Mindfulness in coaching for educators & pupils

1. LIZ HALL, MINDFULNESS PRACTITIONER/TRAINER; COACH & EDITOR OF COACHING AT WORK Mindfulness in coaching for educators & pupils

2. Many years meditating on and off but turning point when first daughter was born • Coaching/business/journalism VERSUS mindfulness: never the twain shall meet • Until dawned on me….natural bedfellows! Confessions of a closet meditator!

3. The mindfulness revolution • Mindfulness goes mainstream • Healthcare: Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction programmes for stress reduction, coping with pain etc; Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy programmes for depression • Workplace: more employers introducing mindfulness including Google, GlaxoSmithkline and the US Army • Politics: eg Ohio congressman Tim Ryan championing mindfulness • Education: In the UK- Mindfulness in Schools Project and in the US- Association for Mindfulness in Education: mindful programmes in schools in California, Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia

4. Barbie’s meditating too!

5. Rediscovering contemplation • Dominance in the West of emphasis on logic, speed, efficiency, productivity (Industrial Revolution etc) • Too much doing, not enough being or non-doing • Race to keep with increasing amounts of information • Contemplation sidelined…..but not just about the sensory and the rational • Rising levels of stress & depression • Seeking a new way of being • Complexity

6. Mindfulness is…. ‘Intentional awareness: paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally’Jon Kabat-Zinn Training our minds to: attend to the ‘here and now’ be enquiring & curious focused less judgemental compassionate Not just about the mind! Mind-body-heart-fullness

7. A taste of mindfulness The raisin meditation

8. What has mindfulness got to do with coaching? • DISCUSS IN PAIRS

9. Qualities/values in common • Observer’s mind Beginner’s mind • Curiosity Contemplation • Reflection Non-judgement • Presence Trust • Respect Integrity • Empathy Compassion • Spaciousness Opening • Co-creation Creativity • Intuition Clarity • Focus Wisdom • Awareness of self/others/world at large • Holistic- working with the body, heart and mind • Person is whole • Self actualisation

10. Aims/outcomes in common • ‘Time out’ • Training & transforming the mind • Fostering learning & growth • Helping people fulfil their potential • Self-responsibility • Awareness of self, others and world at large • Empathy • Clarity • Tapping into innate wisdom • Paying more attention/ heightened attentiveness to what and who is around • Self regulation, management and flexibility of responses • Getting in touch with non-knowing • Opening up possibilities and choices • Problem-solving • Creativity • Presence • Attunement • Compassion • Self actualisation

11. Compassion • Our species evolved to thrive on kindness and compassion • Core underpinning of coaching • Coaching with compassion arouses positive emotion system (reassurance, safety, calm, love) in us and client….more attuned; better coaching outcomes, more receptive to learning (Boyatzis et al, 2010) • Mindfulness helps develop ‘compassion muscle’ (Davidson & Lutz)

12. Mindfulness in Coaching study: some preliminary findings Regular mindfulness practice (3x a week +) 59% WHY DO COACHES PRACTICE MINDFULNESS? To help them live more in the moment 74% To become more self-aware 73% Manage/prevent stress 67% To be more present for their client 65% Source: Mindfulness in Coaching survey (Hall, 2012)

13. Benefits for us as coach • Helps us be more present with our client- more ‘there’ for them • Helps us be more emotionally intelligent and self aware, so we can pick up more useful data from ourselves and the client • Helps us be more resilient • Helps us be more creative, more open to possibilities

14. SOME REASONS WHY COACHES USE MINDFULNESS WITH CLIENTS: TO HELP THEM……. become more self-aware 70% be calmer/less anxious 59% manage stress 55% be more centred 55% manage reactions/responses 51% improve their wellbeing 46% live more in the moment 43% Source: Mindfulness in Coaching survey (Hall, 2012)

15. Seated Body Scan

16. Stress • Mindfulness helps us/our clients: • Strengthen ‘approach’ pathways • Activates parasympathetic nervous system • Get away from tunnel vision • Avoid over-planning/ruminating….depression etc • Be more choice-ful re when to switch into fight/flight/freeze mode • ‘I have learned to smile again and to laugh about life’ (participant in Transport for London mindfulness-based stress reduction programme)

17. Mindfulness, coaching & education • “Mindfulness is a foundation for education; mindfulness provides the optimal conditions for learning and teaching and also supports all pedagogical approaches” • Association for Mindfulness in Education • “If we knew that particular and readily available activities would increase concentration, learning, wellbeing, and social and emotional growth and catalyze transformative learning, we would be cheating our students to exclude it.” • Tobin Hart (2004) , State University of West Georgia, “Opening the Contemplative Mind in the Classroom”, Journal of Transformative Education (Vol 2, Issue 1)

