Session 1 – What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is a way of learning to bring our minds back to what is happening right here, right now, in the present moment. It means to pay attention to what is going right now.

Sometimes our mind wanders into the past, thinking about things that have already happened. We might be sad or angry thinking about something that has happened to us. Or our mind might wander into the future, and we worry about what might happen, or we plan what we will do next. 

What are the times when you have felt very present / absent-minded?

Sometimes we are on autopilot, which means that we do things without our minds being present at all. We might be doing something without realising we are doing it, like brushing our teeth for example. 

So our mind loves to wander, which is a bit odd, because all this wandering does not seem to make us happier.

Our body on the other hand is always in the present moment, right here, right now. And when we can bring our mind back to the present moment, we discover that the present is a pretty interesting place. When we learn to pay attention to the present, we discover new things that we had not noticed before, and also that it feels good to hang out in the present moment. When our mind is not crowded by all the thoughts of the past and the future, it feels more spacious and calmer, more peaceful.

Session 2 – Training the puppy

When we practice meditation we also practice being kind to ourselves. At first our mind is like a bouncy puppy running off everywhere and finding it hard to stay still. When we train a puppy, it is best to remain kind and patient, so we don’t scare the puppy. If you train a puppy by being mean to it, you probably end up with a unhappy puppy. But if you train it by being kind, you end up with a happy puppy. It’s the same with our mind, when it wanders, we simply bring it back to the present with a lot of gentleness and kindness. We don’t judge ourselves because our mind wanders. It happens, it’s normal, that’s what minds do.

What happens in our brain

We are training our brain to function a bit differently than it is used to, with meditation, we learn to concentrate differently and it creates new linkages in our brain. At the start, the linkages are very weak, and we don’t notice the changes, but the more we practice, the stronger the linkages become and the easiest it gets. That’s why repetition is very good in meditation, and it is great to practice a little bit every day for the changes to happen.

Relaxation

We often start meditation by relaxing our body because we often hold a lot of tension in our body and it makes it hard to stay still and peaceful. Relaxation helps us to feel calm and soothed. It feels really good and it is very good for us, it helps our body to function better, to be stronger, and it helps our minds to become clearer and less busy.

Activity: Create a mindful jar at home using an empty jar, water, glitter, sequins, micro-beads etc…

The jar represents the mind with all the thoughts. When we shake the jar, it shows how our mind can get completely clouded with thoughts and feelings. Then take a few slow deep breaths and watch the contents of the jar settle to the bottom. Now that they have settled, how do you feel? What does the jar look like now? The same thing happens with our mind: it might feel frenzied and busy, but if we stop for a moment and let our body rest while we take a few deep breaths, things settle down and our mind gets clearer. You can use your mind jar to help you calm down when you feel overwhelmed with too many thoughts and feelings.

Session 3 – Feeling calm

What does feeling calm mean to you? – Sense of ease and relaxation, being content with things exactly as they are and having what you need; Feeling comfortable in your body and completely safe.

Self-reflection: Close your eyes and bring to mind a time when you have felt calm. Where were you? what was happening? Who was with you? What did it feel like in your body? What did you notice in your face, shoulders, chest, belly and legs?

Calm detective activity: Go around your home and find items that you find soothing and calming, e.g. a soft toy or cuddly blanket, a story book you like, or a music or song… When you have found one item, use all your senses to notice how it makes you feel: smell, touch, see, hear, taste if appropriate. Talk with you family about how you could use this item when you feel agitated or upset.

Deep Relaxation

Today we are going to practice another relaxation, this time we are not going to contract our muscles, we are going to use our imagination instead. You are going to imagine that you have a magic flashlight that you can use to relax the muscles in your body. Remember to remind kind with yourself if your attention wanders or your body wants to move during the relaxation. It is like training a puppy, you remain patient and gentle towards to puppy, you bring yourself back to the exercise with a lot of kindness, without getting angry with yourself.

Session 4 – Inner safe place

Meditation can be made more personal by using the technique of visualisation or imagination. This technique involves using our imagination to make the experience of meditation more vivid and deep. For example, imagining that we are sitting with the strength of a mountain, or that we are growing roots from our feet deep into the earth to plant ourselves onto the earth like a big strong and stable tree.

