimensionality, to feel the way
history, technology,communication, political,

(06:14):
governmental systems,transportation, all impact our
experience, to feel it in apersonal way and yet to feel it
as the march of history, themarch of time, the march of
complexification.
Mindfulness allows that abilityto hold all of that without

(06:41):
becoming immune to what's rightin front of us or what is
impacting us, and itsimultaneously allows the space
to see, to zoom out.
I believe that systems thinkingis a huge part of self-care, of

(07:01):
stress management, of self-careof stress management.
I think when we realize thateverything is interconnected,
that we don't exist in bubblesand in isolation, that we don't

(07:26):
just emerge fully formed from avacuum, right, the
interconnectedness, which isanother way of talking about
systems thinking, starts as farback as we can go, if you say
well, I am me and I'mindependent.
But where do you come from?
You don't come from a vacuum.
You come from a sperm and anegg united.
You come from your parents.
Where do they come?

(07:46):
They come from their parents.
They're supported by the foodsthey eat.
They're nourished by the atomsthat they breathe in.
Where those atoms come from?
They come from star explosionsbillions of light years away.
We're literally kept alive bythings that happened so long ago

(08:06):
in time.
We can't even possibly get ourminds around it.
So when we lean into thatinterconnectedness, that
dependency, that co-origination,both in very practical ways and
also in social, emotional ways,one thing that happens is we

(08:30):
feel so not alone, not isolated,and we also realize that we are
made up of so many parts thatin some way it's somewhat
arbitrary how we draw the linearound what defines me and my
existence.
Where did I start?

(08:51):
How far back do I want to go?
Maybe that's not me, as I knowmyself since I was born, but if
those things hadn't existed, Iwouldn't be here now.
So in some sense they're partof me.
And when we start reflecting onthat with a very open mind, in
the way that mindfulness allowsus to, we start to feel that

(09:20):
experience of being shaped bythings that are always in motion
.
And when we're shaped by thingsthat are always in motion and
when we're shaped by things thatare always in motion, we also
realize that the pain we may befeeling today, the sadness and
grief at the recognition ofsuffering, is also moving and

(09:43):
changing.
It can be ameliorated or it canbe worsened.
How can we lean into it?
We see things as living, livingand changing.
And that sense of living andchanging, of the moving current,

(10:05):
allows us to not feel so stuck,so stuck in problems and
hardships, knowing that in oneyear, five years, ten years,
everything is going to beliterally made up of different
cells.
We're going to be made up ofdifferent cells.
Our bodies have gonna, willhave turned over, and so we're

(10:30):
not stuck.
When we're not stuck and we'rewilling to sit with an open mind
, without a judgmentalistattitude, we can allow for new
possibilities to emerge.
And when we can sit like that,as students who might be in a

(10:51):
fight maybe there's a big groupof kids who are against another
group of kids.
If they just focus on beingstuck in their position, it's
going to be hard to find a waythrough.
But when they can take a stepback, see all the things that
have led up to this, all thethings that will come out of

(11:11):
this.
See all the things that haveled up to this, all the things
that will come out of this.
It gives room for dialogue,discussion, exploration, empathy
, changing places.
Just being mindful without areal understanding of our
interconnectedness and of how somany pieces are dependent on so

(11:33):
many other pieces, doesn't seemto be quite enough to really
help young people understandthemselves and their world in a
way that's empowering and kind,that brings connection.
That's ultimately what schoolmindfulness well-being programs

(11:58):
need to do.
They need to bring a sense ofconnectedness, insight,
curiosity, ability to sit withdiscomfort, ability to question
and ability to understand themoving pieces without overly

(12:19):
personalizing everything.
And what I mean by not overlypersonalizing everything?
When we don't see things moreobjectively and in context,
everything feels like a personalaffront, and then it's very
hard to dial back kids fromdepression, anger, frustration,

(12:40):
resentment, victimization,discouragement when they can be
a little more objective andstart unpacking their feelings
and their experience in a largercontext, it puts tools and
strength in their hands.
So when students can appreciate,for example, a school ecosystem

(13:03):
and sometimes we have the mapthe whole school ecosystem, all
the different things that comeinto play around a school.
And then what happens ifsomething affects one part of it
?
What if the janitors go onstrike?
What if the principal gets sick?

(13:23):
What if the basketball teamwins?
How do those independent thingsthat you might not be directly
involved with affect a wholeschool system and how does that
change in the system affect yourexperience?
Then students can start to seelittle systems and big systems.

(13:52):
Friend dynamics become systems,not just this friend versus
that friend, and the confidentone and the selfish one, and the
loud talker and the shy one.
You see the dynamics, but yousee the system and you see how,

(14:12):
oh, when this friend gets aroundthat friend, they're different
because there's a certaindynamic there.
So how can we change thatdynamic?
I once saw a great little clipof a, a great little clip of a

(14:38):
video that a classroom teachertook from her phone of first
graders discussing systemsthinking, because the teacher
had learned from the greatsystems master, peter Senge,
about systems, and these firstgraders were drawing a diagram
and trying to figure out wherethey could interrupt the system,
because they always fought onrecess in the playground and

(15:00):
they diagrammed it.
They said mean words, hurtfeelings, fights and drew a
circle around it with thosethree inflection points.
And then they tried it.
The three friends who alwayshad these mean words, hurt
feelings and fights tried tocome up with ways to change the
system.
So the three of them wereworking on it together rather

(15:24):
than looking at the one.
You know whoever had said themean words and whoever had the
hurt feelings that day.
Fascinating Systems, thinkingfeels very complex, but if first
graders can do it to solveplayground problems, I think we
can put it to good use.

