Guided Visualisations for Children

DEALING WITH FEARS

Ensure your children or class are relaxed and in a peaceful environment suitable for 10 minutes of peaceful contemplation.

Make sure you have large pieces of blank paper and markers and crayons handy. Turn down lights and play some quiet music.

“You are very relaxed and floppy and you are feeling happy. This is a safe place for you and I am here to protect you.

We are going to the island of scary things and I will be there with you and hold your hand. While we are there you will see some scary creatures and you will see how they only look scary-in fact you are a great deal more powerful!

I want you to imagine we have a magical flying machine to travel together. Look closely at your machine. What is it made of? What colour is it? See if you can remember how it looks.

We cross the ocean together in our fantastic flying machine and we land on the beach of SCARY THINGS ISLAND. We look at all the strange twisty trees and the houses with scary faces painted on them. Even though the faces painted on them are so scary, we both laugh at how silly it is to paint your house to look like that!

We begin to walk up a street and we see some creatures coming towards us. You are feeling a little scared so I hang onto your hand tightly and keep you close to me.

The first creature looks like a massive, ugly monster with a huge nose and rotten yellow teeth. He is making growling noises and raises up his paws as if he is going to hit us. You suddenly know what to do. You reach up and tickle him under the armpits and he starts to giggle and you do too! We are all laughing and he is now rolling around on the floor laughing and you see his scary yellow teeth are really made with bits of playdough! You say goodbye and walk on down the street with me.

Next comes a weird looking creature with three heads-now he looks REALLY SCARY and you move close to me. I put my arm around your shoulders and hold you close. As you look at the strange creature you notice he is sopping wet and that all his eyes are watering and he is sobbing with unhappiness. You ask him what is wrong and he tells you how he has no one to play with because he is so ugly and everyone is so scared of him. You sit down and chat with him for a while and tell him to start smiling at people and stop making the scary noises.

Off we go down the street once more. You feel the street vibrating and hear a roar coming from around the corner. All of a sudden the sun stops shining because a huge giant is standing in front of you, blotting out the sun. He is roaring “I am going to eat you both up for my dinner”. As you stare at him you suddenly start to giggle. He has not buttoned up his shirt properly and he also has his jumper on inside out and the wrong way around. You notice his shoes-one enormous red one and one black one. He begins to cry. “Don’t laugh at me. Everyone laughs at me and no one takes me seriously. I am so lonely.”

 You tell him to stop being silly and trying to scare children. We take him to an enormous food hall that we spot over the street and we buy him some cake and biscuits. We have some too and it is the most delicious cake we have ever tasted. We check the name of the cake and see it says “Anti-scare cake” and we realise that as we eat the cake we feel braver and braver and will not be scared like this again. Every time we feel scared we can remember we have had the ant-scare cake and we are brave!

We say goodbye to the giant who promises never to scare children again and off we go-back to our magical flying machine and back home to this classroom.

When we open our eyes we are going to draw and write about what we saw and later we will talk about it together. Thank you for coming on this special journey with me!

Improving Writing Skills

Use this visualisation often to help children prepare for a writing lesson and improve their performance.

Shut your eyes and let yourself feel relaxed, loose and floppy.    
You let all your worries float away and you are able to concentrate on my voice.

You are relaxed and happy. You have a golden pencil in your hand and it feels so good in your hand. You feel so excited because it is yours and only yours and you can NEVER lose it!

This wonderful golden pencil will make writing so much easier for you. Words just flow from it easily. You will put your pencil on the paper and the words will flow out.

It does not matter what pen or pencil you use from now on- they all turn to the golden pencil in your hand and you can write so many words so easily!

You are now having a first try with your new golden pen. Start writing anything you want. You look with surprise at all the words coming onto the page! They are beautiful words, scary words, funny words-soooooooo many words and they are all in sentences and they all mean something.

It is like magic. You can now write many, many lines of words and all your ideas come pouring out. You will be a good writer from now on and you will improve every time you write. You now decide to write every day in a journal to practise using your new golden pencil.

After you have finished writing you carefully check your work and you find you can find the spelling mistakes, fix them up and make sure your writing makes sense. You can write well and also be a good proof-reader and editor!

Writing is now easy for you and you feel so happy. Now when you write anything-at school, at home, or ANYWHERE your pencil or pen will become the magic pencil and your ideas will just pour from it onto your page and many, many words will appear.

Well done-you are a writer. Now you will start to write on your paper in this lesson.

