Guided 📿 Meditation with 🎶Neoclassical Music
06/14/2016
Guided Meditation with Music is a part of the Practice of Mindfulness, where there is no need to strive to make anything happen. Simply feel whatever you are feeling, observe without judgment, and focus on physical sensations (such as breathing), internal feelings and emotional resonance—like happiness, sadness, anger, fear and so forth.
With guided meditation, you do not have to “do” anything or force anything to happen - you just have to be present. Today, we are listening to "In A Time Lapse" album of a wonderful neoclassical Italian composer and pianist Ludovico Einaudi. This music, together with unbelievable natural scenery imagery, worked very well for my children, as together it was able to capture their attention and keep them still.
The practice of guided meditation incorporates elements of guided meditation, imagery, and relaxation. So, for five minutes and 34 seconds, I had asked my children (2.5 and 6.5 years old) to do the following:
- Sit in a lotus pose straight up (almost like a crown of the head is stretching high up, reaching for the stars). My daughter asked me "Why should she sit straight up?" since her back started to hurt half point into the meditation. I explained that when she sits straight, she opens up her energy channels which are now free to soar upwards into the universe, potentially connecting her energy with the universal "box of wisdom" - the source of ultimate knowledge that we all strive to tap into.
- Look at the images (on the computer screen) and do not think about what you are seeing: perceive images as they are, without over-processing the information.
- Do not talk, or laugh, or get distracted by any external noise. Looking at captivating images, (rather than looking at each other, which inevitably leads to giggling) helped my children to maintain their focus and be in the moment.
- Finally, I suggested integrating breathing exercises, which are soothing and relaxing: "take a deep breath in and out; concentrate on the breath."
The result: Julia was able to complete the entire meditation practice. Adrian giggled twice, and he could not sit straight in the lotus pose for the entire period, but he did not talk. He did point to few natural scenes which he was awed by. So, with Adrian, we just need to practice more, and maybe starting with a five minutes session for a toddler is a bit too long. At the end, we all were able for a while to ...
... take a moment of stillness, shut out the noise, and be in the now!
Next time, we will try another wonderful song: it is a little longer: five minutes and 45 sec, the imagery is more abstract and the music is a little more intense at parts, building up to a crescendo.
Since we are all seeking happiness and are driven by an inner desire to avoid suffering and find peace, this practice is simply to remind us that we all deserve happiness, just like our children, family, friends, and everyone else in the world. By bringing Mindfulness to our children, we remind them to be happy, to be peaceful, to be in the now.
For more about our ☮️PEACE Education, read here "🕉Mindfulness with Children."