Kind roots - creative mindfulness

Hello All💞 I hope that you are all well. I needed to take some break from the classes, due to increased hours at my other job. Also, I needed time to figure some deeper stuff, and why am I burning out mentally so much- we cannot pour from an empty cup❤️💞 I miss the classes and currently I am in the process of working out what would work the best,so in can work more and still have the energy to focus on creative mindfulness classes... would workshops style classes be something that you would consider? I am thinking of running a workshop in December-the focus will be gratitude, self-compassion, and compassion for all beings...we will meditate, chat, and mindfully enjoy some creative task 😊

This week, children were exploring relationship with themselves. The relationship we have with ourselves is a big part of cultivating a joyful heart 😊 💖 younger group started the class with the bell, and everyone had a turn to ring it, and we all listened. Then we played our affirmation/breath dice game, followed by the story time, we read I'm Enough by Grace Byers. For craft, the younger group created self-compassion/love caterpillars and beautiful butterflies 🦋 as we are kind to ourselves, we feed our caterpillar, which then turns into a beautiful, unique butterfly 🦋
In older group we consolidated what we had been exploring for these past weeks, intention, what we want to grow in our minds, and today I introduced the children to the mirror work, they all have written beautiful things they can tell themselves when they look in the mirror 🪞 one of which was 'I love you"🥰 ❤️ then, they also created beautiful butterflies 🦋 ❤️ we also had special guests in the class tonight ,Teddy and Swiss cheese -my daughter's guinea piggies 🐷 last week children asked her if she could bring her guineas in ,and she did tonight ❤️ all children loved Teddy and Swiss cheese. Tonight was last class, we will be back after the summer ☀️ I hope you all have a wonderful time enjoying the spring and summer, and thank you for attending my classes 💖 I'm very grateful 🙏
Teachings based on wonderful method 🥰

The older group also continues with the theme of joy. We had explored it a bit deeper tonight. I was so inspired by the practice, my wonderful teacher Louise Shanagher did with us on Tuesday. She introduced self- soothing touch, and I especially embraced the holding of our monkey minds with love and compassion ❤️ Therefore, tonight after the bell, I invited the children to close their eyes if they were comfortable with it, and rest their attention on the breath, we took 3 deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. Then, I asked children to give themselves a butterfly hug (I showed it to them before we started practice), I guided the children to focus the monkey mind on the rhythm their hands were making as they were tapping themselves, I asked how they were feeling,then we moved to placing a hand on the forehead and the other on top on the head and we held our monkey minds with so much love and compassion,as they are so busy a lot of the time🥰 we finished by checking in with how our mind felt ?,how our heart felt? And how our body felt💖 then we talked about joy and how we can grow our inner joy bigger. I asked children to divide the page in two ,and to write positive self-talk on one, and negative on the other. Then, I gave them torches and asked to shine the light on negative thoughts. Then,Buster the parrot came out, and I explained to children that these negative thoughts are repetitive like a parrot, and if we shine the light on them these thoughts get even louder and more repetitive. So, we shined the light on the positive ones and started traning the parrot to do just that🥰 we have read the beautiful story "I'm enough" by Grace Byers and chatted about trying our best and let it be enough💖 then each child picked a rock, and we put it together to form a beautiful flower, as this is what happens when we are kind to ourselves, we plant beautiful garden in our minds and our joy grows ❤️ teachings based on method, and parrot idea came from fellow practitioner .classes

Younger group continues with the theme of joy😊 we started the class by ringing the bell and listening until it went quiet- everyone had a turn. Them, we settled our monkey minds a bit more with 5 hot chocolate breaths, and then we moved on to discussing joy. What is joy, whether it is pleasant or unpleasant feeling, and how joy makes us feel: calm ,happy content ,grateful ,loving, etc. I them asked children to close their eyes and think about something that brings them joy and notice how it feels inside their bodies. We spoke about happy butterflies ,sunny and light hearts ,clear minds ... children then coloured paper dolls to show where in the body we feel joy. It is lovely exercise for mind -body connection🥰 we then read the Kindness Grows story by Britta Teckentrup ,beautiful story about growing kindness and friendship💖 we then had a chat about kind and angry/fearful bear 🐻 and that we have a choice to decide which one we feed 😊 we placed fruits with various messages on them the kind ones and the not so kind ones into the bowl of the correct bear, we discussed that we first need to be kind to ourselves, so we can be kind to others too🥰We noticed that when we feed the kind bear, our joy and kindness grow bigger too 😊 I had sumblox and we stuck them on top of another. When we fed the angry bear, our joy got smaller too. Then, we moved on to collaborative art with long brushes to increase proprioception awareness and notice how our bodies move differently when we use long brushes, we moved our whole bodies ,not only our hands. We created the kindness/joy tree that grew bigger because we fed our kind bear 🐻
Teachings based on wonderful method