Visualisation can also help us to face life’s challenges, by sitting quietly and imagining ourselves developing the qualities that will help us go through life.

Today we will use visualisation to help you imagine your special inner safe place in your mind, a place where you can’t be disturbed and where you can be yourself, a place that you can turn to when you feel agitated, overwhelmed or anxious.

Remember that there is no right or wrong way to do this meditation. You don’t need to judge your special place or criticise it, it will be just the way you would like it to be, and there will be no comparison with anyone else’s special place.

Session 5 – Knowing what we feel

We experience a wide range of emotions throughout our day, and sometimes it can feel as though our emotions were ruling our life. We experience things very differently depending on whether we are feeling happy or sad, peaceful or angry.

With mindfulness, we can learn to pay attention to our emotions and to know what we are feeling, without being caught in them. This allows us to respond to the events in our life with presence of mind instead of reacting blindly.

We can always feel our emotions in our body.  Can you notice what happens in your body when you feel happy / sad / angry / peaceful / scared / excited?

For example, when we feel sad we might experience constriction in our throat, when we feel angry we might experience a rush of energy to the head, when we feel scared we might feel pressure in our chest….

As soon as we experience an emotion, we have thoughts or stories in our head about it: sometimes we think that we should not feel the way we feel, especially if we experience a strong emotion. But feelings are simply feelings, and they are all okay.

There is no such thing as a bad emotion, all our feelings are important and valid, they are information: when we have these strong sensations in our body, it’s a way of telling us that something needs our attention, it’s our body saying “something important is happening, pay attention!”.

For example, with anger, sometimes we may think that feeling angry is not okay. But there is nothing wrong with feeling angry, it’s what we do when we are angry that can be a problem, if we lose control or we harm others or ourselves.

Sometimes our emotions can be so strong that they totally unsettle us, they can feel big and overpowering. Sometimes it’s like they explode right out of us and we feel like we can’t control them. Meditation can help us learn to experience our emotions without feeling overwhelmed. We learn to watch them just as we watch our breath or the sensations in our body.

It can help to see our emotions as an internal weather system. Certain things happen and we feel a response, it is completely natural.  Our emotions come and go just like another weather system. In fact, it has been shown that an emotion only last 90 seconds in our body if we don’t feed it with our thoughts, and just let it be. It’s our thinking that fuels our emotions and make them last a lot longer, the stories we tell ourselves (I am angry because such and such happened for example..)

So if we can be patient with our feeling and watch it swirl around in us the way the glitter swirls around in our mind jar, we can contain it.

The important part is to allow ourselves to feel the way we feel, without denying our emotions, pushing them away or letting them control us. We can observe them like a weather pattern, let them come and let them go, without having to do anything about them. We remind ourselves that the emotion will not last very long, and we practice watching it swirl around our body and mind, and we watch it settle.

Session 6 – Our strong emotions

Have you ever been so angry or upset that you have said or done something that you regretted afterwards, once you had managed to calm down? I know that I have. It happens to all of us.

What happens in our brain when we have these strong emotions

Make a fist with your hand, with your thumb folded on the inside. This represents your brain.

There are two important parts in our brain. The first part is right behind our forehead, and it is called the prefrontal cortex. We use this part of the brain to concentrate, and consider the consequences of our actions, so it helps us make good choices, it helps us be more empathetic. It is like a wise guide, helping understand what is going with others, and what is really going in any situation so you don’t overreact. When we meditate, we develop our prefrontal cortex, which is pretty cool as it helps us be more balanced.

The second part of the brain is an inner part of the brain called the limbic system, and inside it we find the amygdala (our thumb in the hand model). This part of our brain controls our emotions, some people call it the “freak out” centre of the brain. It becomes active every time you are upset, scared, worried or excited. It is an important part of our brain as it warns us if something is wrong or if we need to act fast. The amygdala is like a guard dog, that warns us of incoming danger. So it is helpful. However sometimes it can overreact and get upset over little things that are not a big deal, because it does not know how to assess situations properly. For that it needs the helps of the wise guide in the prefrontal cortex.

