Learning The Importance Of Being Focused
[Written by CedarBridge Academy S3 student Ariana Walters]
On Friday, September 28, 2018 Ocean Rock Wellness came to CedarBridge Academy to help us with building our self-esteem and learning how to be comfortable in our own skin. Guest speaker Michael Eisen, from Canada, in partnership with Ocean Rock Wellness, shared with us the importance of being focused and having mindfulness.
The first session was all geared toward learning breathing techniques, which is an essential element for achieving mindfulness. This exercise also taught us how to breathe correctly, which is from the stomach, or diaphragm as he said, and not our chests or lungs. Hearing this at first, it had most of us confused and skeptical, but many of us found the exercise very helpful.
After about fifteen minutes of trying to stay focused on our breathing, we talked about how difficult it was to actually accomplish such a seemingly simple task.
Additionally, we went outdoors to try another way we could perfect the technique. Noises from the music room, ants marching around, and the heat of the sun had us very distracted. Later on we were told to remove our shoes and socks and to stand on the grass. This was uncomfortable for many and took a lot of coaxing to finally get us to do so.
We continued our breathing exercises on the grass but with the calming ambience of nature and the feel of the grass between our toes. This process was called earthing. We then moved on to charging our chi, which I found mildly uncomfortable. Charging our chi entailed rubbing our hands together, pulling them apart to feel the remains of static electricity, and swaying from side to side while persons on their way to their classes watched in awe and confusion.
Many of us stopped, afraid of being ridiculed and being caught in the act of something foolish. After those taxing moments, we finally went back inside for a break and lunch. At the ending of lunch, we moved on to a different topic, ‘emotions’. Rolisa Camile shared about her past and what she went through as a child and how it impacted her. She told us how she overcame her bullying and how we could rise above negative feelings as well.
We got involved in several different activities which had us reacting to different scenarios and analyzing our emotional responses. Mr. Eisen wanted to teach us that there are not any bad and good emotions and we just have to learn how to express them in a healthy way. We talked about the different ways we could express what we were taught about negative emotions in a positive way.
Talking and sharing our thoughts and emotions was interesting and had many of us stepping out of our comfort zones. Seeing things from a different perspective gave incite on how I perceived my environment.
It was fun and relaxing and I left educated in a different way.