Continued...
Sadly, there is so much such unhealthy comparison between the children these days ,especially in tweens and adolescents... I was asking myself :" why are they putting themselves down instead of cheering each other up... " ,of course, I understand why... but, wouldn't it be wonderful if we all cheered each other, if we so make a mistake and hurt someone, to say sorry 💖 the brain just scans for danger all the time... and that response came from that "amygdala activation-threat respone" ... I chatted to my daughter about healthy boundaries, and how they can help protect her mental health. It is better to have one good friend than many who don't really support us. We finished by saying" you are enough ,you are beautiful, you have done your best, you went out there and you did it ! That's amazing " . We don't have to be the best ,just tey our best and that's enough". My daughter felt upliftee after our conversation. These things will happen, we can not protect our children all the time, but through our chats and shares she is building up resilience and she knows she is loved ! 🥰

I just wanted to share something. On Saturday, my daughter had her very first show at her riding club. She was so excited to wear her show outfit and do the course. She was in poles category. We know how big of a step forward that was for her to stretch herself outside of her comfort zone. She is not a child that likes all eyes on her, abd can be quite shy and unsure in new groups, and especially events, this was her first ever after football gala when she was 8 years old, and really struggled to take part, but loved playing football ⚽️ ❤️She did her course and went out there on Saturday and was so happy and proud of herself even though it didn't go exactly to how she planned it... she didn't place. However, we both know that she did her best and I said to her :"let your best be enough, look how far you have come 🥰" .
After the show, she posted picture of herself on social media with the phrase "first show".... she was super happy and proud that she did it in front of many people 👏 however, this quickly turn into sadness after one of the girls commented and send my daughter voice messages telling her "girl ,what show ,you only did poles ,that's not even a show ,wait till you do jumping then it's a show ..." this obviously hurt my daughter's feelings. She became angry and snappy with me (didn't tell me yet) ,and I kept asking is everything OK? I'm so grateful, that both of my children share with me things that bug them in their own time ,but they do... I have seen and heard the massages that girl sent to my daughter, and it got me so angry and mad ... I let myself feel that way ,naming how I was feeling... then, I had a chat with my daughter and explained to her :" This girl's response to your post comes from her own insecurities, from fear, it is envious. She compares you to her. However, you are not her ,you only compare yourself to yourself and look at your own progress in this circumstances. You know you did the best you could have done, and let it be enough. You are worthy of trying ,of taking part in the show ,and of being happy and proud of yourself. Don't let anyone dim your light ✨️"

And this wonderful young man🥰 he was unschooled since the age of 12, his passion is music 🎶 🎵 he had guitar lessons ,then he started producing his own music on fl studios and over those years ,he has become an amazing musician 🥰 he got accepted to Riverside Music college in Glasgow to study HND in Sound Production... words can not describe how happy I feel for him ,for his new chapter ☺️ 💕

I'm so proud of this wonderful human being 🥰 she has come a long way over the years ,and now is ready to participate in her first ever show at her riding club tomorrow 💖 "Mum ,do you know how courageous it feels ?" ... yes ,I do know my darling 😘 ❤️

Some new resources arrived today. Oh, the smell of grimms waves and the feel of the silk,these silks are just so soft to touch 🥰

This week we have been exploring Intention. Younger group started the class with a snake breathing to help settle our monkey 🐒 minds. Then we played mindful musical game: I was singing what's in the music bag would you like to see ? If you would like to take a look just do: 3 balloon breaths , 2 butterfly breaths, notice 3 things you can see ,feel your feet on the ground etc... Once children got their chosen instruments, we gave our monkey minds job of focusing on the rhythm- playing fast and quiet ,slow and loud, fast and loud etc.. then we added stop/go sign and we needed to pay attention to the person that was holding it to know when to stop and when to go😊 this was fun. We then relaxed with musical chimes, listening to the sound and breathing into our bellies, tensing our bodies, and relaxing and listening 🎶 then we had a brief chat about intention and proceeded to craft - compass of the heart ❤️ little ones really got into transformational schematic experimentation, and enjoying mixing all colours together, again and again 😀
With older groups, we got to chat a bit deeper about intention and what it means. How we can make a heartfelt intention that not only includes ourselves but all wider community, and how following it can make us happier. We explored a few different intentions for each theme of the compass. I explained to the children that they are the captains of their minds.
We closed our eyes and imagined something that brings us joy, a place or a person... then I asked the children to really feel it in their bodies, and where did they feel the joy in their bodies. They then coloured a paper doll in places where they feel joy. After, I invited children for body scan with musical chimes. We tensed our bodies and relaxed and noticed the sensations we experienced, then I gently played the chimes guiding the children to listen and relax 😌 then, children moved on to creating their compasses of their hearts 💕
Teachings based on beautiful creative mindfulness method developed by woderful Louise Shanagher

