Today was an interesting day to think about my thoughts. The teaching portion of my day was relaxing and fun, so I felt free from thoughts and existed very much in the moment. The non-teaching part of the day was very stressful though. Students were in crisis and missing and getting caught making bad choices, so I had a lot of thoughts that were really negative. My frustration definitely manifested itself in the wrong places too. I snapped at kids who didn’t deserve to be snapped at and became lethargic and unproductive.
To be honest, I am somewhat ashamed of the level of negativity in my thoughts regarding some of my students today. If, as the prompt suggested, I had watched my thoughts like a movie, I would have to say I was kind of pitiful. I would not like the version of me I was watching. The inability to break from those thoughts and their pervasive nature was scary.
The lesson of today is obvious: negative thoughts about anything, if allowed to remain in your head, will poison your attempts to be productive in subsequent conversations. Maybe these moments are when I should practice meditation. If I can clear my mind entirely, it’s as if I start with a clean slate and the negative lens goes away.
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