A Spiritual Path to Youthful Inner Peace

Soon after the morning bell rings, the seventh-graders drop their book bags, pick up sticks and head out across the playground, destined for a meeting with some kids at the elementary school next door. Counselor Lorie Russell hurries to catch up.

“We just never know what’s going to happen,” Russell says. “With kids, we never know.”

But far from the weapons of a schoolyard fight, the boys and girls are carrying Native American-style “talking sticks,” intended to promote some one-at-a-time order when the seventh-graders and the kids they are mentoring break into groups to discuss such topics as love, caring and respect.

“Kids are so full of anger and hostility; they are so quick to retaliate,” says Russell, a counselor at Palm Springs Middle School here. “But when they have a tool, when they can go to the heart, things change.”

Violence and suicides are the headlines on the story of the well-being of American youth, which according to a recent Fordham University study is at a 25-year low. Teen pregnancy rates and drug use are up, while optimism about the future is down.

Russell deals daily with the rising sense of isolation and the decline in community and citizenship cited by President Clinton earlier this week when he launched a national campaign for volunteerism. By the time kids reach high school, she says, it’s often too late.

So with the help of a $9,000 grant, Russell and a colleague this year are teaching 18 members of the seventh grade gifted class--and their parents--an innovative technique that looks to the heart to defuse tension, anxiety and anger.

Designed by the Institute of HeartMath, a nonprofit organization based in Boulder Creek, Calif., the program has been taught to adults in corporate America and to students across the nation.

In Los Angeles, the public school system’s migrant education division has been using HeartMath for four years. Region 10 counselor Amelia Moreno says it works: “By shifting the focus of attention from the mind to the heart, you balance your perspective and don’t squander your energy on people and events you can’t control. It is a simple, practical self-discipline, and quite spiritual.”

Central to the concept is the ability to “freeze-frame” tense moments and then recall positive feelings that help smooth out the electrical impulses of the heart that contribute to stress, anger and high blood pressure. Then, Russell explains, “You ask yourself: ‘What’s the best way to handle this?’ And the brain provides the answer.”

With families using the technique at home, Russell says, the results are clearly measurable. After three months, the seventh-graders’ study skills, peer empathy and motivation are up.

The scene in the library at John G. Dupuis Elementary looks hopelessly chaotic. Amid the 56 second- and third-graders, the middle schoolers find those they are mentoring and hunt for a bit of space between the books and the computers. “Tell me what you appreciate in your life, how you feel when someone shows you respect, love or caring,” Melissa Johnson begins.

Four third-graders fall silent. “Well,” says Melissa, “I feel like I’m special when someone shows love for me.”

In another corner, Danny Sanchez and Jose Marantes, both 13, are trying to get five rambunctious 8-year-old boys to listen. “Do you know that you can breathe through your heart, which is very cool,” says Danny. He and Jose, hands over hearts, demonstrate.

“Can you feel the air going in and out?” asks Jose. “What does it feel like?”

“Cool,” says one boy.

“Bumpy,” says another.

“It stopped!” exclaims one boy.

“No, no, really,” insists Danny, showing guru-like patience. “When you’re really mad at someone, you chill out, breath through your heart, and you start relaxing.”

The second- and third-graders learning the HeartMath techniques have been identified as “at risk.” Principal Angela Santos says all have troubled home lives or a history of behavior problems in school. “Violence is not a problem now with these kids,” Santos says. “But it will be if we don’t give them some tools and some positive role models.”

Psychologist Deborah Rozman, executive director of the HeartMath Institute, says expressions such as “put your heart into it” are more than cheerleading. Research shows the heart “has an intrinsic nervous system that processes information,” she says. “When people feel positive emotional states, heart rhythms change.”

Back in the library, this 90-minute session ends with the younger students making paper airplanes that they have decorated and inscribed with messages of love or concern. The mentors take their charges outside for a mass launch, symbolic flights to the heart of someone in their lives.

Afterward, Russell asks her students what they have learned. Bianca Villanueva, 12, reports that one boy revealed his father had recently died, his mother had left home and that he didn’t love anyone. “He didn’t want to let me be his friend,” she says. Someone else says a child had directed his airplane to his imprisoned father.

How does that make you feel, Russell asks.

“It makes me appreciate what I have,” Melissa answers.

“There you are,” Russell says. “That’s what going to the heart is all about.”