visualizing mindfulness
harnessing the imagination
The man who has no imagination
Stands on earth.
He has no wings,
He cannot fly.
MUHAMMAD ALI, in Muhammad Ali In Fighter’s Heaven by Victor Bockris
We make mindfulness practice fun and kid-friendly by integrating it into play, games, stories, arts, visualization, or movement—all the natural ways children learn and explore the world. There is growing research on the importance of play. (In fact, another child mindfulness teacher told me that she was recently asked, “Is play the new mindfulness?”) Visualization is playing with the imagination, a powerful resource for both children and adults.
Education researchers Elena Bodrova and Deborah Leong have worked on the wonderful “Tools of the Mind” executive function curriculum inspired by the work of child development and play expert Lev Vygotsky.1 In a simple test, he instructed four-year-olds to stand still for as long they could. This was about as effective as you might imagine: after just a few minutes, most kids were on to the next thing, already giving up. But when they were asked first to imagine themselves as guards at a factory, they could, on average, stand still for about four times as long. Vygotsky found that children playing or acting out a scene can control impulses, retain their attention, and remain on task far more effectively than when they’re just told to do these things.
We all know the power of the imagination in the abstract, but consider the fact that it can quadruple attention span and suppress impulsivity. Knowing this, how can you imagine using imagination with the children in your life? Maybe the Soviet-era idea of guarding a factory doesn’t sound so inspirational, but what about knights at a castle or a model posing in a new dress? For posture, we can ask kids to sit up tall and regally, like a king or queen, or ask them to imagine an invisible string attached to the top of their head.
Visualization and guided imagery practices build on Vygotsky’s work and give the mind an easy place to rest. They also tap into the power of metaphor.
The Power of Metaphor
The concept of mindfulness is abstract, which is why for centuries teachers have used metaphors. Jon Kabat-Zinn uses the images of sitting solid like a mountain or lying flat and reflective like a lake in mindfulness practices. Yoga and movement practices are full of imagery and metaphor, as we stretch our bodies into the shapes of powerful animals. Metaphor works like poetry, what a friend of mine calls “limbic language.” Neuroscience research shows that metaphor activates the sensory part of the brain, not just the language part; it gives us a felt sense of an abstract concept.2
One of my favorite mindfulness images, probably because of my own positive associations, is that of thoughts as leaves floating down a river or mountain stream. The idea is to watch the thoughts, but not get caught in the stream. If you do, simply pull yourself out. As not every kid has experienced a mountain stream, another metaphor might make more sense, depending on your child’s interests, background, and experiences.
Below is a brief list of metaphors I have compiled from other therapists and meditation teachers. You can try envisioning thoughts as:
being carried gently downstream on leaves, some moving fast, some stuck swirling in place
items being carried past on a conveyor belt
words or pictures marked on parade floats, or signs carried by marchers in a parade
autumn leaves falling from trees and landing softly on an empty, accepting blanket of consciousness
being highlighted, one by one, as a karaoke video highlights lyrics
bubbles floating past in the air
clouds forming and unforming, passing by against the blue sky
scenery passing by the windows of a train
animals, such as happy and sad fish swimming through the water in an aquarium, or angry and peaceful birds flying by
traffic seen from high above; some thoughts may be big buses that cannot stop, others may be motorcycles zipping from lane to lane, and still others may be stuck on the side of the road
scenes and characters in a movie
leaves blowing across your path
raindrops hitting a windshield before being wiped away
specks of dust floating in a ray of sunlight
Metaphors for remaining present and aware in the face of challenges include:
You are watching the cars of a roller coaster or carnival ride go by, with ups and downs, twists and turns, but you’re not climbing on board.
You are throwing a stone into a pond and watching the ripples it makes, but not getting bounced around them.
You are a bee flitting from flower to flower, and you return back to the hive with sweet new insights from the world.
Which metaphors stand out and speak to you? Which might work for the children in your life? Are there others you can use or have used? Can you think of a way to explore these images with young people, perhaps in a meditation, art, or writing project?
How to Use Visualization Practices
All the practices in this chapter use imagery as the anchor of attention. The scripts can be adapted for each particular kid, plugging in some of the examples above. (For more on adapting practices, see chapter 12.) You can read them aloud, improvise, or even record them for your kids to listen to on their digital devices. I suggest reading them through once or twice before sharing them aloud.
Here are some tips for sharing visualizations with kids:
Anxious or perfectionist kids might worry about getting the “right” lake, tree, or other image you’re asking them to visualize, or they may have trouble settling on an image. They may need a prompt like a short video or photo, or they might enjoy a chance to draw their image before doing the visualization.
Some kids may not have a positive association with the image you’re asking them to visualize or be able to picture a certain image. Letting them choose their own imagery can help.
