New dawn, new day

To start us off this morning, on our second day of the TESOL Methods Intensive, the instructor told us we'd do a little mindfulness exercise. She would play 42 seconds of a song, after which we should close our eyes for a minute and then write in the chat three emotions we felt. To whet our appetites she shared the list of emotions above, not for us to read then but just to remind us how many emotion words there are! The song, which began with the words

Birds flying high, you know how I feel

Sun in the sky, you know how I feel

Breeze drifting on by, you know how I feel

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me... 

was the a cappela start of Nina Simone's "Feeling good," a voice and a song familiar to some, if not all, of us. Some of us surely heard the whole song from the getgo, maybe also transported back to other times they've heard it. For others it was just these words, or the vulnerable grandeur of Simone's voice. Here's where it took the 17 of us:

awed inspired thankful


quiet, mellow, expectant

grateful, tired, heavy


nostalgic, wistful, weary


emotional, grateful, blissful, vast


inspired, stuck, impatient
 

guided, grateful, tight


yearning, solemnity, hopeful

grief, clear headed, optimistic

empowered, energized, thoughtful


nervous, overwhelmed, hopeful

love, sadness, hopeful

A rush of feelings- extreme pain, beauty, joy grief


engaged, hopeful, nostalgic

sad, quiet, melancholic, slightly anxious

cautious, weary, hopeful

alert, curious, anxious 

This isn't just any day, of course, Nina Simone isn't just any singer, and these aren't just any words, but I'm still amazed at the depth of feeling surfaced in so little time. Beyond a quick glance over the chat we didn't take time to respond to what we had shared, but the instructor did ask us why we thought she'd had us do this. Those who spoke up ventured that this was a powerful shared experience, an experience of shared vulnerability (I wonder if we would have been as forthcoming in an in-person setting...), but I'm staggered also by the complex bundles of feelings the song evoked in us, and how different our responses were. The song was the same but what resonated with it in each of us was our own, something of which we might even ourselves not be aware.

It reminded me of a question a mindfulness teacher I know always asks people when he begins: "what is your inner weather?" This always elicits fascinating responses - yes, we do have inner weather, and, like outer weather, it's changeable... Today we had the excuse of moving quickly on, it being a short intensive course, but had one the time, could one honor all the feeling shared, respect the vulnerability? I know folks sometimes start or end a class by asking everyone to say one word about something, going quickly around the room without stopping to analyze, and that somehow generates a sense of community, of being acknowledged, known, cared for. I guess you can do it online too?