Normally the wise guide and the guard dog are sitting close together in our brain, so they can send messages to each other. So when the guard dog sees a danger and starts to freak out, it sends a message to the wise guide that something is wrong, and the wise guide can quickly assess what is happening and help you make a wise choice on how to respond instead of reacting emotionally.

But sometimes our wise guide is not well developed, and our guard dog gets so loud that the wise guide can not concentrate or think. So what happens is that we flip our lid, the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex are no longer touching and the communication is broken. You might have experienced this, sometimes we get so angry or so scared that we can not think straight. Sometimes our emotions are too overwhelming to handle.

So with meditation we learnt techniques that strengthen our wise guide, so we can concentrate better and regulate our emotions.

Self-reflection for strong emotions

Can you remember a time when you had a really strong emotion? Close your eyes and remember the event that led to this emotion. Can you remember how you felt beforehand? And how did the event feel, pleasant, unpleasant?

If this emotion were an animal / color / smell / sound, what would it be?

What did you notice in your body? it is possible that you can feel it now by remembering what happened. How did your face feel / look like, your hands, arms, legs, feet, belly?

Where in your body did you not feel the feeling? Our difficult feelings usually don’t take up our whole body, some parts are still okay.

What thoughts did you notice or do you notice now that come with this emotion?

What happens to the emotion as you observe it? Does it get more or less intense, does it disappear or transform into a different emotion?

Do you remember what you did when you were feeling the strong emotion? Did anything help you feel better? Did you do anything that you wish you hadn’t done maybe?

What would you like to do next time you feel that way?

Session 7 – Awareness of thoughts

Out thoughts happen all the time – researchers think we have approximately 50,000 thoughts a day!

They are incessant, in meditation, we often use the image of the waterfall to describe this constant stream of thoughts that happens in our mind. The goal of meditation is not to stop the thoughts or get rid of them, but rather to stop being lost in them by becoming aware of them: the idea is to step behind the waterfall, and watch the thoughts from a distance, so we are no longer caught or lost in them.

What are our thoughts all about? Mostly us.

We tend to spend a large amount of time in a kind of mental home video or Tv show that involves all of our concerns about ourselves, what is happening to me, how others are treating me, what I need to get done etc….

Also our thoughts are very  repetitive: apparently 95% of our thoughts are the same from one day to the next. It is interesting to notice what your top ten tunes are, what do you think most often about?

And the other thing we notice when we pay attention to our thoughts is that they often make us unhappy, they fuel our emotions, and they create sensations in our body.

 Why do we tend to have unhappy thoughts? Throughout evolution we had to learn to be careful about threats in order to survive, and that has stayed with us to this day. So we tend to have a lot of thoughts in the category of worry, anxiety about what is about to happen that perpetuate an atmosphere of fear and negativity. It is called the negativity bias: it is as though our brain is Velcro for the negative and Teflon for the positive. We tend to pay attention to the negative more than to the positive.

 The TV show in our head

Our thoughts are kind of like a TV show in our head, and sometimes we get so into our thoughts that we believe they are a true representation of the reality. Our thoughts seem so powerful and real that we assume that everything we are thinking is true, and that we need to follow every thought that comes up. But they are a representation of the reality that can be more or less accurate, but is no closer a representation of reality than a photo of a tree would be of a real living tree. And a lot of our thoughts are “fake news”, they are simply our interpretation of the reality.

Mindfulness helps us to choose which thoughts are helpful and which are not, and to stop being controlled by our thoughts.

When we stop and notice our thoughts, we have a choice about what we do with them. Just like a TV show we can:

• Mute: we can’t stop thinking but we can choose if we pay attention to our thoughts or not. When you press on mute, you can choose to turn your attention to something else.
• Pause: if a thought is important but you are not ready to pay attention to it because you are too agitated or upset, you can take a minute to pause and practice some relaxation techniques to calm down before you can focus on it. Like pausing a show and finishing it later.

• Play: Watch the thought as if you were watching it on a screen. Notice what you see, what you hear, how the thought makes you feel. Then you can ask yourself, is this thought accurate, is it a true representation of the reality or is it missing something or exaggerating?