Some kids may take longer to settle on an image. Don’t rush them. You can ask for a signal, like raising a finger, to let you know they’ve got their image.
Reminding kids at the beginning and throughout what to do if their mind wanders lets kids know that it is normal for their mind to wander.
Drop in the sentence, “If your mind wanders off, just follow your breath back to the image or the still point between the breaths,” if you see squirming or sense distraction.
It is helpful to have some kind of reminder at the end telling kids that they can reconnect with the experience at any time later. This reminder will help them integrate the practice into their life.
TREE PRACTICE
An ancient tree, strong yet flexible, is to me the perfect metaphor for confidence and perseverance in the face of change or challenge. I use this Tree Practice with kids who are struggling with confidence or fearful of standing their ground against bullies of any size. This takes about five minutes, which you can extend or shorten to suit your kid’s needs and attention span. It is inspired by Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Lake Meditation.
Start by standing with your feet about hip width apart, arms resting at your sides. Take a few deep breaths, perhaps shrugging your shoulders, and allow your eyes to gently close.
Bring your awareness to your feet. Imagine that the soles of your feet have roots reaching deep into the earth. From your feet upward, feel a sense of growing and reaching up, like a beautiful, powerful, and ancient tree. With each breath, feel more strongly rooted in the earth and, at the same time, tall and strong.
Now bring to mind a tree. You can pick any kind of tree you like, from your experience or your imagination, from a book or a movie. A tree that changes with the seasons will work best.
Like you, this tree stands tall wherever it is rooted. It just watches as the days pass, on some days growing up toward the bright sun in the blue sky, and at night, bathing in the light of the moon. Through it all, the tree stands solid as the world around it changes.
The weather may change. Drenching rain and cracking thunderstorms may soak the tree and nourish its roots. Winds may whip and the branches may bend, but they never break.
On other days, the hot sun gives energy to the leaves and branches. Through it all, the tree remains standing, reaching confidently upward.
As days and nights pass, summertime turns to fall, and the days grow shorter. The temperature drops, but the tree stands. Leaves begin to dry, changing from bright green to yellow and deeper oranges and reds. Yet the roots go deep, and the branches still reach high. Harsh, cold winds may blow, the tree may sway, and some leaves may blow away, but the tree holds firm. Some part deep inside remains still and calm.
Eventually, the leaves let go of the tree, and the tree lets them go. The leaves blow away, and winter surrounds the tree. The drab landscape and gray skies do not move the tree. Winter storms batter the tree with ice and snow, and branches rustle in the wind but never break.
Gradually winter fades. As days lengthen, blue skies return, and the first green buds return to the branches. The branches sway gently against the sky in the spring breeze, but the roots hold firm. The tree reaches high into the sky, relaxing in the sunlight as the leaves return.
Like the tree, you can stand tall, rooted in the face of whatever arises. Some days may be bleak and gray. Others may appear stormy and overwhelming. And yet, like the tree, you can remain still at your core, bending without breaking, growing deeper down and higher up with each day that passes.
Take a few more breaths down into your roots, feeling your confidence grow, and then gradually open your eyes and bring your awareness back into the room.
CLOUDS IN THE SKY
This practice was inspired by a similar practice that Lizabeth Roemer and Susan M. Orsillo share in their book The Mindful Way Through Anxiety.3 You can make it longer by repeating a few instructions and spacing out the prompts.
Take a moment to find a comfortable posture; you can stand, sit, or lie down. When you feel comfortable, allow your eyes to close.
Imagine yourself in a beautiful place—perhaps the beach, a wide open field, or somewhere in the mountains. Maybe this is a place you know, or one that exists in a movie or book, or one that exists in your imagination.
Looking up, you can see a wide blue sky, with just a few puffy white clouds drifting past.
Notice thoughts going past in your mind. As you notice each thought, see if you can visualize it shrinking, and then place it on a passing cloud as it floats by.
You might notice that some clouds get stuck or move slowly, others sail by more quickly on the air currents, and some change their shape or size. But all of them eventually pass and drift away in the sky. If they get stuck, you can even try breathing out to gently push the clouds onward.
Take time to just notice your thoughts and feelings, placing them on a cloud and letting them drift away on your breath.
You may find yourself caught in the clouds from time to time, floating with the thoughts, caught up in the clouds themselves. If this happens, just notice which thought pulled you in, bring yourself back to that beautiful place with the view, breathe the clouds away, and return to watching again.
Take time to watch your thoughts and feelings, big and small, happy and sad, as they rest on the clouds and eventually float away.
As you finish, remember that all your thoughts and feelings will eventually pass. Allow your eyes to open.
