Difficult Emotions

During the 2017-18 school year, I encountered my first student who experienced difficult emotions during mindfulness practice. This was in the 9th grade ELA Enrichment class. The student had lost his/her dad the past school year and it is my gut feeling that he/she had not done any grief therapy.

This student was in class with a good friend who also experienced difficult emotions during our mindfulness “check-in” practice. This student’s life is/was challenging because of family alcoholism. The student lives with a grandmother. This student is often angry and projects anger towards adults (teacher in this case).

During our group sharing, these two students would either not share out or would say that mindfulness practice “did nothing” for them. At the same time, they would say that it brought up “negative” emotions or thoughts that were negative. One of the students was so uncomfortable that he/she asked to be removed from my ELA class with about 3 weeks left of the semester. The student said I reminded him/her of the deceased dad’s family with whom he/she did not get along. Wow! Talk about projection!

At first, I took this personally. Why would a student “take it out on me?” Mindfulness is a positive activity. It isn’t supposed to make a person uncomfortable. Little did I know at the time that people who have experienced trauma or grief AND have not done any personal work to get through the emotions can be triggered by mindfulness or any quiet personal time.

This experience has turned into a learning opportunity. I am taking an online course this summer through MindfulSchools entitled “Difficult Emotions”. How opportune!