• Record: sometimes we get so caught up in our thoughts that we don’t even realise they are just thoughts, and we can not mute or pause them. That happens in particular when we have angry thoughts about something that has upset us, for exemple when you have a fight with your brother. But we can replay them later on and ask ourselves “what this thought true?” “was it helpful?” if I had this thought again, would it be helpful to mute it, pause it or watch it?”

Session 8 – The stories in our mind

As we pay more attention to our thoughts, we notice how often we are wrapped up in stories we make up from the reality. We take incomplete information that is available to us at that moment, and then we create a story that is part truth and part fiction about what is happening. Sometimes the stories we tell ourselves are helpful and sometimes they are not helpful.

For example, if you see two kids in your class talking and looking at you, you might interpret that as them talking about you, when in fact they might have been talking about something completely different.

Our minds love to tell stories. This is how we make sense of the world around us. In any given moment, we are taking in what’s around us and trying to fit it into a story to make sense of it.

 As with our thinking in general, there is nothing wrong with our tendency to create stories, that’s how our mind works and how we make sense of the world. But sometimes the stories we tell ourselves are not a true representation of the reality. For example, we might assume that someone is mad at us when in fact they’re not. This type of story does not make us feel good. Our thoughts are very powerful.

Can you think of times when this has happened to you? You might have started telling yourself a story in your head, without having all the information to know if it was true of not.

There is something you can do when you notice that your thoughts are churning and telling you stories, you can say to yourself “the story I am telling myself right now is….” And you can pause, observe the situation more clearly, see if you’re missing some important piece of information and ask yourself if it’s true or not, is there a side that you are not seeing for example?

You can use the technique “I SAW” if you are experiencing a difficult moment.

I: I feel – acknowledge how you are feeling, check the sensations in your body, check your thoughts, check your feelings. Can you recognise the emotion that you are experiencing? For example, note to yourself “ I feel sad” or “I feel angry” or “I feel hurt” or “I feel scared”

S: Story – What story are you telling yourself right now? See if you can notice the story going through your mind, without judging yourself for it, or trying to change it, simply noticing what this story is telling you.

A: Actually… – Once you have noticed the story you are telling yourself, you can say “ I am telling myself that such and such don’t like me, actually they are just busy doing something else right now” After actually, see if you can fill in the details that were not part of your story. Actually gives you a chance to see the situation clearly, from a new perspective.

W: Wise action – Wise action means acting based on observation and reflection, not only based on your initial emotions and judgements. Sometimes the wise action is to simply wait and let your emotions settle.

Session 9 – Catching joy and practicing gratitude

Today we will see how meditation can help us grow more happiness in our life.

Catching joy

You remember that I have spoken to you about our negativity bias before, which means that we tend to focus more on negative events and threats in our life, and we pay less attention to our positive experiences. So they don’t leave an imprint in our brain, the positive goes through us like water through a sieve. We don’t retain our positive experiences very well. And that’s a shame because we need these positive experiences to have strength and resilience when things are difficult. The more we are able to retain the good experiences, feel them in our body, make them last, the more resilient we will be.

Can you remember a recent time when you had a lot of fun and you felt very joyful? How did it feel in your body? What were you doing?

With mindfulness, we learn to be more aware of those moments of fun and joy in our life, to really notice them and take them in. This practice is called “catching joy”.

How it works: when you are joyful, absorbed in a fun activity, smiling and laughing, you can remember to pause for a moment and tell yourself: I am really happy right now, it feels really good.

And your mum can help you remember by noticing when you are happy and laughing and pointing it out to you: she might say, you seem really happy and joyful right now, what does it feel like?

And you can help your mum remember it too, when you notice that she seems to be having a good time, let her know that.

It is really important to pay attention to the sensations in your body when you are joyful, as it helps to take in the positive more fully and saving it in your brain. We should try to stay with the positive experience for at least 5 to 10 breaths, or 10 to 30 seconds, in order for the good feelings to really sink in.

The more you can be aware of what happiness feels like, and when you experience it, the more you will be able to catch joy.

