Category / branch (in the tree of contemplative practices): Stillness and Ritual/Cyclical

This is my adaptation of two practices that I first experienced thanks to others: Susy Molgora, my yoga instructor, and Beth Sherman, a presenter on my “Mindfulness in Writing and Literature classrooms Roundtable” at the 2020 Northeast Modern Language Association Annual Convention, and contributor to the special cluster of mindfulness in writing and literature classroom articles I subsequently co-edited in Modern Language Studies.

Susy begins each yoga class with a series of mindful mind-body-breath arriving phrases. When I began practicing yoga with Susy, I’m not sure how many times I heard the phrases until one day, their power suddenly became clear to me—in my mind and my body. I realized that up to that moment, I had only been partially present in my yoga classes. Although my body had been present in the class, my form would frequently need adjusting because my mind was still elsewhere, thinking about the classes I would teach later that day, recalling a conversation with someone, planning dinner or errands, etc. Until one day, the power of Susy’s affirmations crystallized and I “gave myself permission” to fully focus my mind on Susy’s guiding prompts and to fully feel my body as it experienced each moment, pose, micro adjustment, and flow of yoga. I still remember how amazing that “first” fully present yoga class felt, finally understanding how yoga fosters full presence by integrating body and mind and why Susy repeated the same phrases each class. To this day, I tell myself these phrases for all my activities and notice a marked increase in my presence and focus.

I resonated with Beth’s basic breathing practice after experiencing it and learning that she used at the beginning of her first-year undergraduate writing courses with students who had little to no prior experience with mindfulness practices, similar to my teaching context at the time. One key difference was that Beth and Susy were both seasoned practitioners, and I was just beginning to offer explicit mindfulness practices in my online courses and looking for ways to feel safe, comfortable, and experienced enough to begin.

With Susy and Beth’s permission, I adapted their practices for my online classes on Zoom (classZooms) first; after all, it was Fall 2020, in the midst of  COVID-19 restrictions, and I sensed that my students and I could benefit from mindfulness for its potential to enhance presence, attention, focus, connection, self-regulation, and embodiment in our sudden and ongoing social and physical isolation and seemingly disembodied teaching and learning environments. (See note below about adapting for in-person contexts).

For me the invitation to close email, browsers, and unneeded windows, silence phone, allow outside and past/future things and people to “wait” really helps me transition and settle into the space and focus my mind, energy, and attention for the people in the room and tasks of the day. Especially when I first started contemplative practices in the classroom, these arriving phrases also prepare me to further settle my mind and body, readying and relaxing me enough to be able to guide my new students (many of whom were completely new to meditation!) with the breathing/focusing lines. Even when combined, these practices are short enough to constitute an accessible starting practice for anyone new to this form of contemplation/mindfulness yet valuable for anyone more experienced, in a similar way that every yoga practice includes a mountain pose or downward dog.

Cultural or historical origins

Although basic breath practices are widely recognized as originating in/from spiritual practices and traditions in Buddhism and Hinduism, they have been introduced to secular Western mindfulness by Buddhist leaders like Thich Nhat Han and the Dalai Lama and by Western teachers and scholars, including Sharon Salzberg and Daniel Siegel. Many in Judaism, Christianity, and other faith traditions have also claimed deep resonances with the culturally and historically Buddhist and Hindu practices. My practice here aligns more closely to secularized versions, with deep gratitude and respect for the traditions from which they emerge and with which they resonate.

What to be aware of

Trauma-informed research, such as that of Gabor Maté, and pedagogy, such as that of David Treleaven, have revealed and increased awareness of the ways past experiences of trauma are “triggered” and re-experienced in our bodies and our breathing. Since a “breathing practice” like the one I offer here uses the breath as the explicit focus, or anchor, of the practice, I also offered trauma-informed adjustments/alternatives before and during the practice:

• “Invite” students to the practice while also offering them an alternative, such as to sit quietly and take these few moments just for them, to rest or simple settle into their chair;

• Make ample use of “if” and ample use of open, accepting language of diverse experiences, using language like “if the breath is in any way triggering or not accessible to you at this moment, I invite you to instead focus on a part of their body that feels accessible to you.” I then refer to “your breath or body anchor” during the practice.

