Cloud Meditation For Kids & Adults - Healing & Relaxation

Let us revisit this very old and popular form of meditation that will give you healing and relaxation - CLOUD MEDITATION. This is a great tool to develop mindfulness and it can be practiced by kids and adults alike anywhere anytime, provided you can spot a cloud in the sky.

With monsoon everywhere in the country, lets practice this meditation when it is cloudy.

Its a simple meditation popularly known as “Cloud Meditation”.

You can do this even when it’s raining.

Follow these steps:

1. The first thing you need to do is find a quiet place outside, away from people, where you will not be disturbed by anything. This could be in a park, on a hill, or at the beach. If this is not possible, sit on your porch or by a window, where you can see the sky.
2. If you are outside, either sit down on a rock or bench, or lie down on the grass.
3. Ensure to look at a cloud in the opposite direction of the sun, so that you don’t look at the sun.
4. Now slowly take few deep breaths, and then relax your body.
5. Look at the sky for some time, choose a cloud, and fix your attention on it.
6. Notice the color of the cloud, its shape and size.
7. Watch the cloud, and follow it movement as it drifts in the sky.
8. Watch how the cloud changes its shape or dissolves in the sky.
9. Keep watching the cloud calmly, while disregarding the other clouds.
10. Just watch the cloud, without thinking about it, analyzing or commenting about what is happening. Whenever you discover that your attention has wandered away, bring it back to the cloud.

Duration for this meditation :10 minutes.

Benefits of this meditation :

It strengthens the concentration ability of mind, improves control of the attention, and increases calmness.

Let me know in the comments below your experience with this meditation.

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Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

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Tutorial - Simple Breathing Meditation (Anapanasati) For Beginners To Do Anywhere

#SoulfulSaturdays is an attempt to put out weekly, simple to consume knowledge bits, help people understand the concepts of holistic living, spirituality, healing, meditation & the likes. In this article, let us see how to do a simple meditation based on your breath anywhere anytime. In Buddhist fraternity, it is also called Anapanasati Meditation. 

There is much written & read about the benefits of meditation but not many people practice it actually. Partly because of less self motivation, partly because of wrong information, partly because they think meditation is for old & retired people, partly because they tried a meditation practice & could not keep up to it.

Click HERE to check out the details, testimonials & registration for our very popular 10 days ONLINE workshop on SELF HEALING & CHAKRA BALANCING.

Let me tell you there are many different ways one can meditate. There are many kinds of meditation practices and all of them can really help you in focus, awareness, emotional mental & physical wellness & much more. This is a very basic practice but it does wonders & can be practiced by seasoned meditators as well.

So let us dive into it straight but before that, promise me you will try this meditation today itself & share your experience with me in the comments below!

Place 

You can choose any place you like - a quiet hall, a noisy train, sitting in an auto with honking sounds of the traffic, garden, bedroom, forest or whatever. The good news is if you are alive, you will have your much loved breath with you, and that is the only thing you need for this meditation.


Duration 

You can start with just 5 minutes of practice. Set a timer in your mobile & you are ready to go. Once you are happy with 5 minutes, you can gradually increase the duration as per your convenience.


Posture 

Sit upright with your spine straight. You can either sit on a chair with hanging legs or sit on the floor or yoga mat or even a chair with crosslegged. Put your hands anywhere you feel comfortable. It would be great to keep them in dhyaan mudra resting on your knees.


Steps 

Close your eyes & just focus on your breath. Watch it go in & out, in & out, in & out. Keep your awareness JUST on the breath. Notice how the breath is passing through your nostrils & going up till your lungs. Notice how those vibrations are. Visualize that with every in-breath, you are breathing in positive energy & with every out-breath, you are pushing out negativity from your body. Keep the breaths deeper & longer.


Hey, one random thought of your child or your spouse or your workplace came hitting your head just now! Aaah you lost the focus on your breath!!! And you think, "oh I just cannot do this thing called meditation". Trust me, I have been there done that. And still face this sometimes. Do not resist the thought and just let the thought pass through your brain or heart. Become a watcher to that thought. Now that you have acknowledged the thought came in, resume back to focussing on your breath.


I have a bonus tip for you here! Try chanting "So" during in breath & "Hum" during out breath. SoHum is the universal sound of our breath. So this way, the chances of you being lost into other thoughts are lesser because you give your mind a concrete thing to chant while you breathe. You can chant it mentally or aloud.


And hey, you will soon hear your timer go tring tring. Did you just finish your meditation session? I hope your answer is yes :) If it is, tell me in the comments below what was your experience!


Benefits
Regulates BP, calms mind, reduces stress, anxiety, depression, improves focus, mental, emotional & physical well being and much more!

In Buddhist culture, this meditation is called Anapanasati - meaning mindfullness of breathing.

If you want to know more about our 7 energy centers in the body - what are called chakras, they have been discussed individually in detail HERE.

