Often times in my blogs I’m writing about working with adolescents and adults, but in working with children or pre-teens, imagery can be incredibly helpful. One of the best child educators and Educational Psychologists I know who uses imagery with children is Dr. Charlotte Reznick. In her new book, The Power of Your Child’s Imagination: How to Transform Stress and Anxiety into Joy and Success, she lays out 9 tools to help kids deal with issues such as stress reduction, overcoming fears of abandonment and disasters, dealing with bedtime issues, coping with losses, handling anger, and achieving greater success in creative ventures at work and home.

One of the tools she uses to help kids calm themselves is the balloon breath. Here’s how it works:

What it is: Just like some of the mindfulness practices I have laid out in previous blogs, this is a simple technique of breathing slowly and deeply into the belly while paying attention about two inches below the belly button. The child imagines a balloon blowing up and then deflating. This imagery allows the child to better practice this type of diaphragmatic breathing which often centers and calms children.

Dr. Reznick explains how kids use it:

“Fifteen-year-old Terrance, who was frequently upset, was able to calm himself and reduce his stress from an 8 to a 2 (on a 0 to 10 scale) by practicing his balloon breath several times a day. He found it made him feel especially peaceful when he focused his attention on his heart.”

In school, children are taught about English, math, history, and many more didactic topics. However, some of the fundamental concepts of learning how to become more present and calm are often left out. I am so happy that Dr. Reznick is helping fill this gap as it can set a more solid foundation for these children as they grow and develop with the necessary tools to help regulate themselves during difficult times.

In her book she provides a script to work with the children, tips for troubleshooting and real life examples to help guide us.  To learn more about these tools, you can go to Imagery for Kids …

Welcome back to Monday’s Mindful Quote. If you are new to this, here’s the concept behind it. Every Monday I’m going to cite a quote or a poem that is related to mindfulness and psychotherapy in some way and then explore it a bit and how it is relevant to our lives. For me, quotes and poetry can often sink me into a state of greater understanding.

Here’s is a quote from the blog post 10 Quotes for a Mindful Day by the influential author and mindfulness teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh:

“There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way.”

It can sometimes seem like we are on a lifetime quest to achieve happiness. “Once I find my soul mate, then I’ll be happy” or “If I get that promotion, then I’ll be happy” or “Once I’m making this or that income, then I’ll be happy.” Woven within the mere thought itself is a sense of being “less than” you want to be and therefore makes you less happy than you were before that thought even arrived.

Some might argue that it’s not the conditions of our lives that make us happy (although some can certainly help at times), it’s the way we relate to ourselves and our lives that provide the happiness. It’s the way we walk through life.

In other words, we’re always practicing something. If we spend our time wrestling with negative, excessive worrying, or hopeless thoughts, we’re practicing unhappiness. If we spend our time noticing and acknowledging these unhelpful habits of the mind, without judgment, we can then choose to turn our attention to matters that walk in line with greater happiness and sense of peace.

In the realm of behavioral therapy, a therapist might say, “what would you be doing differently if you were happy?” Some people might answer, “I’d be smiling more” or “I’d be riding my bike” or “I’d be spending giving more to others.” Then the response from the therapist would be, “now let’s put these into action.”

Sometimes we need to put our feet in front of our heads and then our thoughts …