Season 2 EP 9: Two Kid-Friendly Meditations to Try at Home
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Perfectionist in Recovery
Two Kid-Friendly Meditations to Try at Home
Hello and Welcome back to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast!
Hello and welcome back to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast! My name is Marcy Parks and I am a perfectionist in recovery.
On today’s episode I wanted to share two kid-friendly meditations to practice with your little ones (that are also fun for adults to do, too), but first - I want to take a second and thank you so much for being here and for supporting this podcast! I love producing this podcast and it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without other people to share it with, so thank you for being here. If you are enjoying this podcast and would like to show your support for my work, then please, leave a review for the podcast! Reviews are the best way to support the growth and success of the podcast. You can go to my website at www.marcyparksart.com/perfectionistinrecovery and find links to leave a review at the bottom of the page. In fact, it is in that same place where you can also send me your feedback about the podcast! As I have said before, your feedback makes this podcast more enjoyable for you to listen to, so please, let me know what you think! Let me know if there are specific questions you have, episodes that have helped you, or if you have any questions you want answered! So go to www.marcyparksart.com/perfectionistinrecovery to leave a review and send me your feedback.
Now for our meditation today, I have two different meditations to practice that are kid-friendly (and pretty fun for adults, too) that I wanted to share with you!
So one of the two meditations I am sharing with you today is from the kid’s book Breathe Like a Bear, and the other is from the kid-friendly meditation app, Stop, Breathe, and Think Kids, I recently shared in My Top Three Favorite Meditation Apps blog post that you can find on my website. And just in case you were wondering, no, this is not a sponsored post! These are truly just books and meditation apps that I love and enjoy and have found to be really helpful and I wanted to share them for anyone with littles that are interested in teaching their children about mindfulness and giving them tools to help regulate their emotions.
I have shared a meditation from the Breathe Like a Bear book before that Searsha and I do on occasion and we both enjoy it.
The first is the Hot Chocolate Breath from the Breathe Like a Bear book. To practice this meditation, pretend that you have a steaming hot cup of hot chocolate and you have to cool it off before actually drinking it. For a few rounds, you and your little one can practice taking deep breaths in and then blowing on your cup of hot chocolate to cool it off, just like you would do in real life. Then, after 3 or 4 rounds of taking deep breaths and blowing on your hot chocolate, you can then start to pretend to drink the hot chocolate. So at this point, you would bring your invisible cup to your lips and take a deep, long sip of your hot chocolate as your inhale, then on your exhale say “MMMMMMMM…” For the next 3 to 4 breaths, you can then sip your hot chocolate and say “MMMMMM…” as you breathe out.
This was the first breathing practice Searsha and I really tried together. Every now and then I will ask her if she wants to do some hot chocolate breathing with me. There are times when she says no, that she doesn’t want to do it, or isn’t in the mood to do it, so I don’t push her, but it is something that I do try to incorporate into our routine so that it is a familiar practice to her.
The second breathing exercise is from the Stop, Breathe, and Think Kids app that I shared in my blog post about My Top Three Favorite Meditations apps. This breathing exercise and meditation is Smell the Roses, Blow out the Candle.
For this practice, you and your little one will each hold up your index finger in front of your face pretending that they are roses. You can even have a little fun talking about what color the roses are, being mindful of the thorns on the rose, and what they might smell like. Then, holding your index fingers to your nose, you will take a deep breath in pretending to smell the rose. You can do a few rounds of breathing just pretending to smell the rose to start. After a few rounds of getting used to taking deep breaths in to smell the rose, you will pretend that your index finger is then a candle. Once again, you can have some fun visualizing the candle, talking about the color of the candle and even the flame of the candle. Then, you will practice taking a deep breath in and holding your index finger to your mouth to blow out the candle. Take some time to practice blowing out the candle, first with the intention of blowing out forcefully to blow the flame of the candle out, like you would with candles on a birthday cake, but then, after a few forceful, flame extinguishing breaths, practice blowing out slowly so as not to disturb the flame of the candle.
Once you have practiced blowing out slowly with control in order to not blow out the candle, start to combine the two practices together. Holding your finger up to your nose, take a deep breath in to smell the rose, then holding your finger to your mouth, slowly breathe out to blow the flame of the candle without blowing it out.
Then, on the last round, you can finish up by blowing out the candle!
So those are two kid-friendly meditation activities you can introduce to your little ones to start getting them acquainted with mindfulness and meditation. It might be a fun bedtime activity to introduce into your bedtime routines, or even something to try out after a meltdown or a stressful event to help your little one process the emotions afterwards. However you decide to practice it, let me know! Let me know what your little one thinks and if they enjoy the practice.
Otherwise, I hope these practices serve you well. Thank you for being here!
Until next time, friends!
Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?
If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!
My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!
So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!
My Top Three Favorite Meditation Apps
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Have you listened to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast lately? If not, you need to check it out! On the podcast, You will hear from me, as well as other artists and makers, all about our creative practices and how we manage perfectionism in order to keep creating.
Every week on the podcast, I share conversations I have had recently with a fellow maker and creative about their creative practice, what’s on my mind about my own creative practice with actionable items you can take to develop or maintain your own creative practice, and meditations to help get you reconnected to your body and get you inspired.
I have shared on the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast before how beneficial a meditation practice can be to maintaining a creative practice and keeping us connected to our own internal voice. I like to share meditations regularly on the podcast for anyone who would like to start a meditation practice, but isn’t really sure where to begin, or for anyone who needs a little guidance. The reason that I think meditation is so beneficial for creatives specifically is because as a creative person, we spend a lot of time in our heads and that can get a little overwhelming sometimes, especially if your creative energy starts to spiral into anxiety. Meditation, however, is a way to help us get back into our bodies, and when we are grounded and connected to our bodies we can actually take action to channel all of those ideas as they swell up in our brains. Not to mention, there are LOADS of health benefits to meditation, but specifically for creatives, it can be a useful tool for keeping us grounded so we can actually create.
