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"In the short term, you are as good as your intensity. In the long term, you are only as good as your consistency."

We often hear about inner calm, but it can be so much more than a fleeting moment of peace after yoga or the perfect massage. Inner calm is actually our ability to let go of attachments and reactions to life’s events, resulting in ease and clarity.

As a mindfulness skill, inner calm is the ability to let go of attachments and reactivity based on an understanding of impermanence—the changing nature of our thoughts, emotions, and desires. When we find ourselves rushing and reacting, we can remind ourselves, This too shall pass. The purpose is not to negate what we’re feeling but to put brakes on accelerated feelings. Once we return to our inner stillness, we can look at the source of our reactivity, intimately seeing its changing nature: This right here is what frees us.

Once we return to our inner stillness, we can look at the source of our reactivity, intimately seeing its changing nature: This right here is what frees us.

As a practice, inner calm is the art of stopping, looking and letting go for purposes of healing and clarity. It involves physical composure and mental tranquility. It can be seen as the ultimate balm for your soul—like a cool breeze on a hot day. Inner calm brings ease to body and mind alike. In the body, composure is experienced in the muscles and as an overall feeling of ease. In the mind, inner calm creates the space to hold everything without attachment and resistance. Conversely, the absence of inner calm may show up as restlessness in the body and agitation or reactivity in the mind.

Seeking inner calm can often leave us wanting more, but it’s ironic that true inner calm is achieved when we let go of our desires, even the desire for inner calm itself—a catch-22 if there ever was one. This paradox becomes evident when we consider the case of a client dealing with anxiety who turned to meditation as a way to ease his mind. Surprisingly, he found himself even more anxious post-meditation. He had hoped that meditation would improve his sleep, but he was left frustrated when he observed his restlessness during a body scan meditation, which only seemed to worsen his sleep problems.

The moral here? To find peace, he had to let go first of his expectations around finding peace. In order to let go, he learned to see the three hindrances to his achieving mindfulness: running in circles (a restless mind), pulling (striving to sleep), and pushing (frustrated with his restlessness). With practice, he learned to accept his restless mind, which softened the striving and frustration, and he was able to find ease, even when he couldn’t sleep, which ultimately allowed him to sleep.

Letting go of attachments to certain outcomes doesn’t, however, mean that we’re suppressing or evading challenging situations. Instead, this release occurs organically when we comprehend that emotions arise and dissolve—all within ninety seconds.

The Ninety-Second Rule

Inner calm is not about suppressing, denying, or avoiding our emotions. When we don’t give in to the urge to react, we’re cultivating the ability to stay with unpleasantness (knowing that emotions are physiological responses in the body that will arise and dissolve). Just as happiness triggered by external events doesn’t last, negative emotions also don’t last. Have you heard of the ninety-second rule? Neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor reveals in her book My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey that all emotions have a beginning, middle, and end—all within ninety seconds from when they first arise.

The reason we continue to experience negative emotions, sometimes for days, weeks, and even years, is that we continue to fuel these feelings with our narratives. Instead, if we stop and let the emotion move through our body, we’ll create space in our minds to better understand what they are trying to tell us. Rather than suppressing or using positive thinking to bypass our experience, we can form an alliance with our feelings. By doing this, we can uncover how they’re trying to protect us, address our unmet needs, or draw our attention to new information in the environment.

The ninety-second rule is a helpful reminder to ride the waves of our emotions, but emotions can sometimes be so powerful that they hijack our rational thought processes. It’s helpful in these situations to remember where those emotions come from—deep in the past, when we were hunter-gatherers facing real tigers!

How Inner Calm Supports Resilience

So much of our lives are marked by perceived threats to our identity, career, or relationships. Our primal reactions—fight-flight-freeze—can be unhelpful when it comes to navigating these everyday psychological and social stressors. What’s needed to resolve problems common to the modern world is clarity and creativity, but our reaction is the opposite—to fight, flee, or freeze. This evolutionary response to any threat is automatic and unconscious.

What’s needed to resolve problems common to the modern world is clarity and creativity, but our reaction is the opposite—to fight, flee, or freeze.

When our emotions are triggered such that we can’t think or see clearly, it’s called an “amygdala hijack”—a term popularized by emotional intelligence expert Daniel Goleman. The amygdala is the emotional center of the brain. One of its functions is to scan the environment for threats and prepare the body for an emergency response. When it perceives a threat, such as a tiger lurking in the bushes, it sends an immediate signal to release stress hormones—adrenaline and cortisol—that ramp up an emergency response. Blood stops flowing to the organs and instead floods into the limbs to prepare us for fight or flight. Meanwhile, the prefrontal cortex (which is responsible for thinking and executive decision-making) shuts down because there is no time to think and analyze when we’re facing what the brain perceives as a life-threatening situation.