Activity “Joy list”: Make a list of 10 things that bring you joy and stick it on the fridge, so you can remind yourself often to enjoy these things.

Gratitude

What does the word gratitude mean for you? What does it mean to be grateful or thankful?

A lot of studies have shown that people who practice gratitude are happier and more resilient than those who don’t. When we practice gratitude, we practice to turn our mind towards the things that make us happy, the good things that we already have in our life, so it makes us feel good. Instead of focussing on the things that we don’t have, which makes us feel unhappy and dissatisfied.

To be grateful we need to be fully present in order to be able to pay attention to the good things in our life.

There are many things that we can be grateful for. Can you think of examples of the things you are grateful for?

By practicing gratitude, you deepen your feelings of joy and increase the joy around you.

When we go through a difficult time, to be grateful can seem difficult at first, but it can also help us go through the difficulty, as we focus our attention on the good things that are still in our life, even though other things are difficult.

It is very helpful to be able to say: “this is happening , this is like this right now, AND I still have this to be grateful for.”

So for example if you are sad because a good friend from school is moving overseas you could try saying: “I am sad right now because my friend is moving overseas, AND I have my mum and dad to help comfort me.”

It does not mean that we should ignore the difficult things. It means that even when things are hard, there is still something to appreciate.

Activity: incorporate gratitude into your family routines, everyone could share one thing they are grateful for at dinner each night or at bedtime. Or you can have a gratitude journal where you write three things that you are grateful for each day.

Session 10 – The power of kindness

Mindfulness is more than just paying attention, it is paying attention with kindness. We practice not judging ourselves when our mind wanders off, or our body is restless, instead of criticizing ourselves, we remain patient and kind towards ourselves like when we train a puppy.

How does it feel when you hear me say during a guided meditation, it’s okay to feel what you’re feeling, or let your body be the way it wants to be?

Do you think these are kind things to say?

Can you think of something kind that someone has done for you or said to you recently? Maybe they let you play with them, or they helped you when you were sad or frustrated, or they cooked your favourite meal…

As you think about this kind act that someone did for you, take a moment to notice how it felt.

What was it like to receive kindness? How did you feel?

And can you think of something kind you have done for someone this week?

What did that feel like?

For most of us, receiving kindness and giving kindness feels really good.

Kindness is important because we need to have good relationships with people in order to be happy. Our friendships are a source of joy, but also sometimes of stress, we can hurt our friends with our words and actions, and we can get hurt.

Story about the power of kindness: in a children’s hospital there were three wards, and the children in one of the wards were recovering a lot faster than the children in the other wards. The doctors did not know why. It turns out that in that ward there was a cleaning lady who came every day and was really friendly and kind with the children, she sang to them, listened to their stories and showed empathy. Her kindness and her warmth helped them heal faster.

It is easier to be kind to people when we feel connected to them in some way, for example our friends. We are usually attracted to people who are similar to us and have similar interests, it’s easy for us to like them.

We tend to think that the people who are not our friends or who we disagree with, are very different from us. So we will do an exercise that can help us realise that we are all very similar, and it can help us feel closer to other people who seem different from us.

Close your eyes and take a moment to take three full breaths to help your body and mind calm down. Now think of one person that you think you are very different from, or you don’t have a lot in common with. Picture that person in your head, imagine that person standing in front of you. I am going to say a series of phrases and you will repeat them silently in your mind.

“Just like me, this person is a human being, with a mind, and a body, thoughts and feelings.”

“Just like me, this person wants to laugh, play and have fun.”

“Just like me, this person feels bad when they are left out”

“Just like me this person makes mistakes”

“Just like me, this person sometimes gets angry and says things they don’t mean”

“Just like me, this person wants to be happy”

“Just like me, this person deserves love and understanding”

This practice can help you put things in perspective when you have an argument with someone: first start to take a few deep breaths to help you calm down, then notice what you are thinking and feeling about this person, and then do the Just like me Practice.

It can also help to bring to mind one thing that you like about this person.

 Kindness practice

Now that you know why kindness is so important for our wellbeing, I would like to introduce you to a practice about kindness. This practice helps to generate and express kind thoughts for others and ourselves, by silently repeating some phrases in our head.

