Last week, a student I support looked at me in a crowded corridor and shouted one word:
“Go!”
And my body obeyed.
Not by leaving, but by freezing.
The floor dropped away.
I wasn’t in a school corridor anymore; I was back in my own school days, where dismissal meant abandonment.
My nervous system wasn’t responding to my student – it was responding to a younger me.
That moment stayed in my body.
So when I walked into school this week, I carried one quiet intention:
Stay with yourself. Even when it’s hard.
This is how it unfolded.
Starting Gently: Meeting My System Where It Was
I woke with resistance – a heavy morning whisper:
“I don’t want to go.“
I then realized. I need to practice titration. That is, just do enough to stay with myself:
- A short breathing practice
- A few minutes of awareness
- A glass of water
- Permission to go gently
Not to optimise.
Just to avoid abandoning myself.
Walking into school, I held one grounding truth:
All behaviour is reflexive, not intentional.
His. And mine.
My job today wasn’t to “manage” a student.
It was to stay regulated enough to stay with myself as I worked with him.
Mid-Morning: Co-Regulation, Small Wins, and Edges
The student I support rarely stays in class for long. Today, he remained with me for about seventy-five minutes — which, for him, is significant.
We worked through discounts and percentages, breadcrumb moments of connection scattered between distractions.
Then we went for a walk.
At one point, he noticed a dog sitting patiently in a parked car. He softened instantly, speaking to it with quiet tenderness. The dog looked back with equal gentleness.
A tiny ventral-vagal moment.
Cross-species.
Entirely unsupervised by curriculum.
Later, I offered him a small magnetic brain-teaser. He focused on it for fifteen whole minutes.
Fifteen minutes of regulated cognition.
Fifteen minutes where learning didn’t require pressure.
Fifteen minutes where the nervous system had room.
And then came the Chromebook request.
I felt my boundary evaporate like steam.
Relief and guilt arrived together.
One voice whispered, “You should have held firm.”
Another replied, “He’s quiet, and you can breathe.”
That’s the appease response – the nervous system’s ancient peace treaty.
It isn’t weakness.
It’s protection.
The Comparison Moment That Stings
After lunch, another educator stepped in and somehow got him outside playing baseball.
Immediately, the inner critic arrived with her clipboard:
- He did it better.
- I should have thought of that.
- Maybe I’m not enough.
This is the comparison-shame spiral.
A professional sport with no medals.
But here’s what was true:
I had already spent the morning as someone else’s borrowed nervous system.
The other adult walked in fresh, well-fed, and caffeinated.
It wasn’t talent.
It was capacity.
If we gave medals for hours spent regulating another human, I’d have qualified for regionals.
The Invisible Work of the Educational Assistant
After eighteen years of teaching in the UK, I now work in Canada as an Educational Assistant.
And honestly?
Some days, that’s a quiet bruise.
EA can stand for many things, but some days it feels like Easily Anonymous – the adult doing emotional heavy lifting that isn’t listed anywhere.
It’s strange to go from leading teachers to standing at the back of a woodwork room, unsure of what my role is except:
Be the calmest nervous system in the room.
Supporting students with complex needs isn’t about managing behaviour.
It’s about holding space for nervous systems that have never felt safe enough to learn.
And here’s the part schools rarely acknowledge:
The adults holding that space need co-regulation too.
When you spend hours absorbing agitation, impulsivity, or shutdown, you’re not just helping – you’re using your body to contain someone else’s storm.
Without support, that storm moves in.
Sometimes I think the most trauma-informed question a school could ask each morning is:
“How’s your nervous system today?”
Because before we help children find calm, we must know where ours went.
By 2:55pm, My System Was Empty
Late afternoon arrived, and so did my limit.
I caught myself correcting his Chromebook use — not because of the content, but because I needed control.
When we’re depleted, we don’t reach for compassion.
We reach for certainty.
Not because we don’t care – but because certainty feels safer when capacity is gone.
This wasn’t failure.
It was my body waving a small white flag:
“I’m done. Someone else needs to hold this.”
When Inclusion Isn’t Enough
Here’s the uncomfortable truth:
Sometimes the system places a child in a space that cannot hold them.
For the student I work with, every subject demands focus he doesn’t have.
He escapes into the Chromebook because it’s predictable.
When that doesn’t work, he runs.
Everyone knows this.
And yet – here we are.
This child doesn’t need stricter rules.
Apparently he’s experiencing inclusion – but in an exclusionary system.
The inclusion he needs to experience is a program designed around including his nervous system.
Until that happens, adults are asked to regulate what the system refuses to include.
Inclusion without resources is outsourced suffering.
We are not failing these kids.
We are being failed alongside them.
What Today Taught Me About Staying With Myself
There was no big transformation today.
No cinematic breakthrough.
But something shifted:
Last week, I froze and abandoned myself internally.
This week, I noticed the freeze and stayed with myself a breath longer.
That counts.
It’s neuroplasticity – the quiet kind.
The kind that looks like fatigue more than triumph.
Sometimes growth looks like:
- choosing curiosity instead of self-blame,
- pausing instead of snapping,
- staying instead of leaving.
It’s not glamorous.
But it’s real.
Gentle Takeaways for Anyone Supporting Others
1. Your nervous system comes to work with you.
Staff badges don’t override childhood patterns.
2. Co-regulation costs energy.
If you’re exhausted, it’s because you did real physiological work.
3. Capacity changes throughout the day.
Morning-you and afternoon-you are different teachers.
Love them both.
4. Staying with yourself is the real win.
Even when nothing “improves” on the outside.
Closing
I didn’t change him today.
But I didn’t leave myself.
Maybe that’s where all change begins; not by being unshakeable, but by noticing the shaking and staying near yourself long enough to steady again.
That, I’m learning, is what it means to be Already Mindful.