During an amygdala hijack, it is said that our IQ temporarily drops by ten to fifteen points. Maybe this explains that feeling after we’ve reacted to a verbal trigger: What was I thinking when I said that? That’s exactly the point. We stop thinking rationally. It also compromises memory, which is why we can’t remember a single good thing about a person with whom we have a conflict or why we can’t find our keys in the middle of a panic attack. Being in a continuous state of fight or flight from modern threats also compromises the integrity of other systems, like immunity and digestion.

Cultivating inner calm is an important step in avoiding the amygdala hijack so we can think clearly even in highly charged situations. Using practices to promote inner calm—like breath awareness—helps slow our escalating emotions and allows the parasympathetic nervous system to kick back in so we can once again think clearly. Another activity that nudges the prefrontal cortex to start thinking again is “noting” or “labeling.” The act of noting or labeling our emotions gets the prefrontal cortex to regain healthy communication with the amygdala and avoids the hijack. Inner calm offers opportunities to learn and improve or for us to provide a deeper understanding of the “what” and the “why” behind our actions. We can replace tension and misunderstanding with harmony and understanding. Inner calm is key for resilience in relationships and life in general.

Where Are You on the Inner Calm Continuum?


You can strengthen your ability for inner calm, regardless of your circumstances. First, pay attention to when you’re calm and when you’re not. Next, notice the causes and conditions that promote calm and what stops you from being calm. By cultivating a habit of calming the mind and body, you’ll develop the ability to access this place more quickly and easily.

Daily Practice: One-Minute Rest

Rested, we care again for the right things and

the right people in the right way.

—David Whyte

Take time in your day, several times a day, if possible, to empty your cup and make space for what matters. You can do this very quickly by checking in with your body.

  1. Any tension or tightness in the body is a clue that you’re holding on to something that needs your loving attention. You can’t let go without knowing what it is you’re trying to let go. Just turning your attention to places you’re holding tension can help you uncover the emotions and thoughts associated with that tension.
  2. Once you can see the cause of your tension, you can figure out the solution. It’s also clarifying to realign with your intentions as you’re emptying your cup—what is it you’re clearing the space for?
  3. Return. Take a one-minute rest and return to your body. Rub the palms of your hand and place them on your eyes, allowing them to rest. Move your hands to your jawline, neck, shoulders, chest, or wherever feels good in your body.
  4. Listen. Listen within. What can you let go of at this moment to make room for what matters?
  5. Begin. Begin your activities with a relaxed body and mind aligned with what matters.

Try practicing and playing with this reminder with your family, with team members, and in your community before beginning a meeting or activity together.

Written by Leon Ho


The secret to a successful life is effective goal setting, and the secret to effective goal setting is SMART goals. The magic wand that works it wonders in SMART goals is the ‘M.’

Do you why it’s so important for goals to be measurable? This one property plays the role of the backbone in SMART goals. It eases the way for the rest of the process and increases your chances of moving forward successfully.

Today, you’ll find out all about the significance of measurable goals and how they can enhance your ability to achieve goals in life!

What Are Measurable Goals?

Let’s start by reminding you what SMART goals are and what exactly the ‘M’ stands for.

SMART is an acronym for:

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Achievable
  • Relevant
  • Time-Bound

1. SPECIFIC

Specificity is self-explanatory. It means that your goals shouldn’t be general or broad. Instead, they should pinpoint all the details. However, you also need to make sure that while making the goals specific, you don’t overcomplicate them. Answer the what, why, how as simply and clearly as possible.

2. ACHIEVABLE

Whatever goal you plan should be realistic. If it’s not achievable, it’s not a goal but only a wish. The difference between a desire and a goal is that the latter can be ticked off with the right efforts.

For example, a wish would be to reach the moon. This on its own is pretty unachievable. However, if you set multiple achievable goals, such as joining an astronaut training program at NASA, you may one day step on the moon for real.

3. RELEVANT

Relevance is extremely significant. Your goals should be relevant to your life’s ideology, your morals, your long-term plans, and also the current circumstances. If you’re already preoccupied with a lot of responsibilities, it’s not a good idea to start something completely new.

Similarly, going for a goal that is irrelevant to your current lifestyle will put you in major jeopardy. For example, you can’t aim to learn water skiing if you’re living in a desert land.

4. TIME-BOUND

Time-bound goals set a time limit on your goals—you don’t have room to slack. Whatever you plan needs to have a defined due date as well.

5. MEASURABLE

Now let’s talk about the most important part—measurable goals.

How do you measure a goal? Basically, this factor is an accountability plan for yourself. By devising measurable goals, you define what exactly will make you successful.

Let’s say you intend to increase your income. How will you know how much increase is enough to tick off the goal from your list?


