Building Positive Relationships by Being Present

Feel your feet on the floor. Listen closely to scuffling shoes. See something really small.

I recently asked over 100 people in the closing session of the recent Mentoring Symposium hosted by Gonzaga University in Washington State to feel, hear, and see purposefully. I even hinted that this practice might actually be a key to the critical work they do with young people. But why?

I would like to provide a little background for why I asked the mentors and program staff to feel, hear, and see consciously. I’ll also provide some starter mindfulness exercises that you can practice, share with mentors and youth, and bring into your own work. 

To be sure, the participants were a little surprised at the activity, and at least a few tittered, but they soon saw how serious I was about these simple tasks. Learning to be aware of how your toes feel in your shoes, hearing the breathing of the person sitting next to you, and seeing the weave of the fabric covering your chair builds skills that you can use to express care for your mentee and that program staff can implement to enhance relationships with mentors by building your skill in Being Present.

Each of these skills falls within the concept and practice of “mindfulness”—being present purposefully without judgment. Expressed from a mentee’s perspective, Be Present sounds like: “Pay attention when you are with me.” It’s so easy to say “Yeah, I do that.” But at what level? Are mentors truly present when they are with a mentee? Is their attention divided? Can the youth sense this? A simple reflection is all it takes for me to be reminded of the poignancy of really being heard or the power of exceptional eye contact. What is it that people who others describe as “when you are with her/him, it’s like no one else exists” bring to powerful positive connecting?

Being present is the first task under the domain of Express CARE in the Search Institute’s Developmental Relationships Framework.ⁱ Since ‘developmental relationship’ is such a widely used term—in mentoring especially—I share Search Institute’s definition: “…a close connection between a young person and an adult or between a young person and a peer that powerfully and positively shapes the young person’s identity and helps the young person develop a thriving mindset.” The emerging research on mindfulness points to additional benefits for those who practice being mindful, including: improved focus and performance on tests, improved self-regulation, reduced symptoms of anxiety, stress, and depression, increased compassion, and increased quality of sleep. (See this page from the American Psychological Association for more information about the benefits of mindfulness.)

While the 3,500 year history of mindfulness lies in the East and elicits images of adult yogis and monks, there has been a surge over the last few decades in the use of mindfulness-based interventions for children and youth and research on its effectiveness.ⁱⁱ

While some programs build the bulk of their mentoring activities around mindfulness, there are certain principles that can be woven into just about any mentoring program and relationship. Here are a few starters that you can pass on to the mentors and mentees in your program.

The Three Senses

It’s impossible to do this exercise and not be present and mindful. With children, you may turn this into a Spider-Man-type activity, since “Spidey Powers” include an intense ability to focus.

• Take a few slow breaths and ask yourself:
• What are three things I can hear? (a clock on the wall, car going by, music in the next room, my breath, etc.)
• What are three things I can see? (this table, that sign, that person walking by, etc.)
• What are three things I can feel? (the chair under me, the floor under my feet, my phone in my pocket, etc.)

Square Breathing

This de-stressing focus on your breathing can be done anywhere. Focus on something with four corners, such a radio, a whiteboard, a book and move your eyes moving around the square or rectangle with each step below.

• Step 1: Breathe in through your nose to the count of four slowly.
• Step 2: Hold that breath, count to four slowly.
• Step 3: Exhale through your mouth to the count of four, slowly.
• Step 4: Hold that breath, count to four slowly.

Washing the dishes while you wash the dishes

This is a famous mindfulness practice that may need translation to a different common task, such as putting away the laundry.ⁱⁱⁱ The practice here is being present fully with what you are doing, not thinking ahead to the next thing, pleasant or unpleasant, nor being in the past.

Noticing Walk

Take 1 minute of a walk for awareness practice. Designate one minute of the walking to be completely silent and simply pay attention to all the sounds you can hear — frogs, woodpeckers, a bus, the wind, a lawnmower. Can you hear the wingbeats of a bird overhead? What about the sounds of children playing on a playground or the hum of a factory? We often fail to notice the sounds that surround us.

Awareness of an object drawing

Select an object to draw, e.g., a phone, a shoe, scissors. Ask your mentee and/or yourself to:

• Draw a picture of the object, without focusing on the ability to draw.
• After the first drawing, ask them to spend time really seeing the object, paying attention to smaller and smaller details.
• Then ask them to draw the object again.
• De-brief the two approaches to drawing.

There are hundreds and hundreds of mindfulness resources in print and online. A great place to start is the MindUp^iv curricula. Googling “mindfulness for children and teens” will provide plenty of resources mentors and mentees can use. These types of activities are great for teaching mentors to be more mindful and present when they are with mentees and for teaching youth how to relieve their stress in certain moments and make sure that they can focus when needed. Better mindfulness should allow matches to communicate better, feel more attuned to one another, and help avoid those embarrassing “You aren’t really listening” moments that can be so hurtful in relationships.

Mindfulness for Program Staff

Several of these ideas can be helpful to mentoring program staff—especially those who engage with mentors, mentees, and caregivers in monitoring and support contacts—try a short mindfulness activity to bring attention purposefully to the next person on your call list! You might find that you can hear the needs and challenges of your matches if you are in a mindful place yourself.

If you train mentors and mentees, I think it is also wise to follow the advice of experts in the field of introducing mindfulness practice to children: the person teaching should be comfortable with the exercise prior to teaching, and have practiced mindfulness in general. In other words, practice what we teach!

How mindful are you? If you’re interested in assessing your mindfulness skills, the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (KIMS) can be found on online along with automatic scoring.^v Scales in the KIMS include: observing, describing, acting without awareness, and accepting without judgement.

So, spend a bit of time exploring the concepts and practices of mindfulness. You might just find yourself engaging with your work, and with volunteers, youth, and families, at a deeper and more authentic level! Personally, I have committed to focusing 100% on the person speaking to me and to the possible result – someone thinking of me: “When I am with her, it’s like no one else or anything else exists.”