Calming Exercises With Derek

Written By Davin Dunne

For the next 4 weeks, a man named Derek will be coming in to us to talk about pausing and noticing our inside places. Derek told us to get in a comfortable position and then he talked to us about our day so far.Then, he asked us to notice the things around us a bit more and told us to imagine that we were shining a torch down our throat. Derek then asked us what we saw. We discussed a bit about how we felt when Derek was talking to us about those things. Derek asked us to listen each day to a podcast before 1st break, after 1st break, before 2nd break, after 2nd break and we are currently planning on one for before our Friday morning tests. When we listen to the podcasts we usually feel calm during and after them. This week we talked about what the word ‘Friendship’ means to us. A few people mentioned about trust, understanding, support and honesty. Then we talked about bullying. The times when we were bullied and occasions when we bullied. After that, Derek asked us to draw out about friendships and bullying. To see how we feel about these things in our inside places. This week we focused on our personal space. Derek talked to us about how we develop our personal space while we are babies and that everyone has a personal space bubble. Then, he asked us to stand up with a partner and walk towards them and then the person who wasn’t walking would put their hand up when they wanted the other person to stop before they entered their personal space. Then, Derek tried to walk into the space that was left between the two people. Most people instantly stepped back, but some people didn’t. He also asked us “What people should we let in our personal space?” Everyone answered that you should only let people who you trust in your personal space, because if you let people who you don’t trust into your personal space they could touch you in places you don’t want anyone to touch. They could also walk into you and annoy you and then you might push them back, thus annoying them and then they will push you or punch you back. So you should always respect someone else’s personal space bubble.