Not only does this set a standard for you to reach, but it is also a source of motivation. Without a measure, you might overachieve but still not be satisfied.

The Importance of Measurable Goals

SMART goals have 5 factors. Why is it the most important for goals to be measurable in specific?

Well, the answer is simple. Being measurable automatically fulfills the criteria of the other 4 aspects. Here’s how this happens!

1. Measurable Goals Are Specific

When you’re making a goal measurable, you’re naturally adding more specificity to it.

Look at it this way:

Initially, you had a goal in mind to get fit. However, you cannot really measure anything in this goal. To make it more measurable, you decide to add exercise to your daily routine. It will help you gain stamina, lose the extra inches, and strengthen your muscles.

Once again, you still can’t measure your progress. So eventually, you narrow it down to working out 15 minutes every day.

In this goal, you’re basically measuring how much fitness you want to add to your lifestyle while also making it specific. In fact, you have added more detail this way than you would have if you were trying consciously.

This isn’t any rocket science. Yet, it can be confusing when you’re under the pressure of planning effective goals. So, it’s helpful that simply adding the aspect of measure makes your goals so much clearer and well-defined.

2. Measurable Goals Are Achievable

As previously mentioned, goals that aren’t achievable aren’t goals at all. It is very important to plan something attainable. Otherwise, no matter how well you plan everything and how much you struggle for it, you’ll never reach your desired destination.

There is a fine line between getting unrealistic and going the extra mile. It’s great to want to reach new ends. But sometimes, this ambition can detract you and lead you to something impossible.

For example, it is great if you want to expand your work expertise. Despite working in the sales department for 10 years, you now want to start experimenting in the marketing department as well. Your aim is simply to broaden your skillset.

While this intent is positive, if you plan a goal to work in both the departments side by side, that will be something unrealistic.

If you catch yourself in a confusing state like this, focus your attention on making the goal measurable. It will naturally start becoming more achievable too.

So, what you can do is measure how much expertise you want to increase in the department of marketing. A good example of this wanting to play a marketing executive’s role flawlessly by the end of the month. Furthermore, you can decide to utilize the 1-hour lunch break to learn these skills.

This will give you a set precedent. Meanwhile, you won’t have to overdo things on the marketing side or let go of your responsibilities in the sales department.

3. Measurable Goals Are Relevant

Measurable goals aren’t directly relevant. But if you put in a conscious effort, these two factors get linked very easily.

When you’re measuring a goal to make sure you can track the progress, you subconsciously know in the back of your mind whether or not it can be achieved. This subconscious sound in your mind is reminding you of the goal’s relevance to your ongoing life routine.

Measurable goals need to be precise. When adding this precision to your goals, you get a clear idea of whether or not the goal can fit in your life at the moment or not.

For example, if you plan to add an hour-long workout session to all 7 days of your week, you can get a sense of whether or not you have enough time to fit it in or not.

4. Measurable Goals Are Time-Bound

Time constraints are pretty natural in measurable goals.

Time-bound goals can be divided into 4 main categories; immediate goals, short-term goals, medium-term goals, and long-term goals.[1] So, based on how you’re measuring your progress, you can add a time limit to it.

Let’s say you’ve started an online blog that you want to take forward. Your measurable goal can be that you want to increase the readership from 350 to 500 people per month. Now, whether you want to do that in one month, six months, or one year is a vital part of this goal.

Time-bound goals give you a sense of a deadline so you’re less likely to procrastinate. Hence, your productivity increases.

5. Measurable Goals Give You a Clear Sense of Direction

With specificity and relevance, such goals lead you to a very clear path. There is no blurry vision, you’re well aware of what you’re aiming for, and the entire process is pretty much clear in your head.

Technically, measurable goals define every aspect of your goals so clearly that there is no room left for confusion—there is no room for haphazardness. You won’t get lost in the way. This clarity itself is a huge bliss when you’re aiming for big goals.

Knowing your direction increases your motivation and hence, helps you achieve what you desire quicker and better. Since there are no obstacles in a path like this, your inner self drives you to work harder too. So, if you’re someone who struggles with achieving goals, try making them more measurable for better outcomes.

Conclusion

What matters the most is that whatever you work hard for, you can achieve it. The toughest parts of life are when all your efforts go to waste.

A fool-proof way to keep these dark days at bay is to always develop SMART goals. Whether you’re planning something for work or your personal life, opt for SMART goals in every part of your life to receive success.

What’s even better is that you don’t even have to struggle with all the 5 factors of SMART goals. As long you put in the thought to make them measurable, your goals will inevitably be as SMART as they can be.

Neither is this process time-consuming nor is it hard to implement in your daily life. So, without wasting any more time, start making your goals more measurable for increased motivation, organized life, and higher chances of success!

