Description
Description
It’s now six long months since the initial ‘safer at home’ mandates were given across the globe. And yet today we continue to be the middle of extraordinary stress, worry, and fear during this coronavirus pandemic. Our children and teens even more so. They are experiencing quarantine fatigue. School is starting and whether they are attending via Zoom, hybrid, or in person, many are over-the-top anxious. They need to quickly be equipped with coping skills like never before. As a psychologist working with children and teens for over 30-years, and an even longer-term meditator, I am grateful to be able to offer two special 5-week group meditation classes (one for tweens and teens) to heal and develop emotional resilience.
Teens and tweens will gain practical knowledge on how mindfulness, meditation, and imagination techniques can help them manage their stress, fears, and worries; reduce sleep problems; diminish physical symptoms such as headaches and stomachaches; handle peer drama; positively manage too much family and sibling time; and compassionately face the vulnerability, sadness, anger, and frustration that so many are experiencing today.
Several particularly effective meditation tools will be offered from my own clinical practice and meditation training, including specific breathing techniques and mudras (hand positions) to accelerate the meditative state, connecting to the wisdom of the heart and belly, dialoguing with symptoms and feelings, using color and energy for healing and pain control, and experiencing inner guides for assistance.
This 5-week meditation series will cover a variety of salient themes significant to the emotional health of tweens and teens, and may be adjusted as needed.
Week 1: How to Develop a Fun, Easy, and Efficient Meditation Practice
Week 2: Transforming Stress, Anxiety, and Worry
Week 3: Peaceful Sleep During Corona and Beyond
Week 4: Managing Frustration, Anger, and Sadness
Week 5: Feeling Connected while Separated: Family and Friends
We will follow up guided, interactive, and solo mediations with journaling, drawing, and discussion. There will be plenty of time for sharing so the kids can incorporate their newly minted practices into their everyday lives.
Participating in this meditation series will help tweens and teens connect to their inner resources, develop empathy and self-compassion, learn to trust their intuition, and discover deep wisdom – all toward the important goal of more easily managing COVID-19 challenges and beyond – so that they can make decisions from a heart-centered space, helping them lead a more authentic life. No experience with meditation or mindfulness is needed, but rather a deep determination to heal and thrive during these extraordinary times.
NOTE: If you prefer to set up smaller private family meditation sessions with your teens, tweens, or younger children, please let me know and we can make those arrangements.
Supplies
Please have on hand sheets of large blank paper, a writing and/or art journal, and your choice of markers, paints, or colored pencils.
