Green Child Magazine Spring 2013 | Page 38

guided relaxation “Bubble Blower Magic” Bedtime relaxations are a fantastic way to introduce the power of relaxation and meditation into your child’s life. Starting as young as age three, you can read a guided relaxation adventure to your child before bed. In doing so, you will help your child begin to use the mental tools readily available to each one of us. These tools help us deal with anxieties, manage stress and keep self-esteem vibrant. Through regular practice, your child will begin to understand that how we perceive things outwardly is simply a manifestation of our inner thought processes. Children easily learn to shift focus to achieve a desired result – a skill many of us wish we had learned sooner. Equally important, children will find calm and inner peace as we guide them to look within. This leads to a natural yearning to revisit often and explore their inner world through the wonderful gift of meditation. This month we will use a magical bubble blower to blow away any childhood worries. Read the following script to your child in a gentle, loving voice at a slow pace. Take time to really savor each sentence. Close your eyes and take in a very deep breath. Pretend your tummy is a balloon and as you inhale, make that balloon as big as you can. Now, exhale it all out. Let’s do that again now… inhale fully and make the balloon any color you want. Now as you do this, allow your arms and legs to get as floppy as a rag doll. Just let them get heavy and loose… all limp and relaxed. They feel so 38 with Mellisa Dormoy of Shambala Kids heavy it’s as if you don’t even want to move them because they are just so very relaxed! Just allow your body to continue relaxing while we use our imaginations to imagine something wonderful! In your mind, pretend you are pulling, a big magical bubble blower out of your pocket. It looks like any bubble blower but this one has real magic in it. It has been small in your pocket, but as you pull it out, you realize it becomes enormous! It’s a lot bigger than any bubble blower you’ve ever seen. Now, in your other hand, imagine you have a big bottle of magic bubble soap. Put the blower into the thick magic bubble liquid…. and get it nice and wet. Now you can start to blow through the bubble blower to make your gigantic bubble. As you do this, I want you to put ANY WORRY or fear you have about anything… into that bubble… just put it all in there! Then continue blowing the bubble until you think it’s big enough. Nod your head when you’ve done that (wait for nod). Now, as you finish watch how a very strong friendly wind comes along and carries your worry bubble far, far away…. it carries it so far away that you will never have to worry about that again. It’s leaving now. Watch as it goes. You can blow up as many bubbles as you need to with your magical bubble blower. Put anything in there that is bothering you and watch as the wind carries the bubbles far, far away. You can use this magic bubble blower whenever you need to… just by imagining it in your mind. I’ll be quiet now so you can finish. Tell me when you’re done and we can talk about it. For more meditations and guided relaxation audios, visit Shambala Kids online.