• Sounds, words/mantras, and images of beloved people, pets, safe-or-special-feeling places area other alternatives.

• Also offer options for eyes to be closed or open, softly and restfully gazing ahead.

• Words and metaphors, like “anchor,” can also be triggering or less accessible for certain forms of neurodiversity that conceptualize the concrete more easily than the abstract and figurative (Hutton 2025) or for anyone who is not familiar with what an anchor is or how it works. Thus, one could replace or pair the word “anchor” with “object of focus.”

Ways to use this in the classroom

I first used this script in an online context, starting on Day 1 and consistently for several classes until students seemed at ease with it, as I describe above, and then I began to vary it with other brief practices to foster other capacities, like curiosity and positive affect, and experiences, like body scans, prompted-writing, and visualizations. Once teaching went back to in-person, the script required minor adjustments to change language from “classZoom” to “classroom, “turning off microphone/screen” to “coming into silence.” The prompts about closing email, Windows, and browsers and turning off or silencing and putting away any other devices are just as relevant in an in-person context.

Once I had the opportunity to experience Katrina Grabner’s orienting/tracking practice, I realized that with the short arriving/breathing/focusing practice I present here, I had been trying to foster arrival, presence, attention, self-awareness and regulation, and whole-person integration, as Grabner’s practices do. Since experiencing Grabner’s, I think Grabner’s is better to use at the beginning of the term, with my practice brought in after a week or two as an alternative “arrival routine” at the beginning of some class sessions, at which time other kinds of practices can be woven in as well.

In addition, brief opening practices like this foster the transition from before class here and now class, to focus mind and body in and for classroom presence, since learning requires attention on the material as it is being presented, as well as intentional, engaged, repeated practice of the material, with attitudes of curiosity, openness, discernment, resilience, growth mindset, self-compassion, and learning about oneself as a learner and member of the classroom community; in these ways, contemplative practices can even become the path “of” education (Ergas & Hadar, 2019).

Script

Welcome everybody. We’ll start by taking a few intentional minutes to settle into this space, this classroom/Zoom, with a brief “breathing/focusing” exercise. Please mute your microphone, and if you like, you may turn off your video during the exercise.

In addition, please close all windows and programs except for Zoom, and turn off and put away any other devices, such as phones or tablets. Let’s give ourselves the gift of focus, the gift of being fully present here in this learning space, this learning community for the next 80 minutes or so. Let yourself be in a comfortable position, either seated, or standing, like me.

If it feels good, allow your spine to straighten, but not stiffen, and feel the crown of your head gently floating toward the ceiling, feeling spaciousness in the back of your neck, in your shoulders.

If you are seated, rest the soles of your feet gently on the floor, with the back of your hands gently resting on your legs, palms up, giving your hands a break, a chance to breathe, doing the opposite of what we do all day with our hands on the keyboard and mouse. And take a deep breath in…and out….

…Notice the sensation of the air as we breathe in…and…out…

Noticing anywhere that may feel tight, like our shoulders, perhaps from so much computer time, and imagine breathing air into that space to relax it, and just breathe in…and out…

…Even engaging in a bit of intuitive movement like a shoulder roll up, around, and down; up, around, and down; up, around and down.

The breath is an anchor. It helps us have something to return to when we can’t quiet our thoughts or calm our nerves or our body is tight from too much computer time. This simple act of breathing, in…and out…

…Your attention may wander, and it will, and that’s okay.

Simply noticing what is happening and returning to the breath is a powerful calming and refocusing aide.

So let’s enjoy the next few breaths on our own, and then meet back in the main classroom/Zoom.

Additional resources