What's in the music bag ? Would you like to see 👀? 🎶 🎵 I'm looking forward to seeing you tonight for some mindful music making and chatting about intention setting, we are the captains of the ship (our mind) 🚢 we decide which direction it will go ... Will it be joy? Kindness ? Love? Or friendship ?

I immersed myself in a beautiful sound bath experience last night. Two hours of soul nourishment. I absolutely loved the chakra voice exercise - making sounds together for each chakra. Feeling the vibrations of my voice and voices of others in the room passing my body, then sitting in silence in between the sounds, noticing sensations in my body 💖 after the sound bath, we finished with 7 OMs 🕉 chanting together.... Milena from Vibrational Medicine is absolutely fantastic in what she is doing. She truly pours her heart and soul into her sound baths💖 next one is in May ,at Kingswells Village Hall. Have a look at her page for all details at Vibrational Medicine... sound is a powerful healer

I listened to beautiful talk today from Oren Jay Sofer at happily family online conference. He was talking about mindfu non-violent communication... it was so beautiful with wonderful real-life examples. We all have needs, when we want someone to do something, we need to be clear on why we want them to do it (our need) ,and respect their answer (their need). That way, we build a connection with another person (a child) and can come to mutual satisfaction of both of our needs. It takes more time to practice this way of communicating than merely stating demands. However, the fruits of this approach will eventually show... humans need autonomy, and this goes even to the littlest humans... if we ask children that we would like them to clean the room for example, we state our need why we would like them to clean the room, and ask if they will be willing to do it... if the answer is "no,because I'm busy playing", we can respect their need by saying ,I can see you have the need to play right now, play is fun and important-is there another time today that you will be willing to tidy your room? We may be met with resentment, especially if children are used to not having as much autonomy, but if we keep at it ,they will see that their needs are met ,and the needs of others are also met. It feels good inside 💖 intrinsic motivation 🥰 that's just one example... sometimes it is also impossible to meet the need right at that particular moment,and that's ok ,we can compassionately explain it to the child and perhaps fill the need later if appropriate 💖💖 what he also said was :" communication is not simply the use of words, but the connection with ourselves and with others,being aware of our needs and the needs of others ..."

Our Archie boy (Sir Archiebold🥰) was so poorly last weekend💓. We have found two huge lymph nodes on his face. He wasn't eating, drinking, and just wasn't himself. We were all heartbroken, as the vets visit didn't look promising.... Archie had a very high temperature too, biobsy was taken, and the vet prescribed antibiotics and anti inflammatories in case it was an infection... Monday and Tuesday were touch and go. He wasn't comfortable... I cried so much ,we all did 😭 Archie shares a very special bond with us ,but especially with me, he is my boy, we understand each other ,and it is always so comforting having him next to me💖✨️well, on Wednesday the lumps started going down, and Archie started to act more like himself. Today, we received his biobsy results ,and it is not cancer.... vet doesn't know what it is ,it is a kind of mystery, but our Bubby is going to be fine 💖✨️ when the vet was calling, I had knot in my stomach and it felt like my heart dropped into my belly and chest was tight... it was a very tense week. I have done a lot of meditation to allow myself to feel what I needed to feel❤️ I have also done yoga for cultivating peace and EFT for emotional processing... all that allowed me to stay with my worry , process it ,and turn it into gratitude for the present moment ✨️💖 I'm looking forward to seeing you all in classes next week!

I had a beautiful, long walk this morning with my trusty companion, Archie 💕 so many sensory inputs from nature, warthm of sunshine, and wind blowing in my face, birds singing ,smell of linden trees ,and forest floor ,squirrels playing in tree branches, colours of spring flowers... 💐 we passed this dandelion clock, they are wonderful for practising intentional breathing with your little ones, and we get to wake up our inner child then too ❤️ children are naturally drawn towards them, pick one ,take a deep breath into your bellies ,and slowly breath out. You can add mantra too, saying quietly as you breathe out "I'm kind" or another one that resonates. You can send kind wishes to yourselves and all people in your community by saying this mantra, "May we all be happy," "may we all be healthy," and"may we all have peace".

