Sitting comfortably,
become more aware of your breathing. With your eyes open, draw
your breath deep into your belly and feel your abdomen expand. Hold
your body still at the moment of full inhalation and wait a few
seconds before exhaling. When you exhale, do so with intention, comfortably
working to squeeze the stale air out of your lungs. Throughout
this mediation, when you become aware of your breathing, pay attention, on
the inhalation, to your belly, and, on the exhalation, to squeezing
out the stale air.
Now, slowly close your eyes. When
your eye lids touch, smile knowing that you are giving yourself
this moment of deep relaxation and will begin to feel a deeper connection
with your child. Smile as you inhale. Smile as you exhale.
Direct
your awareness to your hands. If they are touching, separate
them, placing one on each side of your body in a comfortable
place. Breathe air into your body and imagine the air filling your lungs
and then moving out to your arms and flowing down to your hands.
As the air reaches the tips of your fingers, feel it bounce against
the inside of your finger tips. Each time you inhale and the
air bounces against your finger tips, visualize blue sparks leaping
off of your nails. Take a few moments to slowly breathe and
out. With every inhalation, let the air lightly bounce, always
the same light bounce, against the inside of your finger tips. As you sink into greater relaxation, let the blue sparks grow larger
and more vibrant. Your fingers and hand may begin to tingle. That’s okay. Your fingers and hands are waking up.
Imagine
your hands slowly stretching out before you. Visualize them
if you can. If that is difficult, then sense that they are there
in front of you, perhaps there is a linen cloth draped over them. Or maybe, they are just there, though it is difficult to see them.
As
you continue to breath, imagine squeezing your hands open and shut
several times. Squeeze them as you exhale, forcing the air out
and back through your lungs and outside your body. Open them
as your inhale, with the rush of air filling your lungs and pouring
into your hands. Blue sparks leaping out from your fingers as
the air lightly caresses each finger tip.
Now, imagine your child’s
hands being placed on top of yours. You can feel your child’s
palms resting on top of your hands. They are soft and the feeling
is subtle. You want to turn your hands over and hold their hand,
but you don’t. Just breathe in and out as you sense your child’s
hands. At first, blue sparks leave only your fingers and not
your child’s. But soon, you sense blue sparks leaving your child’s
fingers as well.
The blue sparks now are being emitted from both
yours and your child’s fingers in synchronization.
Now, imagine
your child sitting across from you, hands outstretched. Your
fingertips are a few inches apart. Your hands are tingling and
you feel an even greater tingling sensation each time the blue sparks
emitted from your child’s fingers touch your finger tips. At
the same time, your blue sparks are touching your child’s fingers. Look into your child’s face and see your child smiling at you. Smile to your child. Lean forward and wrap your arms around
your child. As your hands settle firmly against your child’s
back, release the blue sparks into your child, energizing your child’s
body. At the same time, feel your child’s arms, embracing you,
releasing a surge of blue sparks into your body. The sparks
course up and down your spine, filling your heart and other organs
with your child’s health-filled energy. Feel the sparks move
into your brain, clearing away any clutter and old baggage you’ve
been wanting to release.
Slowly, when you are ready, release
your embrace and imagine yourself returning to an upright position. Breathe in and out slowly and imagine you and your child smiling to
each other.
Now, sense rubbing your hands together. Do
this slowly at first. Feel each hand as it rubs against the
other. Notice whether your palms are coarse or soft. Feel
the tingling. As you do this, your hands begin to glow a deep
red and you can sense the glow from within their core. As you
continue to rub your hands together, the red glows brighter and soon
you see and feel orange sparks being emitted from them.
As you
are doing this, you see that your child is doing the same. You
notice their hands glowing red from within and you see bright orange
sparks leaving their hands.
Observe the many bright little orange
sparks surrounding your hands and your child’s hands. The sparks
resemble small lightning bolts.
As you visualize or sense you
and your child sitting opposite one another, rubbing hands, and you
see the orange sparks continually emitted from your hands, begin to
pull away from this image and see the black space that surrounds you
and your child and flows between you and your child.
As this
black space surrounding you continues to grow and you see further
and further beyond the two of you, you sense a rubbery membrane at
the outer edge of this space. You cannot move much more than
the rubbing motion of your hands and you begin to lean forward, bringing
your head and upper torso into contact with your legs. You see
yourself in this crouched position, sitting alongside your child. Your hands are pressed close to your chest as the glowing red of your
hands soaks into your chest and your hearts begin to glow red and
pulse.
You breathe in an out slowly to the rhythm of your beating
hearts.
Now, your focus begins to move again to you and your
child as the surrounding black space moves away from the membrane. You come to see only you and your child and black space. You
now see that the black space spreads out endlessly in all directions. As With each inhalation, you see a point of bright white light filling
the black space off in the distance. There are now two . . .
. and now three points of light. They begin to flicker as more
and more points of light begin to fill the space all around you. Before you know it, there are points of light all around you and you
sense that they exist outward, endlessly in every direction.
You
now focus your attention on the black space between you and your
child. You and your child are now each rubbing your hands together
as a red glow fills the space where your hands almost touch. Orange sparks surround your fingers and hands.
You see a
small blue point of light floating in between you and your child. You shift your perspective as you begin to move closer and close to
the blue point, growing into a small orb. You continue
to feel your hands rubbing together. The blue orb grows larger
and larger and you see in this blow sphere emerging patches of green
and a swirl of white surrounding it. As you move closer and
closer to the blue orb, you feel the orange sparks flying off in every
direction around you. You can sense soft pin pricks
against your face everywhere the orange sparks bounce off your
face. It does not hurt. As the sparks touch you, you feel
energized.
Then, you feel yourself enter a damp, cool, and large
white cloud as you continue to approach the blue and green sphere. You feel yourself traveling through to the center of this
cloud and then moving out the other side. As you emerge
from the white puff, you see the Earth far below you. Lightning
fills the atmosphere and, for the first time, you begin to hear the
crack and rumble of thunder from far away. It is a continuous
sound.
The lightning cleanses the atmosphere as it transforms
oxygen into ozone and you begin to smell the fresh scent of the outdoors
after a thunderstorm. With every inhalation, you bring fresh
air into your body. The fresh air fills the atmosphere. You observe the blue and green Earth becoming more and more pristine
with every breath.
Slowly, you recede from this close up view
of the earth. You travel back through the clouds as the Earth
becomes smaller and smaller to the point it returns to a tiny blue
point of light between you and your child.
You look up and see
your child smiling at you. You smile back.
Slowly, you
stop rubbing you hands together and reach out to touch your child’s
hands. Perhaps you feel a tiny shock tingle when your hands
touch.
Breathing deeply and slowly, open your eyes.
Take
a few moments to absorb the sensations of the meditation.
If you enjoyed this mediation, you may contact The Mindful Parent at info@themindfulparent.org and request that a free recording of the mindful parenting meditations be sent to you. Please include the word "Meditations" in the Subject line of the e-mail.