18. Benefits for the teacher client • Mindfulness helps teachers…. • manage stress levels • be more resilient • self manage (emotional intelligence) • manage conflict • be more focused • be more creative • Build relationships • Be more compassionate • enhance their presence

19. In their words (teachers) • “The coaching has freed me up to have more genuine interactions with the children. Through doing some of the exercises such as checking in with myself for three minutes regularly (The three minute breathing space) and doing regular meditation even if it’s just a few minutes, I have become much more aware of what sets me off. • I have used the checking in exercise lots before meetings, particularly with the head, which has probably stopped me having a heart attack!” • “I have stopped telling myself I am failing and that the kids are making me fail by being naughty. The weird thing is that although I am spending more time doing things like the meditation, I actually feel like I have more time. I feel much calmer generally now and more able to see the bigger picture. Before I was trying to put out lots of little fires and ended up having no time to sit and do things with the pupils. I was being over-vigilant and the idea that I was failing was very restrictive and anti-productive because my whole focus was on stopping people, including the children, making me fail.” • “I find I am being much more creative with my lesson plans.”

20. Benefits for the pupil • Helps build self belief • Helps them reduce stress levels/be more resilient • Helps them focus/improves memory & concentration & speed of information processing • More creative • More effective performance in a broad range of domains from sports and academic test taking to creativity Improves sleeping • Improves communication • Improved empathy • Distance between them & emotions..helps them manage anger etc • e.g., Murphy, Donovan, & Taylor,1997; Arguelles, McCraty, & Rees, 2003 ; So & Orme-Johnson, 2001

21. In their words (pupils) • Marcus (13)  "Mindfulness has helped me reduce headaches, concentrate before exams and perform in football.” • Molly (13) "Beditation really helps me sleep and makes me calm in everyday life." • James (14) "It helps relieve any anxiety for exams, auditions etc.“ • Maya (6) "Mindfulness has helped me to concentrate easily.” • Parent: "There is no doubt in my mind that Simon (8) he has benefited greatly from the sessions. He is beginning to appreciate for the first time ever the separation between himself and his emotions and is starting - also for the first time - to be able to observe himself starting to react. This is no mean feat for a boy who is typically a bundle of energy and reaction most of the time!"

22. .b programme • Mindfulness in Schools Project • 8 week programme • MBSR /MBCT adapted for kids (FOFBOC, Beditation, chocolate mindful eating) • Building body of evidence: careful re who teaches it

23. Deal with worry Direct Attention Turn towards calm 3 1 2 Be here now Move mindfully Step back 4 5 6 Befriend the difficult Where now? 7 8

24. Mindful movement

25. How mindfulness changes the brain • 30-40 scientific papers a month, tipping point effectiveness. • we can learn new tricks: we can rewire our brains and form new neural pathways • A little goes a long way: Work by people like Professor Richard J Davidson (2011), laboratory director at the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience, University of Wisconsin-Madison. shows meditating and practising mindfulness shapes our brains QUICKLY!. In one study, people who took part in an eight week MBSR programme showed increased activity in brain regions including those associated with learning and memory processes, emotion regulation and perspective-taking (Hölzel et al, 2011)

26. Increases grey-matter concentration in brain regions involved in learning and memory processes, emotion regulation, self-referential processing and perspective-taking (Hölzel BK, Carmody J, Vangel M, et al, 2011) • Reduces cortical thinning due to ageing in prefrontal regions strengthened by meditation (Lazar et al, 2008) • Reduces cortical thinning due to ageing in prefrontal regions strengthened by meditation (Lazar et al, 2008) • Improves psychological function of attention ( Carter, OL et al, 2005; Tang, Y et al, 2007) • Enhances psychological function of compassion (Lutz, Brefczynski-Lewis et al , 2008) • Improves psychological function of empathy (Lazar et al, 2005) • Increases activity in left-frontal regions associated with lifting mood (Davidson, 2004) • Increases power and reach of fast, gamma-range brainwaves in long-term meditators (Lutz et al, 2004), showing increased numbers of neurons firing together

