Meditations on Gratitude in the City of Angels

When I discovered yoga at age 33, it took no more than three classes for me to instantly become like a heroin junkie, going to class after class after class. And not long after that, I began scheduling my entire life around never missing class.  Yoga was the compelling medicine my hungry heart had been yearning for my whole life: physical, spiritual, mental and aesthetic.  The teacher I gravitated towards, and who became my yoga ‘dealer’ was Bryan Kest.  After a dizzyingly intensive physical practice during which all your muscles were specifically engaged in a magical sequence and flow, we would sit for a gratitude meditation before lying back in savasana, final resting pose.

In those first 10 minutes of meditation, we focused our breath, our thoughts, our feelings, and our full consciousness on gratitude. Pure, unadulterated gratitude. “What are you grateful for?” Bryan would ask. Just list it all in your mind.

At first, being new to gratitude practice, my mind searched for grand things. Things like the last trip I took to Rome or the amazing dinner date at Ivy On The Shore two nights before, the new green dress I had worn. Soon, my focus began to shift.  Gratitude. The smell of an orange peel, wiggling my fingers and toes, a hummingbird’s dance, the air I breathed into healthy lungs. Sauntering to my car holding my yoga mat under my arm, everything became alive with possibility and presence.

Gratitude, I began to notice, had this beautifying effect on my entire life. I felt light and weightless, I felt forgiveness for old family resentments and sorrows. I felt compassion for those who had hurt me, and especially, for myself.  In fact, what had pained me so deeply was peeling off my memories, so I could barely access old hurts because of my yoga and gratitude practice. Wow! What was happening?

I had been recently married when I moved out to Los Angeles from NYC, but six years later, while completing my divorce, I was led, breadcrumb by breadcrumb, to Bryan Kest’s yoga classes —and to gratitude practice. At the time, I felt like a shining newborn fawn in the City of Angels. After gratitude meditation, I floated down the stairs of Power Yoga, above Radio Shack on Santa Monica Blvd into downtown Santa Monica. My eyes softened at the often shrieking horns of cars and zig-zagging homeless people. This made me realize that gratitude practice is transformative.  Every.  Single.  Time.

Why oh why did I wait so long to begin this magical practice? Why did they not teach me gratitude in school?  Why do they not have gratitude classes for children in school?

Gratitude for Kids

Meet Napoleon Gratitude. He’s a man with a mission to have a powerful impact on the world through the practice of gratitude.  Realizing the profound effects gratitude had on him at an extremely dire time in his life, he also had some of the same questions I did about teaching gratitude in school. Recognizing that a child’s brain develops four times faster between the ages of three to seven,  he decided to write his illustrated children’s book, Gratitude for Kids, with some assistance from his 13-year-old son, also named Napoleon.  This colorful, instructional playbook is filled with exercises both for children and parents to enjoy together.

The Story of the Creation: Gratitude for Kids

Here’s the story behind this book. In 2014, Napoleon hit a dark moment, when all his personal savings had gone into investing in his company, and money was filtering away to scarcity.  His levels of personal stress and desperation were building. He expected to emerge ready to take on the world after all the years of Transformational Seminars, Spiritual Retreats, Therapy Sessions, Abundance Workshops, and hundreds of self-help books. But he found himself idling back to a particular feeling of fear.  A place where he felt contracted.  Paralysis emanating from this fear caused stagnation in his outer world. He made the connection that this fear was formed, conditioned, and learned in childhood. No matter how much work he did on himself, he experienced a return to this fear place.

When an eviction notice arrived for his condo, he hit bottom emotionally. His only thought was of his son having a good life. At this time, the unthinkable crossed his mind. If he took his own life, his son would have his life insurance and live comfortably. Napoleon was so intensely engrossed in his son’s well-being that he didn’t even consider that taking his life would harm his son that much more. He got down on his knees and asked God for help.  “If there is a God, show me a different way ‘cause my way is not working.”

Thankfully for us, at this moment when all hope was lost, just like in the archetypal hero’s journey, Napoleon finally cracked open. He began in earnest a 28-day Gratitude Practice that a friend had given him weeks before. It was the moment of epiphany. None of those prior workshops addressed his core issue, which was a lack of self-worth. A practice of daily gratitude, he discovered, created new neural pathways invoking the feeling of self-worth. It actually reconfigures the brain.

