An intro to the course content can go here…
Now try it yourself
Self-checks are a technique you can use to assess how you are feeling as you enter a potentially challenging conversation or workplace situation, so you can better prepare to be authentically and constructively engaged.
Here is one way of doing a self-check before starting your day, or before entering a stressful situation:
- Relax in a comfortable sitting position, and take several deep slow breaths. Feel your body in your chair or wherever you are sitting. Are you tense? In pain or discomfort somewhere? Feeling tightness anywhere? Notice these physical sensations, and adjust to be more comfortable if possible.
- Now switch to your emotions: Are you relaxed and happy, concerned or worried, sad or angry? Take time to notice and name your emotional state at the moment.
- Notice your thoughts: Are they judgmental or blaming, argumentative, rehearsing a specific script or ‘lecture’? Formulating questions or answers in advance?
- Take a few more deep slow breaths as you come out of this contemplative state, and return to your day’s activities.
- These sensations, feelings, and thoughts are part of what you are bringing to the coming interaction as a parent or teacher. By noticing them ‘in advance’ you can regulate, moderate or question them, and adjust them before the coming interactions.
You may not always have time for a self-check during your day, but when you do, it can help you truly notice your current physical, emotional and mental state, and give you an opportunity to either change it or move ahead with full awareness of it.