Quinta Brunson Joined Sesame Street To Teach Us A Calming Breathing Exercise

Abbott Elementary’s Quinta Brunson might not be a teacher in real life, but she certainly has some impressive experience in that area. Experience she is sharing with the Sesame Street gang by encouraging them to try out a calming breathing exercise, and Grover really needed her guidance because he was getting ready to lose it.

Brunson was a guest on Sesame Street recently as part of the show’s four-part Mindfulness Moments series, which are intended to teach children to be mindful and come back to their own centers during times of stress or worry. In Brunson’s installment, Grover was in desperate need of a reminder to use his “butterfly breaths” when feeling overwhelmed.

“Excuse me, there’s just so much to do!” Grover tells Brunson in the video, carrying trays of food and what appears to be some scaffolding. “I need to serve dinner, and build a house, and deliver the mail!” He says just as he falls under the weight of his responsibilities. Brunson tells him that all that work “must make him feel overwhelmed,” and she explains that when she is feeling overwhelmed, “I slow down to take a moment of mindfulness.”

Grover explains to the audience that mindfulness “is when we slow down and pay attention to our feelings.” Brunson goes on to show Grover and the audience how to practice a “butterfly breath,” by stretching their arms out to their sides and raising them above their heads “like beautiful butterfly wings,” while inhaling, then lowering their “wings” as they slowly exhale. Magically, Grover explained that he “did not feel so overwhelmed now.” He decided to delay his jobs for the day and opt for more butterfly breaths with Brunson and some butterflies, which sounded very restful.

Although if he does need to get a house built in a day, he really might want to snap to it.

This is not Brunson’s first time visiting Sesame Street. Back in January, she joined Elmo, Abby, and Cookie Monster in a classroom to teach them all about kindness, which she filmed much like Abbott Elementary by talking to the camera about Cookie Monster’s habit of eating everything in sight — crayons, her storytime rug, pretty much anything. He ate everything in sight, until he decided to share his cookies with his friends. Lesson learned. By none other than Quinta Brunson, the teacher we’ve all come to know and love.