You can play around with the images in the script above to shift the metaphor to a river with thoughts floating by, to something like watching traffic from an overpass, or animals migrating across the Serengeti. Over time, certain metaphors begin to stick with particular kids, and become part of our common language: “My thoughts are stuck in a depression whirlpool on the side of the river,” or, “I put my math worries on a cloud and let them float away.”
My patient Julie, who had had a childhood illness, was anxious about getting in touch with her body. This practice allowed her to set an anchor in the stillness of her body, without asking her to remain there for a longer body-based practice. For kids who feel uncentered or unbalanced, this can be a very grounding practice. In my office, I have a small collection of smooth stones from beaches and mountains I’ve traveled to. Julie took one to keep in her pocket, so that she can touch and be reminded of the stone in the lake.
This practice takes its inspiration from similar imagery by Jon Kabat-Zinn and Amy Saltzman.
Sit or lie down and find a comfortable, sustainable posture.
Bring your attention to your breath. Connect with the still point where the in-breath has paused just before it rises back up as the out-breath. Do this again for the next three breaths.
If your mind wanders off during the following instructions, just follow your breath back to the still point between the breaths.
Now, imagine a beautiful lake, preferably one in a climate with four seasons. This can be a lake you’ve visited and liked, or it can be one you’ve seen in a photo or a movie or read about in a book, or maybe just one you imagine.
(Pause. Perhaps ask the participant to give you a silent signal—a raised hand, a nod—to let you know when they’ve found their image.)
On the next in-breath, imagine that someone has tossed a pebble into the center of the lake. Follow the stone downward as you follow the breath downward, past the surface. Follow it down to where it rests and is held by the soft bottom of the lake. There it can remain still and undisturbed by the lake water or the world around.
At the surface, the lake reflects the world around it. On a summer’s day, the lake may reflect blue skies and bright green trees, and echo with sounds of life. Hour by hour, the world and its reflection may look different, as the bright hues of sunset color the surface, giving way to a reflection of the stars and moon above. And all the while, the stone remains deep below—still, quiet, and undisturbed.
The days pass—some bringing blue skies, some clouds and storms. The surface of the lake may ripple as rain beats down, or the wind may cause swells on the surface. Yet below the surface there is stillness.
The days shorten as summer fades and fall begins. The reflection of green trees turns to gold, orange, and scarlet as the leaves begin to turn and the air grows colder. And yet, underneath, the stone remains still.
Even as the occasional autumn leaf drifts down to the bottom of the lake next to the stone, it remains unmoved, resting on the bottom.
The trees eventually become bare, and the sky whitens as winter sets in. Ice sheets form, snow falls. The surface of the lake turns to ice, and the ice is buried in snow. Foggy days or snowy blizzards make the lake hard to see. And yet the stone on the sandy bottom remains in its place.
As winter fades, the snow and ice melt. The cold water seeps down to the stone, but does not disturb its rest.
Trees begin to blossom and birds come back. Signs of life and color return with springtime. Through it all, the stone remains still.
We are like the lake. The world around us changes, our own surface changes, and even our outward appearance changes. But we always have the stillness, like the stone, resting within. The world may touch us, just as the cold water or leaf touches the stone, but it need not move us.
You can always connect with this stillness below the surface by touching it with the bottom of your in-breath, by feeling your feet connecting with the ground, or even by touching a stone in your pocket.
As you bring your awareness back to the world around you, maintain your connection to the stillness within. And know you can always return to it.
Other imagery can be substituted for the lake. In Sitting Together, Susan Pollak, Thomas Pedulla, and Ronald Siegel suggest the image of an anchor dropping into the sea to secure a boat drifting and bobbing on the water.4 Another image you might try is that of a floating hot air balloon tethered to the ground. Use your imagination, use the kid’s imagination and experience, and have fun with it.
THE GLITTER JAR
Children, especially struggling ones, tend to act out their difficulties rather than share them in words. We adults are often only marginally better. When words are unavailable, it helps to find other ways to demonstrate the connection between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
A snow globe or glitter jar is one of the most powerful visual metaphors for that connection; it illustrates how mindfulness—the cultivation of stillness in the face of the swirling chaos of life—affects us. In this practice, you can actually make a glitter jar. At first I used to do this practice only with young kids, but I’ve since found that even teens enjoy it.
You can use a mason jar, a spice jar, or even a plastic water bottle for this practice. Be sure to use glitter that sinks rather than floats. Adding some glycerin to the water slows down the fall of the glitter.
Fill the jar to the top with water. Have your children pick three colors of glitter: one to represent thoughts, one to represent feelings, and one to represent behaviors (or “urges to do things”). Drop a few pinches of each color glitter into the water, which represents their mind, and maybe a few drops of food coloring. Seal the jar with its lid or duct tape.
