My guest today is Stefanie Dunnigan. Stefanie has been an outstanding elementary school teacher for 17 years, who intuitively incorporates mindfulness into the classroom.  Well before the current trend of mindfulness, Stefanie was an educator who naturally tuned into her students. From first hand experience, Stefanie understood that students can’t absorb academics if they are mentally distracted, emotionally triggered, or traumatized, so she experimented with all sorts of strategies to engage her students, validate their feelings and guide them to calm down in order to be open for learning. Stefanie began to translate consciousness skills and meditation techniques she learned through her personal journey of readings, therapy, and research to make tools accessible for her students.   I wish you could see all the props she brought with her, but I asked her to describe them so listeners could imagine these creative, simple items that make mindfulness practices so tangible. The more Stefanie honored her own inner resources, the better able she modeled for her students to trust in their inner resources. In the less than 2 years I have known Stefanie, she has taken steps, actually leaps into manifesting mindfulness into not only her classroom, but publishing children’s books, with supplemental exercises, created websites with resources for educators, provided professional development workshops for faculty and most recently ran a group for adults called “Mindfulness, Mediation, Mindset, and More!” I imagine it won’t be long before the world wants to learn more and more from this humble, compassionate, wise teacher, Stefanie Dunnigan! Shining light on Stefanie this week, coincides beautifully with World Gratitude Day on 9/21/18. I encourage you to check out her book "I Choose Gratitude", available on Amazon. Enjoy the podcast!     Links: www.traveltailsbooks.com www.classroomscarenow.com FaceBook: @TravelTailsBooks @IChooseBookSeries @Classroomscarenow Instagram: TravelTailsBooks I Choose Book Series Books: (available on Amazon) "Travel Tails: All Bark and No Bite" "I Choose Gratitude"