You might find that you don’t feel anything at first, or you might notice frustration or irritation, and that’s okay , it can happen with this type of practice. If that’s the case for you, simply note that it’s happening, and see if you can remain patient and kind towards yourself. All you have to do is do the practice, following my instructions as best you can, and notice what happens, see if you can remain curious and open with this practice.

You are not asked to fabricate any feeling, simply to send kind wishes towards yourself and another person who has been kind to you.

We always start by bringing to mind something that we like about ourselves or the person that we want to sending kind wishes to.

Session 11 – Relaxation with music and visualisation

Why do we meditate?

• quiet time
• learning to pay attention to what is going on inside ourselves
• Notice what we are feeling and thinking
• Tune into our body and discover a quiet safe space inside yourself : become more calm, balanced, peaceful and feel better
• Do you have a special place where you can go and just be?

Session 12 – Standing moving meditation with visualisation and music

Sometimes we are too agitated to sit still, our body still wants to move. So we can do a standing meditation instead with a slow and gentle movement. You can do this meditation with your favourite meditation music.

During this meditation you will imagine that you have roots that grow from your feet and go deep into the earth, to steady you and nourish you. You can let yourself remember a wonderful tree from your garden or your local park, maybe a tree that you love climbing, or spending time with. Maybe you like to sit among its branches. Imagine that you become like that tree, that your body and legs are the trunk, a strong, stable and solid trunk. your arms are the branches and your head and fingers are the leaves.

You can do this meditation when you get up in the morning or before you go to bed, to help your body and mind settle. Go outside in your garden, and sense the stillness that’s already here, in nature. If you like, you can stand bare feet in your garden and pretend that you are a tree. or simply stand there, and see if you can slowly become still, just as nature can be still. Breathing with the trees and the plants, breathing with the stars if it’s at night.

Session 13 – Inner safe place

Today we are going to do a similar practice to one that we have done last term. We will use visualization to help you to imagine a special place in your mind, a place where you cannot be disturbed and where you can be yourself, a place where you can go when you feel restless, overwhelmed or stressed or anxious.

Remember that there is no right or wrong way to do this meditation. You do not need to judge your special place or criticize it, you can imagine what you want, there are no rules to follow, you have total freedom. There will be no comparison with the special place of someone else.

If you wish you can draw a picture of your special place, adding as many details as you can remember, and stick it somewhere where you will see it frequently, to remind yourself of it.

Can you think of times when it might be helpful for you to do this practice again?

Session 14 – Building self-esteem

What is self-esteem?

Accepting and loving ourselves exactly as we are without needing to be any other way.

Through the media and advertising we receive a lot of messages every day telling us how we should be on many levels: what to wear, what to play with, what to eat etc… This can be confusing and lead us to believe that we are not okay the way we are.

When have a good self-esteem we able to know and express how we feel in a healthy way. We can be true to ourselves and express how we really feel and what is really going on for us, rather than suppressing how we feel out of fear or embarrassment.

It is good for us to be able to feel, express and release our emotions instead of bottling them up inside of us. this is what helps us develop healthy self-esteem. That does not means going on about how we feel and becoming out of control with our emotions. For example, with anger, sometimes we may think that feeling angry is not okay. But there is nothing wrong with feeling angry, it’s what we do when we are angry that can be a problem, if we lose control or we harm others or ourselves.

If we stop and pay closer attention to our anger, we might be able to sense that underneath our anger there is hurt, or fear or guilt.

Activity:  ”What I like about you”   – tell each other what you love about the other person, open your heart and tell each other what you love about them, what you see in them, what is special about them, what you cherish in them.

Resources: The Big Life Journal Big Life Journal Australia: Growth Mindset for Kids & Teens

Session 15 – Emotional awareness

Mindfulness can help us know our feelings better, and be with them, so that they don’t dominate us.

We experience a wide range of emotions throughout our day, and sometimes it can feel as though our emotions were ruling our life. We experience things very differently depending on whether we are feeling happy or sad, peaceful or angry.

We can always feel our emotions in our body.

