Another assignment during the first year of the PhD program I did was related to relaxation.  Dr. Ashwani Kumar assigned it early on in the course we did with him on Contemporary Educational Theory.  A key focus of Dr. Kumar’s work is around the concept of meditative inquiry.  He assigned the relaxation exercise as a way for us as doctoral students to explore this concept in parallel with other articles, materials and scholars he introduced us to.  The goal of the assignment was ‘to understand how a holistic way of being can support your intellectual work.’  

 

In the syllabus for his course (page 4, 2021), Dr. Kumar describes his pedagogical approach and what meditative inquiry is all about (quoting from Kumar & Downey, 2018):

 

I have developed this approach to teaching and learning based on my theoretical research and reflective

practices as a teacher educator.  Teaching as meditative inquiry is an existential and holistic approach to

teaching and learning.  The core purpose of this approach is to develop a deeper sense of awareness through

attentive listening, asking fundamental questions, and engaging in authentic and open dialogue regarding

education and life as a whole. This pedagogy invokes a deeper sense of ourselves, not only as teachers but

also as human beings.  Learning to observe one’s body, mind and emotions, and to experiment with meditation

and relaxation exercises are the experiential aspects of this pedagogy.  Teaching as meditative inquiry rejects

‘banking education’ and all other forms of instrumental, transmissive and mechanical approaches to teaching. 

Instead, it centralizes and celebrates freedom, dialogue and creativity as the processes and goals of the

educational experience.

 

I found this exercise very powerful.  Because of my experience living with mental illness, I have done a lot of work related to mindfulness which felt very similar to what Dr. Kumar was asking us to do.  I usually find practicing ‘mindfulness’ very difficult though because the nature of the mental illness I live with, bipolar disorder, often includes racing thoughts or a lot of ‘ruminating’ where thoughts, often related to worry and anxiety, go round and round in one’s head.  Bipolar disorder is also characterized by 'mania' which I think very few people understand (compared to broader understand of the depressive side of the illness).  Both of these factors have always made 'meditation' of any kind very difficult for me.  However, Dr. Kumar gave us permission, highly suggested even, that we focus on 'relaxation' (not so much 'meditation') in whatever way felt good to us.  For me, getting outside and moving was one thing I worked on making a regular practice.  Another goal was to make Saturdays ‘sacred.’ 

 

About this time, I had also just finished reading a book about Deep Work by Cal Newport (2016).  This book talks about ‘shallow work’ as tasks (like administration, meetings, dealing with email, etc) and ‘deep work’ as the practice of putting aside 3-4 hours or more to completely immerse oneself in a particular task requiring more ‘deep’ thought such as reading, writing, making art, etc.  Newport also talks about ‘attention residue’ as one of the reasons for separating ‘shallow’ work from ‘deep work,’ and why making space between them is very important.  ‘Attention residue,’ he says, is related to how our brains work and to really be able to engage in deep work it is important to allow for some time and space to ‘empty’ our brains to make space for deep work.  

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For me, I was still working part-time while I was doing my PhD courses.  I needed to establish a routine that would enable me to do readings for classes and assignments.  One of the ways I was able to do that, and a habit I still use, was to have at least Saturday as a complete day off to spend time outside, and with family or friends.  The idea was that I would treat Saturday as a ‘sacred’ day of rest for my brain, and no ‘brain work’ was allowed.  This meant Sunday I was able to wake up refreshed and raring to go.  This was one of the key days that I did work for school and I continue to use this practice to ensure I have at least one day a week of rest and relaxation to clear my mind of any ‘clutter’ from the previous week of work, and then to be able to do the deeper work required of being a student and scholar with a 'fresh, recharged' brain on Sunday.  I would then 'immerse' myself and do most of my readings and assignments on this one day.  It was intense, but it worked because I actually did the best academic work I have ever done in my life, and I directly credit both Dr. Kumar's assignment around relaxation and Newport's ideas around 'deep work' for this.

 

The combination of Newport’s ideas and Dr. Kumar’s assignment enabled me to learn how to value relaxation and ‘time off’ as a way to help me work smarter, not just harder, not only during the first year of the PhD program but also in how I've carried on with my practice as a 'community developer,' researcher and scholar.  Later on, Dr. Kumar invited myself and two other students to collaborate with him on a paper related to this exercise called ‘Holistic Ways of Leading Academic Life’ that has been accepted for publication in the Holistic Education Review journal (likely Fall 2023).