And if you are not into the meditations, well, just pretend like they don’t happen! Lol
But if you are enjoying dipping your toes into meditation and would like to explore more, I wanted to take a second just to share a couple of meditation apps that I love to use! *And just to clarify, this is not a sponsored post, or anything like that, these are apps I use personally and genuinely love.
1. Insight Timer app
First, I love the Insight Timer app. There are loads of free meditations on this app and that’s not even a fraction of what they offer. They have tons of different types and styles of guided meditations, sometimes even live events so you can practice with others in real time, and now also offer yoga classes! There is so much that this app has to offer, so I definitely recommend downloading it and exploring it if you are interested in a consistent meditation practice.
2. Calm app
Second, I also love the Calm app. Now this one doesn’t have as many free features as the Insight Timer app, but it does offer several free “7 Days” meditation courses which are really nice introductions into developing your own meditation practice.
3. Stop, Breathe, and Think Kids app
Third, and finally, I love, love, LOVE the Stop, Breathe, and Think Kids app. This app is geared more toward kids, obviously, but it is super fun for parents to practice along with their kids. This is a great app for introducing your little ones to meditation and even starting a practice with them. They have cute little animated characters guiding the meditation and there is usually a story that accompanies the practice. Searsha’s favorites are all of the bulldog meditations, probably because we used to have a bulldog named Spud. But she loves doing her bedtime meditations with bulldog.
If you are looking to start a regular meditation practice, take a look at these apps and give them a try, then let me know what you think!
Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?
If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!
My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!
So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!
Season 2 EP 1: Welcome Back!
Listen Now!
Perfectionist in Recovery
Welcome Back!
Welcome Back!
Hello and Welcome to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast. My name is Marcy Parks and I am a Perfectionist in Recovery.
Welcome back to the podcast! It has been a long, but needed break since our last season, but I am excited and ready to be back sharing with you here in this space. This season I am planning to have more guest speakers on the podcast sharing about their creative practices and the role that their creative practice plays in their life and what that looks like. Some of those speakers will be artists making a living off of their artwork, some of those speakers will be professionals in the corporate world whose creative practice is their refuge, but in every conversation I hope you are able to find and connect with a story that sounds familiar to your own.
That being said, I will still be sharing meditations and my own musings on creativity in between. I am still going to be hounding you about starting a journaling practice if you haven’t already, but not judging you if you’ve fallen off the wagon or don’t have the energy to start one either. I hope it goes without saying, but in case it doesn’t, I will say it anyway, I want this space to be a resource of comfort, inspiration, and connection. I never want anyone listening to this podcast to feel guilt or shame for not having the time, energy, or resources to commit to their creative practice. There are seasons for everything and it is completely normal to move into a season where creative motivation and inspiration runs dry.
Speaking of seasons, I thought I would take a moment to catch up on what has been going on behind the scenes during this break. We all know that 2020 was one, long, challenging season for everyone on every level. Following the conclusion of the first season of this podcast last year, I hit a pretty hard wall of burnout and fatigue that led to me taking a long break to try and rest, but my inner perfectionist has a really strong, negative reaction to rest that can make it hard to actually do so. I recently completed a new collection of work titled “Winter” speaking specifically to this tension - the tension of being in a season that calls for rest, the frustrated reluctance of actually wanting to rest, and the transformation that takes place when we are actually deliberate about rest. The collection was inspired by the literal season of winter, but is more about the winter seasons of life.
Winter is a season that forces us to rest. We lose daylight, it gets colder outside, and rest becomes an essential part of our survival of the season. All non-essential functions and tasks are reduced in order to better our chances of surviving the season. My collection was speaking to this feeling - the feeling when you are in a season of life that is demanding you take rest. Whether it is a pandemic causing a global shut down, or your body shutting down on you, there is a clear message that it is time for you to stop doing and slow down, whether you like it or not.
I am been feeling this so much within myself in the last few months - an intense push to slow down, to stop, and to find joy where I can, so that is where my focus has shifted recently. Right now I am just trying to be deliberate in what I give my energy and attention to and taking care to spend time with my family. Searsha, my daughter, will be four this year and time with her right now is my priority. I gain so much inspiration from watching her grow more and more independent and interacting with her world. Just this morning I was watching her coloring on her own chalkboard and it was so much fun to watch the ways in which she would be coloring wildly one minute and then very deliberate and very intentional in the marks she was making the next. That same freedom and play that she brings to everything she creates is exactly what I hope to one day find and translate through my own work.
In the meantime, I am back to doing the practices that I know fuel and support my creative practice. I am journaling, meditating, practicing yoga, and making time to connect with the people that inspire me the most. Right now I am binging every episode of The Creative Pep Talk podcast with Andy J. Pizza. It is an incredible resource and I love it SO MUCH! Definitely check that out. But other than that, I am back to sharing with you here every week! I am glad to be back in the conversation around creativity and finding inspiration in your daily life. Tune in next week to hear from one of my most favorite makers from my area, Jason Flack! You can find him on instagram at www.instagram.com/artbyjasonflack . Jay is such a fun person to talk to, he is so passionate about art and bringing the community together through art and I love that about him, but he is also just a really amazing human being and I was so inspired by his passion and enthusiasm! Tune back in next week on Friday at 12 PM to hear from him.
Journaling Prompt:
For now, maybe just take some time today for yourself to just write down anything and everything that is on your mind and treat it like you are wiping the slate clean, turning a new page, starting fresh. Just get it all out of your head and on to paper so you can just let it all go.
Until next time.
Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?
If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!
My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!
So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!