For example, when we feel sad we might experience constriction in our throat, when we feel angry we might experience a rush of energy to the head, when we feel scared we might feel pressure in our chest….So our emotions show up not only on our face but in our entire body, e.g. hands, arms, legs, chest…. Paying attention to the sensations in our body can help us understand better how we are feeling.

Charades game: write down the name of different emotions on pieces of paper, and when someone draws a card, they have to act out the emotion without making any sounds, by showing the emotion on their face and in their body.

As soon as we experience an emotion, we have thoughts or stories in our head about it: sometimes we think that we should not feel the way we feel, especially if we experience a strong emotion. But feelings are simply feelings, and they are all okay.

There is no such thing as a bad emotion, all our feelings are important and valid, they are information: when we have these strong sensations in our body, it’s a way of telling us that something needs our attention, it’s our body saying “something important is happening, pay attention!”. Have you noticed how emotions often create an urge to take a particular action (run, hit, smile, cry, yell, etc…)?

For example, with anger, sometimes we may think that feeling angry is not okay. But there is nothing wrong with feeling angry, it’s what we do when we are angry that can be a problem, if we lose control or we harm others or ourselves.

Our emotions come and go just like an internal weather system. In fact, it has been shown that an emotion only last 90 seconds in our body if we don’t feed it with our thoughts, and just let it be. So if we can be patient with our feeling and watch it swirl around in us the way the glitter swirls around in our mind jar, we can contain it.

The important part is to allow ourselves to feel the way we feel, without denying our emotions, pushing them away or letting them control us. We can observe them like a weather pattern, let them come and let them go, without having to do anything about them. We remind ourselves that the emotion will not last very long, and we practice watching it swirl around our body and mind, and we watch it settle.

Session 16 – Emotional awareness

Today I would like to continue exploring how mindfulness can help us be with very strong emotions. Sometimes our emotions can be so strong that they totally unsettle us, they can feel big and overpowering. In particular it is normal to feel strong emotions like anger or sadness when we have been hurt or when something goes wrong. Example of strong emotions are when we feel stressed, anxious, angry, sad or excited.

When these strong emotions show up, we usually want to get rid of them because they are uncomfortable. But then they start to build up inside us and can burst out. Sometimes it’s like they explode right out of us and we feel like we can’t control them. Meditation can help us learn to experience our strong emotions without feeling overwhelmed.

Feelings are meant to be felt, which is why they are called feelings. Using mindfulness, we practice sitting with our feelings rather than pushing them away or distracting ourselves from them, we remain curious and interested in all our emotions, and not judge ourselves for feeling them.

Last term I explained to you what happens in our brain when we have these strong emotions. we talked about the wise guide and the guard dog. With meditation we learn techniques that strengthen our wise guide, so we can concentrate better and regulate our emotions, for example: Body relaxation, Inner happy place, Relaxing with the breath

Another way we can hold our emotion in awareness is by breaking it down into its component parts. It helps us be less overwhelmed. 

1. Notice it, especially notice how it feels in your body (e.g. knot in the stomach)
2. Name it (this is anxiety)
3. Sit with it, observe any thoughts that go with that emotions, observe what happens to it, if it changes
4. Breathe with it, take three or more deep slow breaths

Session 17 – Encountering your power animal

This is a different kind of meditation we will do today, using a visualisation to take on a journey to meet your power animal. It is not a mindfulness practice, but it can be very powerful to gain insights about your potential and how to solve issues in your life. It can help to build self-esteem and trust in our abilities and good qualities.

Power animals are guides in animal form, who can help us navigate through life’s challenges and transitions.  

Power animals can be mammals, birds, or reptiles; and even so-called mythical creatures such as unicorns or dragons can be power animals, although they have no physical representations in the material world. Generally domesticated animals like cats and dogs can’t be power animals because they’ve lost much of their wildness and are removed from the natural world.

If you’ve had a particular affinity or attraction for an animal, it’s most likely this is your power animal. Another interesting facet is that often your power animal is reflective of your personality characteristics.

Meditation is a powerful tool to contacting with your animal guides. This meditation will help you access your inner wisdom to help you with your life, and so you get in touch with your amazing potential. 