My morning routine consists of meditation 🧘‍♀️, intention setting... ✨️ I now have a wonderful joy buddies group with fellow practitioners to share our intentions and moments of wellbeing together ❤️ This morning, my heart called for reading poetry ❤️ I'm feeling so grateful for this slow morning 🌄 this is my moment of wellbeing. I find if I don't meditate before my day starts, I lose my "protection." There are days when I can't fit all my routine in the morning, but I always make time for even just 10 minutes of meditation. It really sets me for the day 💖

Last class of Tuesday's March block tonight 🥰 I'm filled with gratitude 💖 it was our substitute class for the one we missed due to snow, and it was all about Gratitude. We started the class with the bell, all children had a turn as they just love ringing the bell🔔 then we played mindful easter bunny game, 🐰 🐇 we were drowing eggs the bunny, each egg had a message, some affirmations, some mindful awareness practices ,such as breathing or noticing what's around us ,what sounds can we hear etc. Then we had a chat about what gratitude is, and looked at some thankful me cards for some ideas of things we can be grateful for 💖💖 then we have listened to the story "Thankfully me" written by my amazing teacher Louise Shanagher and discussed our day today ,and what things made us happy today 🥰 then children moved onto creating their Easter gratitude trees. I feel so happy and truly grateful for yet another block of creative mindfulness classes 🙏 thank you to all wonderful children and their families. Without you, these classes would not happen💖. I wish you all peaceful holidays and Joyful Easter 🐣 and hopefully see some of you after the holidays🥰

On Saturday, I was so privileged to be part of this wonderful workshop with my teacher Louise Shanagher and James Baraz, the author of the "Awakening Joy: 10 steps to happiness " book. So much wisdom, connection, and love showered over me that evening💖 "The purpose of life is to be happy "- Dalai Lama - yet there is so much suffering that the human race is experiencing. Most of that suffering is created in our minds. Our brain is designed to search for danger, as that's what helped our ancestors survive. It has negativity bias, where "negative experiences are like velcro and positive ones are like Teflon"- Rick Hanson. However, we can train our minds to look for Joy 😊 the foundation of Joyful life is self-love, as James Baraz put it beautifully. We can not feel Joy without loving ourselves first ❤️ As creative mindfulness practitioner sharing self compassion practices with the children is at the heart of everything ❤️ Louise's training places strong emphasis on this important step that is part of cultivating Joy. Mindfulness allows us to look deeper into who we are. We are not our thoughts. Minfulness doesn't get rid of the thoughts or feelings , but it allows us to recognise them, allow them to be there, and let them go: they are just thoughts or feelings. Cultivating Joy doesn't mean we must be happy all the time, but what it means is that we are not going to dwell on something that upsets us for long, we will allow it to stay but "it won't drive the car" ,as James described it so beautifully 💖 thank you Louise for such wonderful workshop and all these amazing creative ideas that we can now share with the children and allow them to feel more Joy and love in this world 🌎 😊

That's another block of classes finished for Easter 🐣 it was a beautiful journey of more learning and enjoyment for me, and I'm so grateful for this opportunity and all the children I shared mindfulness practices with this month 🙏 ❤️ This week was all about celebrating ourselves "as we are" ,all our amazing unique qualities, all our emotions ,all our hobbies and interests- all of that makes us "US" ❤️ In younger group we started the class with the bell and enjoyed some" Alphabreaths " by - children were drawing alphabet letters from the bag and then finding the letter in the book, then we all performed actions together ❤️ favourite one was the teddy bear breath, and children loved observing the colour monsters as they were rising on their bellies with an inbreath and falling back down with an outbreath. In both groups, I invited children to look at group of rocks 🪨 and asked them what they have in common - they are all rocks, and they are all made out of Earth's minerals... but the minerals can be different, not all the same. Just like us, we are all humans, but we are all so unique and beautiful, just like the rocks all were different but beautiful in their own ways💖 In older group, we started the class with "Handful of quiet" meditation 🧘‍♀️ by Thich Nhat Hanh - each child had their own counters with flower, mountain, lake ,and sky (representing freedom),I then explained to the children that we are already beautiful flowers, already enough but with mindfulness and nurturing we become more resilient,stronger our colours will shine. Mountain represents solidness and calmness, and we are solid and calm - it's our monkey mind that sometimes "disturbs" our calm🙉 in both groups we talked about what feelings are visiting us when we love ourselves just as we are.. in the older group, we read a beautiful poem, "Bioluminiscense" (pictured) ,and the younger group listened to the "Incredible you" book (pictured) ,then both groups created their own self-portraits 💖

