Adapting Mindfulness

Maya is a young girl who knows the weight of worry, how it consumes and often cripples. She tries going to sleep and it’s there, a heavy, confusing mass, feeding her concerns. She tries going to a birthday party and it’s there again, withholding her from friends. Even a car ride for Maya becomes a prickly navigation of what-ifs. Worry pervades. And then, eventually, Maya finds the light, easy, cleansing tonic of mindful breathing, and with each inhale, her hands on her stomach and her back straight, her self-confidence builds and the cloud of worry slowly evaporates. 

Middle School humanities teacher Liz Haske wrote this story about Maya in her book When Worry Takes Hold after her family moved from Indonesia, where she was teaching, to Bulgaria. “Our family was dealing with serious change, and worry became a frequent visitor in our home,” she explains. An inveterate teacher and reader, Haske looked for books that mirrored her own experience, hoping to find answers for how to cope. 

She knew that worry, and its menacing partner, anxiety, lived with many families, but children’s fiction had not yet embraced the subject. “Surprisingly, there was not a single book we could connect with,” she says, “and when you don’t have books to guide you, you have to figure it out on your own.” She recalled her mindfulness practices at her previous school in Jakarta, Indonesia, and how breathing was the central facilitator in anchoring the body and mind. She wondered what she could do with this knowledge — for both her family and others. 

And because the book Haske was looking for hadn’t been written, she decided to write it herself.  In a haze of inspiration, waiting in the lobby of her son’s preschool, she wrote the first draft of When Worry Takes Hold on the back of a Hallmark envelope, everything she knew about worry and how to manage it pouring out of her. When Worry Takes Hold, which was published in 2017, is now consistently listed among the best books about mindfulness for children. 

“When I wrote this series of books, I wanted to write about how kids can call on courage,” Haske says. “Everyone experiences worry, but we don’t have to let it rule our lives and stop us from doing what we want to do. Books make us better people, and I wanted to write a story that would give readers the tools to work through difficult emotions.” 

For Middle School drama teacher Jenny Hundley, art provides both the artist and the audience with an arena to encounter complex situations and emotions. It’s why, when she read Haske’s When Worry Takes Hold in the spring of 2022, she immediately wanted to adapt the book into a play. “We rely on books — and theater — to help us get to some tough topics and start conversations,” Hundley says. “I think the practice of art gives us another way to extend our vocabulary of emotion, which is why I think Liz’s book is so perfect for students.” 

Staying true to the essence of Haske’s story, Hundley wrote a script that she then brought to a group of students within the Middle School Theater Ensemble. “What I wanted to do was honor the words of the book, ” Hundley explains. “So our challenge, in both writing and performing the script, was to ask ourselves how we could elevate the story theatrically through movement, stage direction, sound effects, lighting and acting.”

At the center of the cohort’s ambition was to tell a great story. To perfect the art of storytelling, particularly for the stage, the students had to work together to learn the ins and outs of putting on a show. This challenged the ensemble to think creatively about how to act and work together as a cohesive group. 

“We formed a bond together as a group by just talking through ideas we were passionate about,” says Tristan Meagher ’27, who, with the help of Theo Lansing ’29, worked on the technical, behind-the-scenes aspects of the play. “I think Mrs. Hundley really encourages us to embrace everyone’s different opinions on how to approach a scene in a way that I’ve never experienced before, which helped us be more thoughtful and creative in our approach.”

Up on stage, the ensemble performs before the Junior Kindergartners, further extending the lesson of mindfulness to a young audience. At the end of the play, the audience of Junior Kindergartners are breathing with confidence along with Maya, slowly and gently alleviating any worry. 

“There’s a journey of discovery that you can find through theater that can only be assisted by your other cast members and your crew, and that was made particularly powerful with this play’s message,” Tristan says. “This adaptation gave me a different outlook on mindfulness. It doesn’t have to be structured. You can find your courage, your breath, in your own way. I think that is important to know, and I’m glad that through our play we were able to deliver that message.”