Mindfulness Meditation (For Everyday Life)

occasions are when your children are experiencing
pain or fear or are having a hard time letting go into
sleep. Without being overbearing or insistent, you can
suggest that they tune in to their breathing, slow it
down, float on the waves in a little boat, watch the
fear or the pain, look for images and colors, use their
imagination to "play" with the situation, and then
remind themselves that these are just pictures in the
mind, like movies; that they can change the movie,
the thought, the image, the color, and sometimes feel
better quicker and feel more in control.
Sometimes this works well with preschoolers, but
they can get embarrassed or think it's silly once they
get to be around six or seven. Then this too passes,
and they become receptive again at certain times. In
any event, seeds have been planted suggesting that
there are internal ways to work with fear and pain,
and often they will come back to this knowledge when
they are older. They will know from direct experience
that they are more than just their thoughts and
feelings, and can relate to them in ways that give
them more choices to participate in and influence the
outcomes of various situations; that just because
other people's minds are waving about, it doesn't
mean that theirs have to too.