I Am Here: Kids' Mindfulness For Focus And Presence

This guided session gently empowers your child with simple, supportive, and fun exercises they can do to bring them back to feeling focused and present. It takes them through three specific practices to feel "more here" and in a state of relaxed, clear, and alert presence.

The practices involve: grounding their roots, focussing on their breath, and noticing their surroundings (orienting). It reminds them that whenever they feel themselves wandering from a focus, they can use any one of these tools to bring themselves back. This will serve them for life. Adults are encouraged to join in too.

Transcript

Hello you, Thank you for being here. This is going to be a space to help you get focused. I'm sure there are some things that you want to do and having focus can really help you enjoy these things and to do them really well. So we're going to do some simple things standing up or sitting tall in a chair with our feet on the ground. So first of all you can choose whether you'd like to sit tall in a chair with your feet on the ground and your hands nice and relaxed on your lap or stand tall on your feet like a tree with your hands at your side. When you've got settled we'll begin. So the first thing is to just ask yourself how am I feeling? Ask your body how are you feeling? Your body is where you feel. How awake do you feel? Are you feeling like you're completely here or do you feel a little bit drifty or dreamy or distracted and that's okay. There's no right or wrong way to feel. It is good just to notice how we're feeling. So whatever you're feeling say hello to that feeling and then let your body know that right now you're going to do some things to help you begin to feel more here and more awake and ready and ready to focus and just by doing a few simple you can make that happen. So keeping your eyes open now have a look down at your feet and see how your feet are connected to the ground that they're on and feel that. How do you feel that your feet are connected to the ground? I wonder if you can imagine now that you have roots like tree roots in the soles of your feet and these roots are going straight down into the earth towards the very center of the earth. Maybe you feel a tingling in the soles of your feet as you feel your roots burrowing into the ground and pushing through the earth and even the rocks. And now you can close your eyes for a moment or two pressing a little more into your feet and the ground and simply feel. What does it feel like to put your roots deep in the ground? Perhaps it feels like you're a little more here and that you have really landed where you are. And a cool thing you can do now is take a big long breath in through your nose and a slow long breath out through your mouth and then say I am here as you feel your feet firmly on the ground. And let's do that again one more time. Take a big long breath in through your nose and then a big slow breath out through your mouth. Let all the air come out of your body and then breathe normally and say I am here. Here I am. And feel your feet and your roots and press down a little more into the ground to feel even more that you are here. Now you can gently open those wonderful eyes of yours again. This time look at your hands. Put your hands in front of you and see if you can do this with your hands. First squeeze your hands into a very tight ball. See how tightly you can squeeze that ball. And then begin gently to open up your hands so your fingers stretch out like stars. Really stretch your hands open so your fingers separate and stretch out like stars in the sky. Look at the shapes you're making. And feel what happens in your hands and your arms as you squeeze your hands and then stretch them out like stars. Maybe your hands and your arms feel a bit more here and a bit more woken up. A bit more alive. We're going to keep doing that and now you can add some breathing. So as you slowly breathe in squeeze those hands of yours tightly. And then as you slowly breathe out stretch them open. Keep going. Breathing in squeezing your hands. And breathing out stretching into those starry fingers. And watch what you're doing as you breathe. One more time. Breathing in squeeze. And breathing out stretch. That's wonderful. You're doing a beautiful job. And now you can relax your hands and put them in your lap. Just breathe normally. And notice how your hands feel now. Maybe they feel even more awake and a little more relaxed at the same time. Now we're going to do one more thing with your eyes open. So with your eyes open and noticing begin to look very slowly around you. See if you can take in lots of things that you can see. You're just moving your head and your eyes slowly. And you're breathing slowly in. And out. And I wonder can you see three things which are round. Go ahead and have a look and you can name the things you see too if you like. Three things which are round. Well done. And now as you look slowly around. Can you see three things which are smooth. You can look up. You can look down. You can look to the sides of you and even turn around to look behind. For three things which are smooth. And then finally can you see three things which are shiny. Three things which are shiny anywhere around you. Just looking around slowly. Well done. Now you can just relax here for one more moment. And remember how you asked yourself at the start. How am I feeling. Can you remember what your answer was. So can you now ask yourself how am I feeling. How am I feeling now. Has anything changed. Notice if you feel a little more here and clearer and awake. And now you're ready to focus and enjoy your next activity and do a great job. And remember if you ever need to feel more focused and more here. You can feel roots coming out of your feet into the ground. Or you can open and close your hands as you breathe in and breathe out. Or you can look slowly around and see what you can see. And in this way you're doing things that help you feel more here and more awake and focused. So well done. And I hope to see you next time.

Reviews

Great ideas to help ground my grandchildren. Thank you 🙏❤️