Lessons from Haverford College Students

The end of 2025 brought a lot of teaching gigs that had been in the works for a while. Now comes the time when I savor them again, and remember what I learned as a teacher...

Teaching the Mellon Mays Fellows at Haverford College was a real treat. These are some very motivated, hard working young adults, and introducing a space to slow down and listen to the body was both welcome and a bit challenging, as some students were struggling with pain, stress, and tiredness in their bodies that they weren't used to noticing.

What seemed to help?

1) Affirming that noticing is a vital first step, and that the body will begin to make changes under the light of all your good attention.

2) Moving while bringing to mind enjoyable environments and activities. As we walked around calling out things like "a sunny window", "warm cookies", "snuggling my dog"... the sense memory of these experiences helped their bodies move with more enjoyment, freedom, relaxation...

3) Sharing challenges and discoveries. Feeling less alone.

4) Playing and gamifying somatic learning. When given some options for the last section of our workshop, they were playfully intrigued by my "Grab Bag of well-being tricks"... (Actually, doing this kind of reminded me of a day in my college somatic class where we just learned a whole bunch of on-the-go 2 minute things that we could do to feel better. thanks Deborah Vogel!) If you're a student of mine, you know I usually love going deep and slow, because when else do we get to? But sometimes quick tricks are fun:) And very practical as well.

♡ Lee