27. How mindfulness impacts the body • Decreases cortisol (Tang et al, 2007) • Helps activate the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). The PNS is designed to work in tandem with the SNS, acting as an antidote and allowing us to recharge. When our PNS is activated, our hippocampus is aroused, helping with our memory and learning capacity. We are more likely to feel joyful, positive and optimistic. Neurotransmitters including endorphins are produced, which increase wellbeing. • Boosts the immune system (Davidson et al, 2003, Tang et al, 2007) • Improves medical conditions including type II diabetes; cardiovascular disease; asthma; premenstrual syndrome and chronic pain (Walsh and Shapiro, 2006) • Improves psychological conditions such as anxiety; insomnia; phobiasand eating disorders (Walsh and Shapiro, 2006)

28. Mindfulness boosts resilience, health & wellbeing by helping us… Develop our attentional control (linked to resilience) (eg. Marchant, 2012, cited in Mental Toughness) Be more attuned to others (linked to resilience) (eg. Siegel, 2010) Regulate emotions (eg. Boyatzis, 2012) Generate positive emotions (helps us manage stress etc & may counter negative affective processes implicated in depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia (Frederickson et al, 2010) Reframe/reappraise positively (associated with positive health outcomes (eg. Carver et al, 1993) Be less stressed (activates parasympathetic nervous system; decreases cortisol (Tang et al. 2007) Boosts the immune system (Davidson et al, 2003) Improves medical & psychological conditions including type II diabetes; cardiovascular disea e; asthma; anxiety; insomnia; phobiasand eating disorders (Walsh and Shapiro 2006)

29. Mindfulness enhances creativity by helping us… • Be more curious and open to possibility • Suspend judgement/evaluation • Get ourselves out of the way • Be more choice-ful about what and who we listen to • Not see things as mistakes; just enjoying the process in the present moment • Be more authentic (more in touch with values) • Be more relaxed/approach oriented (associated with creativity) eg. Mice and cheese study, Friedman and Forster (2001) • Create spaciousness in our lives for creativity

30. PRACTICEThree Minute Breathing space • Awareness:‘general weather check’: thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations • Gathering: focusing on the in- and out-breaths • Expanding: attending to wider bodily experience & environment

31. How might you use mindfulness in your work? • DISCUSS IN PAIRS & SHARE IN PLENARY

32. To be or to do, that’s the question There is a potential tension between being/doing; present/future; non-striving/striving in mindfulness versus coaching : DISCUSS

33. Being Vs/and doing • But what if I stop doing things? • What/who will I find if I just stop? • MU SURVEY • Some of you hadn’t thought about this before • 5%: potential tension between different foci • 3%: mindfulness incompatible with future/doing • focus of coaching • 47%: mindfulness acts as a welcome antidote to an • over-emphasis on doing in our present culture’ • 51% Mindfulness helps us achieve goals anyway • (Mindfulness in Coaching survey, Hall, 2012)

34. What about goal attainment? • Spence GB, Cavanagh MJ and Grant AM (2008) study: mindfulness training combined with coaching helps clients attain their health-related goals, particularly if clients receive mindfulness training first, (“The integration of mindfulness training and health coaching: An exploratory study”, Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, 1 (2), 1-19). Mindfulness helped clients resist the temptation to sabotage their progress toward goals.

35. “Non-doing can arise within action as well as in stillness…Non-doing simply means letting things be and allowing them to unfold in their own way. Enormous effort can be involved, but it is a graceful, knowledgeable, effortless effort, a “dooerless doing”, cultivated over a lifetime” • Kabat-Zinn (1994)

36. THE MINDFUL MINUTE ‘I haven't got time to meditate!’ How many breaths in your minute?

37. Your reflections • Write down any reflections/key messages/actions you are taking away

38. DISCUSSION & QUESTIONS • ?

39. Yesterday is history • Tomorrow is a mystery • But today is a gift • That’s why it’s called the present

40. Resources • Mindfulness in Schools Project: http://mindfulnessinschools.org/ • Association for Mindfulness in Education: • http://www.mindfuleducation.org/ • Mindfulness: a practical guide for finding peace in a frantic world by Mark Williams and Danny Penman • Wherever you go, there you are by Jon Kabat-Zinn • Full catastrophe living by Jon Kabat-Zinn • The Mindful workplace by Michael Chaskalson • The miracle of mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh • The Blissful Brain: Neuroscience and Proof of the Power of Meditation by Shanida Nataraja • Buddha’s Brain by Rick Hanson • Mindsight by Daniel Siegel • My book! Mindful coaching: how mindfulness can transform coaching practice (Kogan Page, April 2013)

41. Liz Hall • Editor/co-owner of Coaching at Work • www.coaching-at-work.com • liz@coaching-at-work.com • Author of Mindful Coaching (Kogan Page), to be published in April 2013 • Coach & mindfulness trainer