Feel free to write or draw your experience after the visualisation and let yourself be surprised.

Session 18 – Kindness for others

Kindness is the only thing in the world that doubles when you share it.

It starts with one person and then it ripples out to other people. The energy of kindness is profound. When you throw a stone into still water, the ripples expand out endlessly. The energy of kindness does exactly the same thing. Kindness ripples out from one person to another in an expanding field of goodwill.

Can you think of a time when you have experienced the ripple effect of kindness in your life?

It is nourishing to us to be kind to other people.

Studies have shown that if you perform one random act of kindness a day, it reduces your stress, anxiety and depression. Our body and the body of the person we’ve helped gets flooded with hormones that make us feel calmer, healthier and happier. When other people see us being kind, they will be flooded with the same hormones, making them more likely to be kind too.

We never know what someone else is going through in their personal lives. We can be kind by doing things as simple as smiling and saying hello, and those simple acts can have a big impact on another person’s life.

The people you help will help other people, and those other people will help other people. One act of kindness can start a chain reaction that can spread across an entire community, city, country and the world.

Practice paying attention to all the acts of kindness you witness each day, and share them with your family at the end of the day. When we practice paying attention to the kindness around us, it counteracts our negativity bias and helps make us feel good about life.

For example, we can start becoming aware of the kindness we can find in nature, how nature is here for us and sustains all life: the trees, the rain, the ocean, the earth. They offer their abundance to us to nourish and support us.

Session 19 – Kindness for oneself

We all have a tendency to be harsh on ourselves at times, this is due to our negativity bias. We still  to pay more attention to the negative, to what might go wrong, rather than to the positive.

This negativity bias impacts how we see ourselves. We tend to judge ourselves harshly, focussing on our mistakes and flaws and forgetting our qualities. 

For example, when you receive feedback after a performance, do you tend to focus on what went well or what needs improving?

Research shows that people who are harsh and self-critical tend to give up more easily, feel bad about themselves, and have low self-esteem.

On the other hand, when you are kind and encouraging towards yourself you feel better and are more motivated to take on challenges.

It is important to be aware of how we speak to ourselves, and how this makes us feel. Instead of always looking at the negative or things that need improving, we can start looking at the good things, things we do well, our positive qualities. It builds our self-esteem, inner strength and resilience.

It starts with learning how to be a good friend to oneself. A good friend stays by our side in times of happiness and times of adversity, they don’t abandon us if we are in trouble, they protect us and become a refuge when we are in difficulty. 

We will do a practice together that is about growing feelings of kindness and appreciation towards oneself. Don’t worry if it feels a bit weird or if you can’t feel anything, it is a practice and it takes time.

It can help to think of something you do well, something you are proud of, a good quality of yours, and to see yourself as a little child, full of positive energy and innocence, who deserves all the goodness and love in the world, to send your friendship and encouragements to this little child.

Session 20 – The practice of joy

We tend to focus more on negative events and threats in our life, and we pay less attention to our positive experiences. So they don’t leave an imprint in our brain, it is as though our mind was like a sieve for the positive, the positive goes through us like water through a sieve. We don’t retain our positive experiences very well. And that’s a shame because we need these positive experiences to have strength and resilience when things are difficult. The more we are able to retain the good experiences, feel them in our body, make them last, the more resilient we will be.

With mindfulness, we learn to be more aware of those moments of fun and joy in our life, to really notice them and take them in. This practice is called “catching joy”.

How it works: when you are joyful, absorbed in a fun activity, smiling and laughing, you can remember to pause for a moment and tell yourself: I am really happy right now, it feels really good.

It is really important to pay attention to the sensations in your body when you are joyful, as it helps to take in the positive more fully and saving it in your brain. We should try to stay with the positive experience for at least 5 to 10 breaths, or 10 to 30 seconds, in order for the good feelings to really sink in.

The more you can be aware of what happiness feels like, and when you experience it, the more you will be able to catch joy.

Activity “Joy list”: Make a list of 10 things that bring you joy and stick it on the fridge, so you can remind yourself often to enjoy these things, espcially if you are feeling down or are having a bad day.