Studies show that daily repetition for adults, for 63 days to be exact, literally rewires the brain.  So the older you are, the more repetition is necessary, which is why children’s brains get wired directly into feelings of worthiness when they begin young.

The Power of the Gratitude Practice

While doing the Gratitude Practice, in basically no time, through a series of what appeared to be coincidences, he met a tech pioneer that agreed to be his business partner on a project.  A few weeks later, a $25,000 check arrived. Napoleon learned to visualize and feel the gratitude before the gifts arrived, and continued testing and expanding this visualization practice. The gifts kept appearing, until eventually half a million dollars came from new investors.  Napoleon decided to share the gratitude exercises with two friends.  That Gratitude Group has now expanded to 18,000 members across many apps, continents, and countries.

And now, he wants to help make this impact on children, while their brains are still forming. So they can spend their young years flourishing and thriving, as opposed to feeling stressed and having trouble learning.  And what perfect timing during this unprecedented pandemic, to ease fear and spread the gift of Gratitude.

Benefits of Gratitude for Kids

A study conducted by the University of California has found that children who practice gratitude are:

• More confident
• Happier
• Focus better
• Have better cognitive thinking
• Have increased self-esteem
• Are more optimistic
• Have lower rates of depression
• Have better Impulse control
• Experience less stress
• Experience better physical health
• Experience more joy
• Are more creative

Two Magic Words: Thank You

Napoleon learned from reading Neale Donald Walsh, “Gratitude in advance (visualization) is the most powerful force in the Universe.”  And he wants to make a difference, not only in the adult world through his Gratitude Group, but for our future generations.  Your children are our future.

“Gratitude for Kids” is globally inclusive, written, and created with illustrations of children of various colors and races.  The book encompasses 28 days, each focusing on a different aspect of life to be grateful for.  It teaches the magical words: Thank You. It assists in expanding children’s minds to find things to be grateful for. And above all, Gratitude for Kids is fun!

I have faith from my own experience of Gratitude Meditation that this practice can assist children to become more aware of the world around them, by saying thank you, thank you, thank you.  This outer awareness leads to opening the world inside them where happiness, joy, and self-worth can be born.

I reflect back to how I wondered years ago, why this practice wasn’t taught in school, as I floated out of my yoga practice, high on being alive and filled with gratitude. Now the book “Gratitude for Kids” is available. Share it with your children and grandchildren. It’s a wonderful, interactive play book that you can do together. Gratitude for Kids offers a creative practice that is also healing. This is especially important during these times in which we live.

Let’s all do what we can to share more gratitude (and beauty), one child at a time.

Learn more and order a copy: https://kidsgratitude.com/

Nadine Kijner

Nadine Kijner has a BA in Psychology from Boston University, a Masters Degree in Mass Communication from Emerson College, and a Masters Degree in Professional Writing from USC.  She writes creative non-fiction, magazine articles, essays, and short stories.  She is writing her first book, which falls somewhere between literary fiction and memoir.  From an early age she picked up her first Tarot deck and has been offering Intuitive Tarot Readings professionally for over 20 years.  She received the Best Of Los Angeles Award for Wellness and Intuitive Tarot Reading in 2021.  She is also very grateful to have received this award in 2019, 2018 and 2015.  She found her way to Bryan Kest’s yoga class on Santa Monica Blvd above Radio Shack many moons ago, and has never looked back, as her Yoga practice magically transformed her life physically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally.  Alchemy every time she gets on her mat to practice.  After having done literally hundreds of Bryan’s classes, she now practices home yoga regularly – hearing his voice in her head as she moves through the asanas.  Before savasana, she does a gratitude practice he would teach in class before meditation.  In fact, she can be seen way too often walking her 9.5 year old Shepherd, Ladybear, through the streets North of Montana, recounting aloud not only to her dog, but to the flowers and the trees, about all the things she is grateful for.  And they are endless.  She offers virtual, private Intuitive Tarot Reading sessions which can be booked through her website www.nadinekijner.com.  She also reads Astrology charts and is a Reiki Master, offering soothing long distance energy healings. Before the Pandemic, she was booked for all kinds of events – parties, showers, birthdays, halloween, and a weekly event where she read Tarot for Fitgirlclub events at the Mondrian Hotel.  Follow her on Facebook at – Nadine Kijner – or on Instagram @Nadinekijner – where you can watch her Tarot Card of the Day videos she creates.  She also tutors and teaches Intuitive Tarot Workshops, if you’d like to learn Tarot.  She loves salad, is disciplined about her yoga practice, loves dresses, and slow waking with morning coffee or matcha.  She is immensely grateful for so many things, but especially to Ladybear, her constant furry companion, that has made getting through this pandemic a daily joy filled with love.

