Mindfulness Principles: Strength
The first three Yoga Calm Principles covered in this series - Stillness, Listening, and Grounding - establish some basic tools for self-regulation. They also lay the foundation for the next Principle we’ll explore: Strength. Strength is more than just muscle power, of...
Mindfulness Principles: Grounding
Like the first two principles in this series, the third focuses on a key aspect of mindfulness. Where Stillness prepares for Listening and Listening puts attention on the present moment, Grounding brings a person physically, cognitively, and emotionally into the...
Mindfulness Principles: Listening
Part 2 of a 5-part series. Read Part 1 here. I was having a very busy day, with a long list of students who still needed to be seen. It was Friday, and as a school counselor, I felt like I didn’t have much left to give. Fridays often felt that way. I was ready for a...
Yoga Calm Fundamentals: Stillness
Although originally developed in an elementary classroom to be used primarily in school settings, Yoga Calm has come to be used in many different environments: hospitals, clinics, juvenile detention facilities, yoga studios, churches, and, of course, homes. It’s...
How to Use a Breathing Sphere in Your Classroom or Home School Setting
Watch a baby at rest, and you’ll see a good example of healthy breathing. The pattern is relaxed, slow, and wavelike. Every bone, muscle, and organ moves with each breath. Unhealthy breathing, by contrast, is rigid or inappropriate to the situation and often exhibits...
The Promise & Hope of Post-Traumatic Growth (From the Archives)
Originally posted September 12, 2021 Back when I was first learning about trauma’s impact and the possibilities of healing, I often saw the negative consequences of childhood trauma pushed to center stage: addictive and other self-destructive behaviors, worse...
Why Helping Kids Reconnect with Nature Matters So Much
If you’re GenX or older, there’s a good chance you think of summer as outdoor time and back-to-school as a return to a mostly indoor routine - and daydreams of running about and playing freely all day in the sun, including plenty of time in green spaces, whether...
Movement for Kids, Mindfulness for Teachers?
Last month, a set of studies on school-based mindfulness dropped, inspiring a whole lot of headlines shouting that school-based mindfulness just doesn’t work. This very large, UK-based research project involved more than 28,000 students between the ages of 11 and 14,...
Celebrating 10 Years of Good People Everywhere
It's hard to believe that it's already been 10 years since Lynea's Good People Everywhere went into print! In fact, we almost missed its anniversary, only realizing it as we finalized its 13th printing the other day. Almost 30,000 copies of this soothing story are...
The Time Has Never Been More Important for Yoga Calm
It hardly qualifies as news anymore: Student mental health needs are up, and school resources are down. Counselors and psychologists are in especially short supply. A recent EdWeek survey found that in the 2020-21 academic year, only 8% of districts met the...
The Kind of Gentle, Peaceful Story We All Need Right Now
When you think about what humans need to survive, you probably think first of our basic material needs: water, food, shelter, air. But we all have social and psychological needs, too. Storytelling - and “storylistening” - falls into that category. Stories do a lot of...
The Power of Young People: 3 Examples of Love & Knowledge in Action
In teaching Yoga Calm, we talk a lot about the power of modeling: performing the behaviors you want your students, clients, or children to emulate, as well as drawing attention to other positive models. But adults are hardly the only examples kids have to follow. Peer...