Suruchi Saini

I am not blind to the fact that due to certain rules, at times it’s challenging to discipline few students but we (parents and teachers together) can still help! Yes we need to be even more mindful of our thoughts, actions, words, expectations, stressors, anxieties, personal and professional conflicts. There has to be clear and mindful coordination between parents and teachers.

It breaks my heart when I see a few parents and teachers blaming each other for so called “out of control kids”. However, in this miscommunication, kids suffer the most  in their childhood as well as in their adulthood.

The Busy Syndrome

Situations like these raise the question, “what happened in past few decades and how did these kids reached this stage?” Kids are like a little sponge, and they are learning from all of the adults around them. Are you too busy to talk to them? If you are, then my next question is, “What are you doing that you are busy?” Maybe you’re earning to support “the family”. But what if there is no family bonding left to enjoy because you are busy earning money?

In many cases, parents don’t have a chance to plan the resources such as mental, emotional, social, and financial before getting married or having children. Who do you blame for this situation? Do you blame your parents, grandparents, teachers, the economy, or the president? Perhaps it’s the simple, mindless, lifestyle over generations which possibly is the result of misplaced priorities. This is always a topic for provocative discussion with parents.

What can you do to break this cycle?

Now that children are present in the family, do we want to turn them into adults like the majority of present day adults? Not really. Again, we have to break this cycle.

Here are some things you can do:

• Start talking to them and spend quality time with them
• share with them the positive history of family members
• teach them how to manage their needs and desires
• relationships
• time
• finances
• environment

They also have to learn to think, talk, focus, and reach out to resources which can help them produce quality thoughts.

Become a Mindful Leader

At home, the head of the family is the leader. In a classroom, the teacher is the leader and in school the Principal is the leader. A leader has to have a vision, a plan, and the ability to share with the members of her/his respective group. When we stand alone (check ego), at times we feel helpless. But when we think like a leader, we always find someone out of the group, to share our concerns or seek help from to stay on the right track.

If you grew up without a leader at home or school, seek brief help. Get your power back and become the leader yourself. Your inner self (present and future), family, friends, and team members will be grateful to you! Break the cycle of uncertainty and stress. Let’s try to create high quality environments and great leaders within our homes and schools!

I am practicing Mindfulness and ready to bring the change, are you?

Ask me if you have any questions.

I frequently meet new people due to the nature of my work. I love the uniqueness in them and how they are utilizing it to explore themselves, relationships, the world, and in some cases, to get by. Being unique does come handy most of the time.

When I think about uniqueness, two factors come to mind; the physical and mental parts.

1.The physical parts: their size, shape, color of eyes, type of hair, color of skin, the accent, the softness/harshness of voice, the speed of their movements/actions, and how they sit/stand, overall gestures.

2.The mental part: how they perceive the world, relate with others including nature, level of their self-awareness, especially their strengths and weaknesses. And that whether they know how they are using it to be a better human being, or not and then why not?

I have also come across many people who I feel are real gems but are stuck mentally in different developmental stage of their lives than where they should be, looking at their chronological stage. Living in this situation leads to internal and external chaos resulting in lack of clarity and overall stress.

Conflict between Mental and Chronological stage

From the people who were able to share their history, it gave me an insight that in any development stage where they went through a simple or multi-dimensional trauma and they didn’t receive any help on time, they got mentally stuck in that developmental state but kept growing chronologically.
I had heard about “feeling stuck” among friends, families, and colleagues many times but people usually stop their thoughts to this conclusion and keep on piling on stuff that life throws at them. From there on they start living superficially, and sooner or later it becomes their life style. Therapy helps, big time!

Mindfulness for crisis recovery

While actively using Mindfulness in sessions, I realized that it helps to empower the clients to be aware that on a subconscious or unconscious level, they are splitting between these mental and chronological stages. Recognizing this true nature of chaos helped many of my clients. They used this awareness, along with therapy to slowly raise themselves by keeping a reality check on their thoughts and behaviors.

It means to be able to recognize that in a particular situation, which mental stage they are operating from, especially if they are in crisis. As most of us know, we have a natural tendency to regress in crisis. Sometimes we are able to recover and sometimes we don’t.

In other words, this level of self-awareness with the help of Mindfulness may help anyone to be the adult that they claim to be!