(15:47):
One of the kind of downstreamaspects of understanding our
interdependence,interrelationship, is to really
help students shift from onlybeing concerned about how they
feel about their getting aheadto how to make the whole work.

(16:08):
When whole systems work well,people can flourish.
When their system break down,people suffer in different ways.
So instead of directly pointingto, don't just think about
yourself, think about otherpeople.
Helping students, inquire whatmakes the system work as a whole

(16:33):
and then what are thedownstream effects for us?
When schools work well, whenthings run on time, when there's
good communication, when thelunch is good, when there are
snacks, when recess is a littlelonger, when the bathrooms are
clean.
All those things make ushappier, and when we're happier

(16:54):
we get along with each otherbetter and we do better in
school.
How can we think about whatserves the whole with a friend
group?
How can we think about how tomake our time at home with our
families happier, make things alittle easier, work more
together than against each other?
So systems thinking can beprofoundly philosophical,

(17:20):
scientific, cosmological.
We can go into the 13.8 billionyear history of the universe or
the 300 million year evolutionof the human brain or the system
of a school and a friend group,all the time using mindful

(17:45):
awareness and specificmindfulness practices to keep
letting go of the fixed way wesee things, keep letting go of
what, the customary ways that welock in to a specific viewpoint
, which usually has us in thecenter of the stage, even if

(18:05):
we're angry about somethingglobal that's happening.
Usually what's pushing thatintensity is our emotional
feelings at the center and whenwe don't recognize that, it
skews our ability to see clearlyWith mindfulness, when we can
step back and say I feel griefaround the suffering of the

(18:29):
animals and the seas and theplanet, I feel sadness and
powerlessness about thepollution and the toxins in the
air and the water, and the earthand the foods.
Once we can use mindfulawareness to see how we feel, we

(18:54):
no longer need to take thecenter stage when those feelings
are unacknowledged.
They color and shape ourawareness much more than we
mightokes what their memoriesare, what their desires are.
As all part, not separate fromthe system, allows it to remain

(19:35):
just a part and then to seethings freshly.
And that's really part of thekey of the Inner Strength
Program and, I think, of anysuccessful mindfulness in
schools program is to helpstudents see things freshly.
How can we look at a mentalhealth issue in a new way?

(19:55):
Where can we seek for help in anew way?
In a new way?
Where can we seek for help in anew way?
How can seeing ourconnectedness reduce that sense
of loneliness?
How can recognizing theuniversality, the globalness of
many of our experiences reduceour anxiety?
How can, ultimately, we workwith mindful awareness so that

(20:22):
our schools become warm andcaring and wholesome and healthy
communities, rather thansomewhat cold and frightening
buildings that are focused ontrying to keep violence out and
push kids to conform to somekind of arbitrary or maybe not

(20:46):
arbitrary, but imposedstandardized way of memorization
In a time where that way ofrelating to knowledge is
becoming more and more obscure,outdated and not very useful.

(21:06):
My hope is that, in this time ofincreased fragmentation and of
short-term decisions withlong-term downstream negative
impact, that teaching ourstudents how to see in systems,
look for upstream levers ofchange and recognize that their

(21:31):
personal experience is veryimportant and that it gives
clues about how the system isworking or not, and that
improving their personalexperience sometimes means
looking outside of oneself tothe system as a whole, rather

(21:51):
than trying to fix oneself.
When we see these vastinterconnected pieces and we see
the small groups and the largegroups, even the global groups,
that are experiencing the samepressures we are, we can look to
systems-level change and thatsystems-level change will bring

(22:14):
us a sense of connectedness,well-being, kindness, wisdom and
vision.
So I hope that you can, in yourown life, in your own
frustrations, incorporate andpractice this level of systems

(22:35):
thinking, experiment with it,apply it.
It's easy to understand, butthere will come a point when
there's a kind of an awakening,whether you're used.
All of a sudden everythingfalls into place and instead of
just an intellectualunderstanding, it becomes very

(22:57):
real and you look around you andthings all of a sudden look
different without effort andwhen they look different without
effort.
In that way, there's much moreflow, much more possibility,
much more lightness of being andmuch more energy to care for

(23:22):
everyone around us and for thesystem as a whole of ways to

(23:47):
develop, ways to see, ways tointerpret, ways to question and
ways to understand.
Thank you for listening.
I'll see you next time.
Thank you for listening to theConscious Classroom.
I'm your host, amy Edelstein.
Please check out the show noteson innerstrengthfoundationnet
for links and more informationand if you enjoyed this podcast,
please share it with a friendand pass the love on.

(24:09):
See you next time.