Body Awareness Meditations

Even though our entire life we carry our body around us we are unaware of it unless it gives us some trouble or pain. This lack of awareness means that tension can often creep up on us unaware. It also means that we are not learning to utilize our bodies in an effective manner. The distance from our bodies also fails in helping us to learn to respect and therefore develop a desire to protect our bodies from stress, exhaustion, disease, physical assault and sexual abuse. The following meditations will help children increase body awareness and develop a sense of respect and gratitude for their bodies. These meditations are suitable for adults as well.

1.White Light Meditation (Age 5 upwards)

This meditation serves two purposes. Firstly it instills in the child an awareness of all body parts and respect for them. Secondly it gives you an opening to begin to talk with children about how important their bodies are and how they need to love and protect them.

1. Create a comfortable atmosphere. Play some soft gentle music.

2. Explain to the child that you are about to lead them through an exciting journey of discovering their own body.

3. Tell the child to sit in a comfortable position, or to lie down, close his/her eyes and to focus on his/her breath. Not to try to change it but just focus on it. Tell him/her to visualize his/her breath as a white light flowing in and out of the body. Tell him/her that this white light is Gods light filling them up.

4. Now tell the child to breathe into his/her feet. To feel them fill up with the white light. Tell them to feel all the tension leave their feet. Then ask them to think of all the things that their feet do for them. How they enable them to walk and run and play. Tell them to say thank you to their feet for all the wonderful things that they do for them.

5. Similarly take the child through all body parts. Breathing white light into them, relaxing them, building an awareness of their value and their importance in the child’s life and then offering thanks to them.

6. At the end of the meditation tell the child to thank his/her whole body and to promise it that he/she will look after it and love it.

Since young children may find it difficult to sit for a long time you can do this meditation in parts. One day just the legs and the feet, the next day the hips and chest and so on and so forth. At the end of each session ask the children how they felt. What they realized about their body and their feelings towards it. Be sure that you mention the genitals in this meditation as well. Comfort needs to be established with all body parts. Be sure also to use “normal” words for body parts. Children need to be made comfortable and have the right vocabulary for all body parts. Giving children the proper vocabulary for body parts is an important part of making them comfortable with their bodies.

2. Walking Meditation (Age 5 upward)

This is a walking meditation and particularly useful for children who find it hard to stay still for meditations. It is like moving in slow motion and with the utmost care. Explain the concept of the meditation to children. The body is a coordinated and complete unit and all its parts work in absolute harmony to create movement. In doing this meditation we recognize the power of the body and make the mind one with it by focusing it on the body instead of letting it be distracted by other thoughts. Choose a path or a straight line for the children to walk along and ask them to lift one foot at a time slowly and very carefully feeling every muscle used in the process (arms, legs, hips etc.) and every shift in body weight. The foot is placed smoothly and slowly the same distance ahead and then a step is taken with the other foot. Children usually love this and it brings great body awareness.

Modified and Excerpted from Teaching Meditation to Children by David Fontana and Ingrid Slack.