World Mental Health Day takes place on 10 October each year and many schools use that opportunity to remind children about the wonderful practical benefits of meditation. Why not take a few minutes this week to chat with your class about how they think meditation benefits them?
Meditation has very practical, measurable benefits for children. It calms the mind, lessens anxiety and develops in children the very important and necessary quality of attention. So, if you haven’t already started meditating so far this year, please consider beginning again this week.
Children say that meditation helps them to let go of all the drama and teachers find that meditation really does help them to let go of all the tensions and anxieties that can arise during morning and lunch break. That is why so many schools do their meditation immediately after morning break or lunch break.
The images above capture how children describe not just the practical benefits of meditation but also its deeper fruits. Meditation helps children to discover their inner self, who they are at the deepest level of their being. In their conversations with me they said the ‘Meditation helps them to feel the good ness deep inside‘ and helps them to be themselves. ‘There is Goodness Inside‘ is also one of the tracks on our CD which you can access by clicking here.
Into the Quiet, Love is Calling, Calling You to Meditate. Enter the Silence, the Stillness and Silence Where Peace and Joy and Love Await
For before & after meditation
We have added two new short songs that can be used to open and close meditation sessions.
Click on the title of each song to listen to it.
Lord, when we meditate We trust you Love which never ends May it make us kinder To our family and our friends
Fr Donagh O’Shea will lead a morning of meditation and reflection on Saturday, 09 November 2024 from 10:00 a.m to 1:00 p.m. in the Parish Centre, Balally, Dublin (Eircode D16 E032).
There will be two gentle sessions during which Donagh will tell stories that provide insight into the fruits of meditation. We begin at 10 a.m., take a refreshment break at 11:15 and start again at 11:45 a.m. finishing before1:00 p.m.
There is no need to book. Donations may be made on the day (€20 suggested).
‘Pretty Ugly’ by Abdullah Shoaib
I’m very ugly
So don’t try to convince me that
I am a very beautiful person
Because at the end of the day
I hate myself in every single way
And I’m not going to lie to myself by saying
There is beauty inside of me that matters
So rest assured I will remind myself
That I am a worthless, terrible person
And nothing you say will make me believe
I still deserve love
Because no matter what
I am not good enough to be loved
And I am in no position to believe that
Beauty does exist within me
Because whenever I look in the mirror
I always think ‘Am I as ugly as people say?’
Reflection on the poem: On first reading, this is appears to be a very negative, even a depressing poem. But, now read upwards starting from the last line. What stays with you from this exercise?
This is a clever poem that addresses a speaker’s self-worth from two very different perspectives, one positive and one negative. If read from top to bottom this piece expresses a person’s belief that they are too ugly to find love or happiness. They don’t believe that there is any beauty inside of them that is worth anything. If read from bottom to top, the exact opposite is true. The speaker knows they are beautiful and no one can tell them anything different.
The capacity to reframe things is a vital human attribute. Knowing that you can change how you see the world – or any given situation – is very liberating. What a discovery it is to realise that if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change!
Meditation broadens our perspective – our daily practice teaches us who we are at the depths of our being and trains us to see everything from that perspective. And that changes everything.
Meditation enhances our capacity for reframing because we come to know with every fibre of our being that we are loved and that our destiny is to be at one with one another and with the Divine in timelessness. And that experience changes all of our relationships in this life because we realise that we are all ultimately one.