(Have pencils/pens/paper ready-just play quiet music in the background and allow at least 7 minutes of silent writing time.)

Concentration Light Visualisation

Use this visualisation with your whole class when you want them to improve concentration. It also works particularly well with children experiencing concentration disorders.

Shut your eyes and let yourself feel relaxed,  loose and floppy.    

You let all your worries float away and you are able to concentrate on my voice.

You are going on a special journey today, deep into the command centre of your brain. You are going to learn how to switch on your CONCENTRATION BEAM so you will be able to concentrate fully on your lessons. After you do this you will be able to simply turn the switch on whenever you want.

You are shrinking and getting into a special vehicle to go inside your brain. You hop in and start the engine and fly in through your eye. You feel no pain as you fly in through your eye and all the nerves and blood vessels-only a sense of wonder at how organised and wonderful it is inside your own head!

You are entering your brain now and travelling along neural pathways and looking at the strange indentations of the surface. As you travel deep inside you can see the memories of everything you have ever experienced stored in your cells. You travel to a special section that looks just like a tall lighthouse. You can see that the lighthouse is dark and stands looking out through the command centre of your brain. You know that sometimes the beam must be dimmed or switched off so you can sleep soundly and also relax. Sometimes the lighthouse must have the full beam light switched on so you can concentrate and listen and get your work done.

Park your vehicle at the bottom of the lighthouse and walk in through the strong front door. You see some steps winding up and you decide to follow them-up, up and up.

Finally you reach the top of the stairs and you have the most amazing view. You are standing on a little balcony looking out at the whole of your brain. You see how amazing your brain is and you realise how much learning you can do. You watch your brain cells gently pumping away and you realise that if you just listen more carefully and get your concentration light turned on, your work will enormously improve.

Go back into the lighthouse and on your right you will see a huge switchboard. It has signs like RELAX, SLEEP, HAVE FUN, and there with big red letters is CONCENTRATION BEAM. You walk up to the CONCENTRATION BEAM switch and turn it on. What an amazing sight you see through the window. Your whole brain has woken up and there are beautiful colours swirling everywhere and a sense of excitement. Learning is ready to begin!

You feel so happy as you descend down, down, down the stairs and go back through the front door to your vehicle. You jump in and fly right through your beautiful eye and come back into this classroom. You will now open your eyes and realise your concentration light has been switched on and you can get your work done and reach higher standards than you have ever done before! Your light just dims when you sleep or play and have fun, but if ever you need to switch it right off for a while, or re-turn it on you can travel in your vehicle up into the lighthouse and flip that switch again!

We Can Comfort Ourselves

Help the children to sit or lie down and relax their bodies. You might play some quiet, meditative music in the background. Once the children have done this a few times they are able to relax quite quickly.

Darken the room and light a candle. Remind them that the candle is a symbol of the presence of light and goodness with us at all times.

Speak slowly and clearly and ignore small behaviour disturbances – they diminish as children get used to visualisations.

At the end get the children to wriggle and sit up slowly. You can discuss what they experienced or they may like to write or draw about it. If you are a parent and your child is in bed- they may like to quietly drift off to sleep!

Imagine a time when you felt very sad. Be there right now.

Maybe you have been in trouble, your pet might have died or perhaps you want to do something and Mum or Dad have said “No!”

You are feeling really sad and the tears are starting to well up in your eyes. You cannot see anything happy about your world at all and you just wish you could curl up into a little ball and be invisible. You feel horrible and “mushy and slushy” inside and you don’t like anyone. You climb up onto your bed and pull up the blankets and feel the tears flow.

Wait for a while and let children really feel that dark space within themselves.

Now I want you to imagine some curtains in your room and they have been pulled so a little chink of light falls on you as you lay on your bed. As the rays of light fall on you, you begin to feel some golden love in your heart. More light creeps into your room and you know the light has come to comfort you.

As you lay there surrounded by light you start to consider all the things you love to do. You think about your friends and imagine you are playing with them. You remember how you love to have hugs with Mum and Dad and you picture a favourite place you like to visit. You are feeling much happier now and you can feel a big smile growing over your face and spreading through your whole body!

You are now feeling light and happy and you are going to have a fantastic day and spread peace, light and happiness to the world!

You are sitting by a beautiful lake. The sunlight is dancing on the water and your heart is singing with happiness. The lake is perfectly calm and you feel very still.

