Visual Imagery: your first step toward relaxation
Visual Imagery is a simple tool that can be used with great success for calming children too. Here is a "list" of a few calming practices that help us to become present so we can focus on the breath and control restless bodies and racing thoughts. 1. Adopt the mindset that you deserve some time for yourself, carve it out and protect it. Life will always spill in if you let it. 2. Learn to use your breath as a tool. It is exactly that, a tool to learn to concentrate and eventually meditate. Focus on the inhalation that enters the base of the nose, and the exhalation that exits the base of the nose. That is it, just focus on the breath. Every time a thought or sensation develops, simply exhale it away. 3. Unplug yourself for a while. Turn off everything electronic and just sit in a quiet place. This is a luxury and only 5 minutes will make a difference. Just gaze out the window, admire a pretty sunset, close your eyes and take a mental break. Meditation takes many forms and can be beneficial in any capacity. 4. Sit or lie down and beginning with the crown of the head, visually scan the body down to the toes. Notice your breath and the fluctuations in the body. Allow the body to relax completely.
Visual imagery for children can be very easy to explain. When our son was a baby, my husband traveled internationally extensively. Beginning at age 3, our son would worry about him not coming home and then the news would have a story of a plane crashing. Oh great! Bedtime was a struggle as he couldn't put the thoughts out of his tiny little head. I used this technique to calm him and it worked like a charm. Tell them to close their eyes, explain that the lungs in their chest look like two big pink balloons. Every time they inhale, the balloons get really big. Every time they exhale they get really small. Tell them to focus in their breath filling the balloons and tell them to notice how their chest expands. As they exhale, tell them to notice how their chest and belly flatten out. Keep cuing them for a while at first and then softly lessen the cues to "see how your breath fills the balloons?" Begin another Visual imagery technique by cuing attention to their breath for a while. Tell the child to imagine a little yellow boot (or whatever color their rain boots are) in their forehead. Every time a thought comes into their head, imagine the boot kicking the thought out like a ball. This technique gives the child a sense of control over their thoughts, as they can choose to push it away. Children's imagination is quite supportive of this kind of playful exploration. Next time the anxiety arises, recall the breath in the lungs and their ability to control it.
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