Our modern, convenience-driven world has resulted in us ‘out maneuvering’ a key aspect of mental health: Movement.


In the last few generations we have become dramatically more sedentary

Most of us have jobs that keep us stuck at a desk all day long, machines to do our heavy lifting, and phones and other gadgets that mean that can do almost anything, without moving.

This has caused a level of disconnect with our bodies, to the extent that often, we only notice our body, when something goes wrong.

The mental health benefits of movement

There are numerous mental health benefits related to movement, and we are not even referring to exercise here. Whilst we all know intellectually that exercise is good for us, it can be viewed as a chore: another thing to fit in our day, and we aren’t always in a situation that’s conducive to doing it either. However, the truth is that whatever our job, or lifestyle: there is always an opportunity to move our body.

When we do move our body, energy flows through it, our bodily system are activated, which makes us function well, and our brain generates various happy hormones (transmitters) that make us feel good. 

  • The first benefit is improved circulation

Just like food nourishes the body and brain – so does Movement!  

One of the many benefits of moving more is improved circulation, which in relation to the body means improved digestion and therefore improved movement of food and essential nutrients, through our gut. This leads not just to better weight control, but also to better waste removal, not just in the body, but in the brain too: a process that helps keep our stress buckets at a manageable level.  

Movement also triggers the neurotransmitters serotonin and endorphins, as well as a specific protein called BDNF (brain derived neurotropic factor) that, in addition to protecting existing brain cells, also promotes new, healthier brain cells, leading to improved brain function. 

This benefits our mental health in many ways, enhancing our ability to taking in new information, retain and recall that information, and also our confidence to apply it.

  • The second benefit is improved metabolism

Our metabolism, which regulates our blood sugar, blood pressure and our ability to break down body fat, is affected by movement. Studies have linked excessive sitting with both obesity and type 2 diabetes and research has also suggested that being ‘active’ for 60 mins a day can offset the negative effects of sitting too much.  This ‘activity’ can be all sorts of activity, that, when combined, adds up to 60 minutes, so it’s not just about getting to a gym.

  • The third benefit is improved clarity

Movement helps with mental clarity, as well as concentration and memory. If you have ever gone out for a walk to ‘clear your head’, you’ll intuitively know this. When our body moves, so does our brain, which promotes the production of BDNF, which as we now know, aids cognitive function. In fact, one study showed that walking in particular, boosted creative ideation in both real time and shortly after.

  • The fourth benefit is improved mood

Movement positively impacts our mood and many studies have shown that people who exercise regularly experience fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression. Again, this is linked to the production of serotonin and endorphins, both of which make us feel good , but it’s also linked to the release of the stress hormone, cortisol, that occurs when we move. And of course, when we feel good, we are more likely to feel inclined to do things that involve movement.

  • The fifth is benefit improved resilience

Ultimately, movement increases our resilience as a result of the four previous benefits.  It can also help take our mind off our worries and it can help to promote a sense of well-being, making us feel both physically and emotionally stronger, enabling us to ‘handle’ more in our lives.

In summary

It’s important to make movement a part of our every day lives, because the benefits of moving more are so vast. Movement fuels our energy, enhances our organ health, aids our circulation and balances our sugar levels. It increases our resilience to stress, improves our sleep and enhances our mood. It even drives our social interaction, and in fact, there’s lots of research that suggests that we get even more benefits when we move as a tribe.

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Ingredients


1 c. quick-cooking oats

1/2 c. old-fashioned oats

1/4 c. whole-wheat flour

3/4 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. kosher salt

1/4 c. (1/2 stick) butter, softened

1/3 c. granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1/2 c. applesauce

1/2 c. dried cherries

1/3 c. chopped dark chocolate, plus more for topping


Directions


  • Preheat oven to 350° and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. In a medium bowl, whisk together oats, flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.
  • In a large bowl using a hand mixer, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg, vanilla, and applesauce until combined. Mix in flour mixture until just combined. Fold in dried cherries and chocolate.
  • Using a large cooking scoop, arrange balls of dough on prepared baking sheet, 2 inches apart. Gently flatten each ball slightly. Top with more chocolate.
  • Bake until golden around edges, about 12 minutes.


A teacher's vitality or capacity to be vital, present, positive, and deeply engaged and connected to her/his children and students is not a fixed, indelible condition, but a state that ebbs and flows and grows within the context of the teaching life. Stepping Stone School is committed to a program of professional development devoted explicitly to nourishing the inner and external life or core dimensions that are increasingly important for our educators on their journey.
-Rhonda Paver
The Educator Vitality Journey is a program designed to help our teachers to make a daily, conscious effort to be positive, self-aware, passionate, and fully engaged in their roles, while deepening their understanding of their true potential.