A child comes and casts a stone into the round lake. You notice how the ripples spread out in exactly equal spaces until they get to the edges of the pond. Then you notice how the ripples come back at exactly the same intervals and you realise something you have always known. What we think and feel spreads out in ripples and affects everything and everyone around us. When it has finished spreading out, the thought or feeling comes right back to us. We are part of everything. We cannot think one thought or feeling without it coming back to us eventually. This is why it is so important that that we only think good, positive and happy thoughts and always wish the best to everyone and everything.

As you sit here, let the love from your heart spread out like ripples and reach all the people in this room. Now imagine your love spreading out to all the people in the area. Now see the ripples spreading out to all the people in Australia. Now imagine your love spreading in ripples out to all the people in the world.

Now imagine all the smiles and happiness people can feel from your love. You have spread out so much happiness and you did it by yourself!Now imagine all this love is coming back in ripples towards you. You cannot keep the smile off your face as you imagine it washing towards you, washing over you and enveloping you in its warmth. All the love you have spread to all the people in the world is spreading back to you. You feel so warm and happy with all this love washing over you.

You can experience this beautiful feeling anytime you like. Just imagine your beautiful sunlit pond and send out ripples from stones you cast in. You might cast in stones of LOVE, PEACE, CLARITY, CALM, TOLERANCE, or KINDNESS.  Choose one or 2 stones to cast in to your pond right now. Sit back and watch the beautiful ripples spreading out all over the world. (Leave a few minutes here)

Now imagine the ripples are coming back towards you and soothing you with a deep sense of happiness.

Always remember this ripple effect. Every thought, feeling, word and action you cast out will affect everyone around you and eventually come back to wash over you. Avoid sending out negative, unkind thoughts and feelings. Keep you pond clear, beautiful with no pollution.  

Think about all the forms of new life we see around us.

You see new flowers forming, new plants growing and little seedlings poking through from the earth.

Picture new kittens and puppies and little babies. They are all examples of new life.

Now imagine a huge Easter egg that is so beautiful. It is sparkling and many coloured. It is the most beautiful egg you have ever seen. This is a very special egg. Inside this egg is the new you: the person you want to become!

Imagine that you are able to start anew. You ARE able to start anew!

What will you change? What will you become?

See yourself the way you want to be. What do you look like? What are you saying? What are you doing? Who are you with?

Now see a set of steps that go up the side of the mountain. At the top of the mountain is the new you!

Look at yourself closely and feel happy that this is what you will become!

As you go up the steps you dissolve any problem that stops you becoming your new self. As you walk up the steps you become happier and happier. You feel as if you are glowing and full of love for everyone.

You have people coming up to you on the way, calling out, “YOU CAN’T CHANGE. YOU CAN’T DO THAT!”  But you know you can! You are sure you can be your new self!

As you reach the very top of the mountain you see yourself glowing with happiness. You walk over to your new self and you dissolve into the new you!

You are now the new you! You are ready to begin living anew and you can now show you love and kindness to all the world. You can show your friends and family your talents and deal with all difficulties.

Open your eyes and smile. You are a bright, new shiny person!

 Now you can chat to someone or write/draw about your meditation journey.

Storm Visualisation

You are walking along by the river on a cold winter’s day. There are dark clouds above you and you feel a little worried. You certainly don’t want to be caught in the rain. Should you turn back? No! This is such a good chance to get out for a long walk as you are sick of being cooped up in the house.

As you watch the river and look at the lovely tall trees, a flash comes in the sky and the dark sky is lit up by a sheet of bright light. You feel a little frightened. Will there be a thunderstorm?

A low rumble sounds behind the hills and you know a storm is approaching. You turn around to hurry home, pulling your jacket closely around you.

BANG!  a crack of thunder frightens you and you hurry towards home. A large, old tree has fallen and your way is blocked. You start to shiver and you know you have to find another way home. The sky is now really, really dark and the rain is starting to fall in huge droplets. Already you can feel the water dripping down your face and dribbling under your collar. You can’t seem to find another path and the thunder and lightning is now all around you. Two more small trees crash to the ground close to you.

You huddle up into a little ball and crouch beside the large old tree and decide to wait till the storm is over. The wind is so strong and you hear it whistling all around you and the river has large waves that are breaking over the banks. You are scared and wish and pray it will soon be over.

As you crouch there you try to think of happy things to help you feel less scared-you think of cream donuts, your Mum’s smile, your nice warm bed and your favourite TV programs. You are soooooo cold but by crouching in a small ball and keeping your head down you know you are safe.