www.nadinekijner.com

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I teach yoga to both children and adults, and as a mother of two young boys, aged 6 and 9, I always welcome meaningful suggestions for books related to yoga and meditation. These days we need all of the creative resources we can find for education and entertainment! Kids yoga is such an important stress reliever and something we need in the pandemic and beyond. If you’re looking for some resources to use while reading with kids that allow you to share yoga and meditation, here are some ideas.

4 Books for Families, Kids, and Teachers

Animal Asanas: Yoga for Children, by Leila Kadri Oostendorp and Elsa Bahia (Prestel Press)

Animal Asanas: Yoga for Children shares 14 introductory asanas that are presented in a highly visual way to inspire children to practice yoga.

The vivid and colorful illustrations of animals are shown in a different yoga posture. For example, there is a brightly colored camel doing camel pose. All of the illustrations are accompanied by step-by-step small stick figure diagrams and written guidance for safely entering the postures. Each posture also has a fun factor with the sounds or movements that each animal makes.

In the introduction to each animal, there is a section on the physical, mental and emotional benefits of practicing each posture. The end of the book offers a rainbow-chakra-guided relaxation filled with affirmations for each chakra. The colors and ornamental patterns that decorate this book are very kid friendly.

Bonus: A free pull-out colored poster with each of the 14 animal postures circling around a central tree.

I like Animal Asanas, it seems approachable to a wide age range, from the accessible cow moo-ing to the younger students to the suggestion that the older kids take some time to relax with yoga before doing their homework. Embodying the animal poses from this book enlivened my teaching to both the children AND the adults.

Recommended for ages 5-11

Yoga Friends: A Pose-by-Pose Partner Adventure for Kids, by Mariam Gates and Rolf Gates, Illustrated by Sarah Jane Hinder, (Sounds True)

When I introduced Yoga Friends: A Pose-by-Pose Partner Adventure for Kids to my two children, I could see them really focus on the material as I led them through the Dora-like wide-eyed, smiling, multi-ethnic pairs of children displaying their partner yoga asanas in a combination of natural settings and city dwellings. What looked static in the book became my kids’ cue to move and breathe as they found the postures for themselves.

This session was a journey for my elementary school-age students. Along the way, we discovered some new postures and had a lot of laughs. Mostly, the temptation to grab some body part of their sibling was too hard to resist.

The goal of these asanas is to have fun coordinating the body and mind with the breath and to develop the skills for teamwork through the partner practices. It is nice to offer a new way to play together cooperatively with the goal of gaining some peace and self-mastery along the way. The bold sentences that decorate the illustrations offer a kid-friendly approach to symbolism and imagery and to guide the alignment and actions that take children through the asanas.
Visually, this is a really fun book just to read. My kids enjoyed looking at the pictures and trying out the postures together.

For my kids, it felt like adding one or two partner postures to a typical yoga class might be an effective way to introduce the teamwork concept—more so than trying to do the whole class as a partner event. Also, I feel it’s important to be selective when partner yoga poses and use of touch are appropriate for kids.

Recommended for ages 4-8.

Meditate with Me: A Step-By-Step Mindfulness Journey, by Mariam Gates and Margarita Surnaite, Dial Books/Penguin Random House

The narration of this journey follows five different animal friends during their day. Meditate with Me: A Step-By-Step Mindfulness Journey offers verbal cues for the reader to try out meditation. Over backgrounds of ocean waves, clouds in the blue sky, cityscapes, and a classroom, we hang out with our new animal friends.

Through these animal relationships, we learn how to breathe into the body to relax, observe the ways different emotions feel in our body, discover how to tune in to the sounds around and within us, and learn how to observe the thoughts coming and going.

One of the techniques shared includes images of the animal characters playing with a jar filled with glitter. They shake the jar and place it down, allowing the glitter to settle. As the glitter settles, we are offered the suggestion that our thoughts and emotions can also settle down if we sit still and watch them. We can then create space both in the rest of the jar and in our heart and mind.