A bit of a late update 🥰 on Thursday with the older group we explored the theme of gratitude. We started the class with the bell, and then created gratitude Web with the wool: we sat in the circle and passed wool across to each other naming one thing we were grateful for - a person/animal, something in nature and something in ourselves💖 then, I invited children for gratitude meditation 🧘‍♂️, and then we had a little chat about what gratitude is: saying thank you for all the good in our lives. I explained to the children that there is always something to be grateful for💖 and we looked for three things in the room we were in that we could be grateful for ... children pointed at crystals, book... yes 💖 then we were grateful for electricity and light bulb, central heating, and the fact that we can meet in that room every week 🥰 I explained to children that researches have found out that gratitude practice increases our happiness, so when we are having a bit of a difficult day, we can acknowledge our emotions with kindness and perhaps look at something we can be grateful for in that moment🙏💖 we then, explored some of the messages from Thankful me cards, children read them aloud, and read Thankfully me by Louise Shanagher
Then, children moved on to creating their own gratitude trees 🌳 🙏

Tonight, with the younger group, we explored loving-kindness practice towards ourselves and others💖 we started the class with dimmed lights, and the bell🔔 -each child rung the bell and we all listened, our monkey minds settled a bit, and then we did 5 flower breaths with our flower windmills. After, each child picked a "special crystal " 🔮 ,I loved how children noticed the textures right away :" oh ,it's cold", "it feels slimy"...then ,I invited the children to " Bubbles of love" meditation, I asked them to keep their crystals safe in their hands while they meditate 🧘‍♂️ they all laid down ,and put fluffy eye masks on 💖 This slow start of the class set a lovely tone for our discussion on loving kindness. I asked the children what it means to be kind to ourselves? There weren't many replies to start with ,but then children started talking about eating good food, showering etc... that's all wonderful, but what else can we do? I helped children a little... and said, "we can always speak to ourselves kindly, like we would to the little baby" 🥰 My wonderful teacher Louise highlights that to us a lot💖
Kindness starts with us being kind to ourselves ✨️ 💖
Then we talked about what it means being kind to others, and children brought up so many wonderful examples, "helping when someone falls off the bike or scooter," sharing, playing together, etc..
The we listen to Kind Wishes story written by my teacher Louise Shanagher🥰 and did a loving kindness practice for all the children, after the story we continued to spread loving kindness to everyone in the world 🌎 using bubbles and our globe ball ❤️ then, children moved onto creating "kind wishes bubbles" pictures. All the pictures were wonderful and unique ✨️ 💕 I'm feeling thankful for this beautiful class tonight 🙏💖💖
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Lovely, chilled morning decorating nature pictures from , we used a few different textures - felt pens, colouring pencils, watercolours, fabric, and tissue paper🥰 we listened to calming music and noticed our monkey minds🙉🙉🙃😊 It was funny, as we are crafting, and out of nowhere M says something about her horse riding lesson tomorrow, I then said ,oh your monkey mind jumped to the future, bring her back... we went back to crafting, and suddenly, a thought came to my mind, I said: remember when A was coming to you and you were creating together...? To which Mia replied- oh ,that's your monkey mind in the past... you need to bring her back ❤️ 😍 🙉 I love how the pictures turned out! 💖💖,and the backpack 🎒 is definitely "my thing", I would buy it in the shop !

Tonight with the older group, we also explored worry 😟 We welcomed a new friend💖 and started the class with loving kindness meditation 🧘‍♀️ we then spoke about what worry is and why we worry. Again, I showed the children the brain picture with different animals as brain parts and referred back to evolution... the main message was that our worry just wants to keep us safe, but gets a bit confused sometimes to know what is the real danger and what isn't. We looked at other emotions that we can experience when we worry...We explored some examples of our own worries, and I showed the children the train and explained that we don't want to jump on the train with Wilbur what if ,or Nancy negative or with Polly perfect etc.. we are the observers. We then read "Ruby's worry" by Tom Percival and discussed the importance of talking about our worries, and noticed how the worry shrinks when we acknowledge it and help the worry to feel safe again🥰 we discussed what else we can do when worry is visiting:
we can focus on our breathing, we can notice what can we see,hear ,smell, touch, and taste in the here and now, and we are being kind to ourselves and our worry🥰Children then traced their hands and thought about 5 people they feel safe with and can share their worries with them💖 and then ,they moved on to creating their own worry and cosy boxes for them 💖 teachings based on wonderful method 🥰