Ask the children what kinds of things will make the glitter in the jar swirl. Encourage answers that reflect distressing events (fights with siblings, losing in sports) and positive ones (getting a good grade, making a new friend), events in the foreground (sick siblings) and events in the background (scary stories on the news). With each event they name, swirl and turn the jar, demonstrating how it becomes difficult to keep track and see clearly what our thoughts, feelings, and urges are.
Your script can go something like this:
The jar is like our mind, and each color of glitter represents something different in our mind.
Let’s put in red for thoughts, gold for feelings, and silver for urges to do things. (Pour in a little bit of glitter with each comment.)
Now we seal up the jar. (Put the lid on the jar and seal it.) Then we start our day.
We wake up, and things are pretty settled. We can see that clearly. (Show how all the glitter has settled on the bottom of the jar.)
But pretty soon, things start swirling around. Maybe we are running late (swirl the jar). Our big sister eats the last pancake for breakfast, and it leads to a fight (shake the jar). We hear scary things on the news in the car ride to school (swirl the jar). We get to school, and find out we aced the test (shake the jar).
Now it’s only a few minutes into the school day, and we can’t see clearly because all of our thoughts and feelings and urges are getting in the way.
So what is the one thing we can do to get the glitter to settle and see clearly again?
Be still. That’s right!
And what happens when we are still? That’s right—we can see clearly again.
There is also no way to rush being still. We can’t push all the glitter down to the bottom. We just have to watch and wait. No amount of effort will make it settle sooner.
When things become clear, we’ll know the wise next thing to do. In fact, that’s one definition of wisdom: seeing things as they are and choosing how to act.
While we wait, does the glitter go away? No, it stays at the bottom. Our thoughts and feelings and urges are still in our minds, but they are no longer in our way, clouding our vision.
There are many variations of this practice, depending on what you want to emphasize. My colleague Jan Mooney, who often works with groups of kids, uses a giant jar that all the kids can add glitter to. Each color represents different feelings the kids have. Other variations include using a few plastic beads, which float, to represent behaviors and watching until the behaviors separate from thoughts and feelings. Kids can also try to focus on just one color, or one piece of glitter until it settles, or all of them.
A finished glitter jar can serve as a visual timer for other practices, such as breathing practices. For example, you can shake the jar and say, “Let’s do some mindful breaths until the glitter settles.” Some families use the jar as a “calm-down jar,” to mark and measure calm-down time. Ideally, the entire family can use the calm-down jar together when there is a conflict: “We are all upset with lots of thoughts and feelings right now. So let’s all take a break until the glitter in the calm-down jar has settled and then start talking again.” There are even a few glitter jar and snow-globe smartphone apps, which one kid I work with just loves.
One particularly sharp student of mine pointed out that you could just take a filter and make the jar clear again. He had a point, and it wasn’t until I was driving home that I came up with the comeback: “We actually don’t want to get rid of the thoughts and feelings and urges. We just want them out of the way so they don’t prevent us from seeing clearly.”
We too sometimes need to settle—in our minds and in our bodies. Settling the mind can start with settling in our bodies. This practice was inspired by meditation teacher Tara Brach’s “Touchpoints” practice.
Sit down and find a comfortable, upright posture. Sit with a feeling of lifting up through your chest and head, and a feeling of gravity weighing down through your legs and feet.
Allow your eyes to close, or if it feels more comfortable, allow them to rest on the floor in front of you.
Now become aware of the sensations of settling. First be aware of your breath settling into a natural rhythm.
Starting with the top of your head, feel the sensations of the hair settling on your head, and maybe also settling on your neck and shoulders.
Bring your awareness to your eyelids, allowing the upper lids to come to rest on the lower lids—settled, relaxed, and still.
Let part or all of your upper lip settle on your lower lip. Allow your tongue to rest on the floor of your mouth. Let the natural forces of gravity do their work as you bring awareness to these points of contact and settling.
Feel your head and skull resting on your spine.
Feel your organs inside settling, resting, but still held by your body.
Bring awareness to your arms and hands, feeling the sensations where they rest at your side or settle on your legs.
Notice and feel the sensation where your seat and thighs meet the chair, and settle in, your thighs gently pushing into the surface underneath you. Let gravity keep you stable and still.
Notice the sensations of your feet in your shoes or on the floor.
With your whole body settled, now allow your thoughts to settle down as well.
If you like, take a moment to scan your body and find one settled point that is most noticeable. Remember that you can always come back to that point, any time of day, when you are sitting in your chair or on the ground.
Still aware of feeling settled, allow your eyes to open, and notice if you see the world more clearly.
There are many images that can act as an anchor. Consider what makes sense in terms of what your kid knows, what they like, and what will resonate with them as you guide them through a practice grounded in visualization.