Teaching mindfulness to children is a rewarding pursuit. Yet, like anything else, it comes with its challenges. While most children take readily to the core practice of seated mindful breathing, not all do. The challenge is how to involve the whole class in the practice- even the distraction-prone kids who are wriggling around with their bodies, flitting around with their eyes and struggling with a runaway mind.
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Try this: imagine biting into a slice of lemon. Feel the tang burst against your tongue, the sourness invading taste buds with a sharp tingling insistence. Really experience it. Is it possible not to alter your facial expression? Another potent example that demonstrates the power of the mind to produce changes in the body, by thought alone, is sexual fantasy. Yet it’s not the only thing that can get a rise out of us. AN ENCOUNTER WITH TADASANA:
TALL MOUNTAIN POSE You’re at Yoga, standing aligned: hips over knees, knees over ankles. Shoulders over hips. Breathing freely. Inhale: chest expands and arms hang loosely by your sides. Exhale: press the feet down into the floor. Sense the deep solid earth beneath. Ready for Tall Mountain Pose, Tadasana. Meditation: FREAK OUT! Simply hearing the word makes many people tremble and quake. They say (quite understandably) “Oh, I can’t do that. I can’t stop my busy thoughts, I can’t make my mind go blank.” Well guess what? Even those of us who have been at it for decades can’t! And we don’t want to. It’s not the goal. I love Saturday mornings, especially when we go to the Farmers Market.
"If we leave at 8 am we’ll be back by ten” I suggest, “and have the whole day left to do other stuff." Optimistic? Hmm we’ll see ... Emotional roller coaster taking you for a ride? Take on board this awesome tip (because the smallest tweaks often make the biggest impact).
Warning: handling powerful emotions might be easier than you think !!! Don’t you just love that holiday feeling? Wouldn't it be great if life could be like that all the time?
Daily grind flies out the window; life is your own. You can do whatever you want. The air smells fresher, birds sound sweeter. Life is full of possibilities. Christmas is coming the thighs are getting fat; please put a penny into mindful chit chat Christmas, the time for ho-ho-ho, is sadly often the occasion for woe, woe, woe.
We overeat, overspend, and expectations of family togetherness can fall short of the mark. Survive the ordeal with these seven mindful tips and keep the ‘happy’ in Christmas. Feeling burdened at this crazy time of year? Wanna shake off the weight of overwhelm and overload? Could mindfulness help? Mindfulness is the ideal forklift for shifting the load of stress. Paradoxically, bringing the right sort of attention to our stress and strain does not increase it. It makes it lighter. Forget the goddess, the lotus: is your meditation in a mess? Is your mind so busy that your inner world looks more like a junk-strewn beach at low tide than a lotus pond? When you sit on your meditation cushion or chair, it’s not fun. Mind won’t stop racing. Stuff keeps coming up. Stuff you don’t want in your face. The boring old repetitive stuff. Your meditation is hopeless. |
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