Dr. Willard has been practicing meditation for over 20 years, and teaching for almost as long. His thoughts on mental health have been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, mindful.org, cnn.com, and elsewhere.
Mindfulness for Kids 11: Mountain
with Dr. Christopher Willard & Hunter Clarke-Fields
Join Hunter Clarke-Fields and Dr. Christopher Willard in this special series of mindfulness practices for kids! Mindfulness offers kids a powerful tool for managing the pressures of school, peer relationships, and the increasing digital distractions, ultimately promoting their overall emotional intelligence and promoting a healthier, more balanced approach to life.
[Mindfulness For Kids 11] Mountain
Read the Transcript 🡮
*This is an auto-generated transcript*
[00:00:00] Hunter: You're listening to a Mindfulness for Kids episode of the Mindful Parenting Podcast. Today, we are visualizing ourselves as a mountain.
Welcome to the Mindful Parenting Podcast. Here it's about becoming a less irritable, more joyful parent or kid. I'm your host, Hunter Clarkfields. I help smart, thoughtful parents stay calm so they can have strong, connected relationships with their children. I'm the creator of the Mindful Parenting course, and I'm the author of the best selling book, Raising Good Humans, and now Raising Good Humans Every Day.
I'm joined by Dr. Christopher Willard, clinical psychologist, author, and dad. He is the author of 20 books, including Alpha Breaths and Growing Up Mindful. Both of us have been practicing mindfulness for over 20 years, and we are so excited to share the benefits with you.
Chris, welcome back. So good to see you again. What do you have for me today? Wonderful to
[00:01:02] Dr Chris Willard: see you. Wonderful to be with you. I'm kind of building on this theme of confidence that we did. Um, before, and I think to me, visualizations that can help us to, to embody something that feels confident to us. And to me, that's always a mountain.
I just think of mountains as being solid and confident. So, how about like a little mountain visualization for our worry, our anxiety, our social nervousness about that party, or even just standing strong and standing up for ourselves, which can be really hard to do, um, for adults and
[00:01:36] Hunter: for kids. Yeah, definitely.
I'm a big fan of that mountain imagery, like a nice, solid mountain makes me feel very steady, so. This is great.
[00:01:45] Dr Chris Willard: Let's do it. All right, so I'll invite everyone to just find for yourself a comfortable, confident posture. This can be sitting, it can be standing. You can allow your eyes to close if you like, or just lower them gently to the floor.
And then feeling a sense of uplift through your chest and head, like the top half of a mountain, and whatever your legs are doing, you can imagine them just buried in the crust of the earth, because mountains go way down beneath the soil.
Feeling that sense of uplift, visualizing your body confident and strong like a mountain,
and feeling your body confident and strong like a mountain.
And just like any meditation that we do, our minds wander off and you can just notice where it's gone and then bring it back, this image or these sensations. Of your body, sitting or standing tall. Confidence of a mountain.
And thoughts and emotions may swirl around like clouds.
That's the mountain, you can just watch those.
Bring your awareness back to this image of yourself sitting strong, confident, tall. The mountain.
Seasons may change. Days might get longer or shorter.
Through it all is a mountain you can just watch. Back to this image of yourself. Back to these words.
Breathing in, I see myself as a mountain. And breathing out, I feel confident.
We even feel like so much is changing and so fast around us. Things feel unpredictable outside.
In our bodies, in our minds, we can remain still, strong, remain confident like a mountain
surface. It may change with rain or snow, sunshine or wind, even the seasons, and yet at our core, just like a mountain, we can remain strong, we can remain still, we can stay confident.
Breathing in, I see myself as a mountain, and breathing out, I feel confident, I feel strong.
The strongest winds, the strongest storms may come through. And yet nothing needs to move us from our position
as we just breathe with the confidence of the mountain,
upright and tall, unmoving,
finding that stillness within, confidence of the mountain.
One last time, just noticing your mind wander to those same words, breathing in. I see myself as a
mountain, I'm breathing out. I Flutter your eyes open, press your feet into the ground a little bit, and take a look around you. You can just carry that stillness and confidence with you to the rest of your day, whatever storms or winds blow you about, remaining confident in who you are, whatever challenges come your way.
[00:07:27] Hunter: Thank you, Chris. I feel so steady now, I feel like I've watered the seeds of my confidence, anyway, in my mountain. Thank you.
[00:07:38] Dr Chris Willard: Absolutely. Thank you, Hunter. Wonderful to be here, as always.
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