School: Let it Go

For the amount of yoga gear, yoga talk, yoga instagram quotes, yoga lifestyle sites, blogs, shops, philosophies, and classes that exist in our world today, we are lacking in dhyana (or zen).  In terms of the first days of school.  I have a few pearls of wisdom to share with you.

Let it go

According to a quick search online (and what I really should do is get in touch with my dad’s cousin, Irving Finkel, who actually speaks and reads Sanskrit but he’s a very busy man.) Zen is a word derived from the Chinese word 禅 chán and the Sanskrit word ध्यान dhyana.  The root meaning of the word is : to see, too observe, to look.

I’m not sure if it’s our age, our culture or somehow just our nature, but we often enter into new things ready to question, react, investigate.  As your child starts a new school, press the pause button and just let the first few days of school be.

Do the bare necessities. Send them to school with their belongings, some healthy food, and a layer of sunscreen.  Pick them up with a little snack and the time and space to talk or not about their day.

Let the first days of school be.  Don’t assume anything about the class or the classmates, the teacher or the classroom, the assignments or the lack thereof.  Just let those first days be.

You’ll have the whole rest of the year to ask questions, be concerned, get excited, be unsure, or to step in.

For now though, for this first week or two, let the days wash over you like the waves lapping over your toes at the beach.  This is their moment.  It’s a time for the teachers and the students.  You get to be standing on the shore as your child paddles out to surf the waves.