I Mindful Words

II Mindful Listening

III Mindful Body Language

Thinking about past experiences can be a good way to figure out how to improve future experience. Don’t get too caught up in reflecting though, because we can always change what happens in the future if we are not happy with past actions. Mindful Communication takes a lot of work, because it takes us out of autopilot and into the present moment… sometimes even the past or future. When we choose to mindfully communicate, we are choosing to show we care about the person we are speaking with by giving them our full attention and energy. We are also putting our attention and energy toward using our most mindful words, listening skills and body language. This means that we think about each of these parts of Mindful Communication and act in a way that we would like others to act towards us too.

Mindful Communication is especially important in this age of technology and insta-everything, because it allows us to make personal connections with the person we are talking to, rather than seeing them as a message bubble on our phone. By being mindful in our communication, we acknowledge the value in each person we talk to.

The three parts of Mindful Communication are very important and all affect each other. They don’t necessarily come in any order, because you use each one in each part of Mindful Communication. We broke them down into three lessons here so that we could put all our focus into each one as we learned them. Now that we’ve learned the parts of Mindful Communication, the next practice is to put them back together!

The last step of this activity is to imagine a conversation you would really like to have with someone. Think about what you would like them to get out of the conversation, and then think about the words you would choose to speak with to support that. What would your posture, gestures and facial expressions look like to show how you are feeling? Lastly, how would you listen to your partner when they speak?

You can write this down and draw an illustration to respond, or discuss this out loud in class if your teacher gives the option to participate in this way. Just make sure to practice Mindful Listening as you raise your hand and wait your turn.

Teacher’s tip: students can practice Mindful Communication every day. You can recommend that they are particularly aware of it at school, and that they practice it at home with their families. Each component can be revisited as needed too.

Student’s tip: you can practice Mindful Communication any time you speak with someone in person. If you don’t speak with others in person a lot, you might try having more face-to-face conversations and practicing your new skills. Notice how it makes you feel to connect with others in this way.