Click HERE to check out the details, testimonials & registration for our very popular 10 days ONLINE workshop on SELF HEALING & CHAKRA BALANCING.

Hope you liked this tutorial & let me know in the comments below if you practice any kind of meditation.

You can check out all the posts in the #SoulfulSaturdays series HERE.

Drop me a message via contact form HERE or email me at thekjunction[at]gmail[dot]com if you want a consultation session (skype or phone) on chakra balancing, energy healing or meditation.

See you next week!

Love, Light, Peace
Kuhoo

This post first appeared on this group - "Our Earth & Us - Striking The Right Balance". I am gaining some good karma by sharing my knowledge & experiences with this group members.

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Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori & Waldorf inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

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6 Ways To Develop Mindfulness In Kids

Mindfulness can help children improve their abilities to pay attention, to calm down when they are upset and to make better decisions. In short, it helps with emotional regulation and cognitive focus.

My 2-year-old son A, one fine day - 

A (out of no where) : mumma, how to do dhyaan mudra? Pls do it for me
Me : ok here you go (and now you can see my son's picture doing dhyaan mudra, above in this post)

And then he said, 'family meditation time' ... And we both did Om chanting, Gayatri Mantra and Maha Mrityunjaya Mantra chanting together.


If you are wondering how to develop mindfulness in your toddler or how to introduce meditation or any spiritual exercise to your toddler (which is very important in today's world), here are some tips on the same - 

Start With Yourself
Start doing it yourself from today. Toddlers LOVE to imitate adults. You will wonder how beautifully they will start following you in no time & they will be proud of this fact too.

Set A Rhythm
Waldorf philosophy talks so much about setting a rhythm in a child's life. It makes the life of this little being more predictable & setting a rhythm has so many more benefits. Set an everyday rhythm for any mindfuness exercise - which means meditating or chanting mantras at a specific time of the day every day so that the practice is set into the daily rhythm of toddlers - remember they do not have much sense of time or days as yet. We have started this 'family meditation time' as a ritual with me, my husband and my son every night to introduce him to what is called 'silence lesson' in Montessori. Mindfulness and meditation come naturally to us - I'm an energy healer and Reiki practitioner myself and husband is a serious Yoga practitioner.

Sweet & Simple

Toddlers cannot process much so initially keep it super simple so that they are not overwhelmed with the entire exercise. You can even start with a simple Om chanting two or three times or just counting their breaths up to 5.

Keep Your Expectations Zero
Initially, when we started family meditation time, my son just roamed around in the room while I & my husband chanted mantras. But remember that children are listening & observing all the time, even the time when we think they are ignoring everything around them. Gradually he started sitting with us during chanting & now he chants along with us when he is in a good mood, but with eyes open hehe. When he is in a super playful mood, he even monkeys around on our laps while we chant. So the key here is to be consistent in our practice & kids will assimilate the practice gradually, but may not exhibit it always.

Do Not Limit Mindfulness To Meditation Or Chanting
Mindfulness is not just sitting with eyes closed & chanting mantras or concentrating on the breath. It also means being present & aware in your day to day tasks. One great way to be mindful when you are outdoors with your toddler is to make him listen the bird sounds, sound of the trees waving, sound of the water flowing in the streams and so on. We do this with our son & now he himself tells me when we are in a park, mumma, listen the koyal singing, mumma which bird's sound is this, mumma, I hear an ambulance siren and so on. And many times we realize these sounds after our son tells us! And I wonder when did we lose this capability of registering everything that is happening around us...

Prayers & Gratitude
It is a great idea to involve the little ones in prayers. It is equally important to teach them to express gratitude. The only way is to say grace & courtesy words often ourselves - to our little imitating monkeys :) It is so heart warming when my son says sweet thank yous when I set up new Montessori shelf activities for him or when I get him his favorite stuff to eat etc. And it is so funny & amusing to listen to something like this from my son - mumma, I got a glass of water for you, say thank you :) :)

Please do share what else worked for you in developing mindfulness in your kids!

Happy Parenting :)

This article was also featured on ChildSafeMedia on International Yoga Day 2017. Read HERE.

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Facebook Live Chat/Session on Energy Healing By Kuhoo Gupta - Video Replay (VLOG)

As a Yoga practitioner, Reiki practitioner, Crystal healer, I was invited by World Of Moms, a venture by FirstCry.com, to talk about Energy Healing.

Here is my Facebook LIVE video replay on ENERGY HEALING, that I did on WorldOfMoms page. The Reiki & Yoga practitioner and Crystal Healer in me, spoke for an hour. It was a great experience.

I have talked about -
What is energy healing
What are 7 main chakras in our body
What are the physical & non-physical functions of these chakras
How you can balance/heal your chakras using different modalities

And then a whole bunch of answers to questions by the live viewers about their experiences, issues & ailments & how energy healing can benefit them & how to go about it.

I am sure you would find something beneficial for your case in this video. Please share if you think it will benefit your friends/family.

Happy Healing :)

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