Day 6

Eleanor beginning her sand mandala

    Today was the first day of our mindfulness final projects, which made it a very nerve-racking day for some! For these projects, we lead a meditation on a specific topic while also presenting research and reflecting on that topic. Today, three students presented their topics, with Everest presenting first.

The class wrote down their reflections in their
journals after Everests guided meditation

Everest’s aimed to teach us about the importance of acceptance when it comes to dealing with our emotions and within mindfulness. We learned about how accepting an emotion and simply sitting with it can be an incredibly effective way of dealing with it. Although it may seem counterintuitive, when we accept what we’re feeling and allow ourselves to feel it, we manage emotions much better. Personally, I find this to be very true, and Everest’s presentation further convinced me to keep acceptance at the forefront of how I manage emotion.

The students placed their hands over their hearts
to embrace their heart chakra before beginning the yoga

After Everest’s presentation, we did our daily yoga practice. Today we learned about the seven Chakras and how each of them impacts our bodies and minds. We did some general yoga poses to prepare ourselves, and then we began poses that specifically targeted each of the seven Chakras. We held these poses for many minutes at a time, and by the end of each pose I was not only exhausted, but also getting deep tissue stretches in many muscles. 

    After a delicious lunch, it was time for Emily to give her presentation! Emily’s final project was about how to do a 5 senses meditation, which was a meditation I didn’t know about until today. She took us through how we can use the meditation, what its benefits are, and when we should use it. Following this, she guided us through the meditation part of the presentation, where we were asked to use our 5 senses to better understand the environment we were in. I really enjoyed this meditation and feel as though I will be able to easily incorporate it into my daily life.

Everyone was able to relax as Emily led them through a 
beautiful meditation which engaged our five senses

All eyes were on Justin during his presentation

The final presentation of the day was done by Justin, who chose the topic of managing anger. Justin’s presentation featured a lot of pursed lip breathing, which is a breathing technique one can use to force oneself to exhale slowly. This has been shown by research to lower stress, anxiety, and anger levels. We also practiced hand-tracing, which is a practice that I have been using the past couple months whenever I need some space and some grounding. I thought that Justin’s final project was fantastic, and after seeing how well my peers did on their work, I am feeling the pressure to up my game!