The book is kid-reader-friendly. My six-year-old read it in its entirety; he said felt smart and accomplished because he could read, connect with, feel what the book is asking of him. I imagine any one of the elements offered could be a meditation tool in and of itself, both as an exercise and a thought to be carried through one’s day. One of the final lines sums up the simple and powerful confidence that is instilled through the messages in the book: “Know that this calm place is always just one breath away.”

Recommended for kids ages 4-8.

The Want Monsters: And How They Stopped Ruling My World, by Chelo Manchego (Shambhala Publishing)

This is a modern-day fable about “The Want Monsters”.  The Want Monsters: And How They Stopped Ruling My World is brilliantly crafted by author Chelo Manchego, a 24-year-old artist and meditation practitioner from El Salvador, who currently lives in Los Angeles. The central character’s personal “Want Monster” looks like a brown paper bag with legs and wearing a crown, “cos he wants” to be famous. The Monster changes size according to the amount of “Wants” he has.

Given today’s consumerism-based mentalities that “more is better” and “if this is good you’ll want more”, this book could not be more timely. It teaches children, and the rest of us, that more is not necessarily better. And that listening to your inner wisdom is more helpful than always trusting our personal “Want Monster” and making it grow.

By the end of the book, we learn tools to keep the Want Monster in its place, cultivate how we can listen to it when necessary, and basically keep it in our pocket for emergencies. We learn to treat our Want Monster more as a friend than as something terrorizing our lives and those around us. The teachings are so necessary in order for children (and all of us) to keep a check on their values, happiness and yes “wants”.

After reading, I asked my children the following day what they enjoyed about the book and the lessons they learned. Rhoads, age 6, said, “He doesn’t have to listen to all his wants now and that it would be okay to think before you say what you want.” Chaska, age 9, said he is more mindful of his wants now and thinks about the consequences of his choices. “I might want to eat the whole cake, but how will I feel afterwards? So perhaps I’ll feel better if I eat just a slice, that way I won’t feel sick.” Both children enjoyed the story and loved the illustrations.

They also loved the blank page at the end of the book where they were invited to draw their own personal Want Monster. They also liked how through reading a story they heard the message that gave them coping skills.

Recommended for ages 4-6.

Reading with Kids: Books About Yoga

What I enjoyed in all of the books is that the messages both adults and children need to hear are pretty similar. The simplicity of the mindfulness practices should not be overlooked or understated. Coming together to practice can be fun. Making a story the vehicle for the teachings is a great idea. If you need some new inspiration for your classes and your kids, try out some of these resources.

Sarah Tomlinson

Sarah Tomlinson is a British born Yantra expert, internationally acclaimed Yantrika (Yantra teacher and practitioner), yoga teacher and artist, with renowned fans across the globe including Elena Brower and Sharon Gannon, co-founder of Jivamukti Yoga. Sarah worked extensively with her mentor Harish Johari in India, he initiated her into the spiritual practice of painting Yantras. Sarah is the creator of the Yantra Bliss Oracle Deck, 2017, and author of Coloring Yantras (Shambhala Publishing, 2017). She leads retreats and Yantra workshops around the world and enjoys lots of time by the ocean with her husband and two young boys.

www.sarahyantra.com

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Shorty Yoga: A Studio for Kids Yoga

Situated on the popular shopping destination strip of Robertson Boulevard is a space offering something entirely different, yet somehow completely kin. What is it? Shorty Yoga—a studio for yoga for kids, toddler, and babies.

This polished space with a friendly neighborhood vibe welcomes families with children of all ages to join the studio’s modern approach to yoga practice.

Parents and caregivers can drop off young ones, or stay and chill in the stylish seating area complete with La Colombe draft lattes, charging stations, and a clear view of the classes. Parents with pre-crawlers, crawlers, and early walkers can join the popular Mamastay classes at no additional charge.

Dope Kids Like Child’s Pose Too

Shorty Yoga founder Donna Delshad applied her background in branding and marketing in opening the doors of LA’s “really rad” yoga studio where “dope kids” can get into their “child pose, duh.” Delshad was inspired by her nieces to create what she calls a “simplified offering (think SoulCycle style drop-ins and packages, no commitments to multiple week sessions), where kids can practice and parents can take a breather.”

The teaching staff of six is quickly growing as more kids are on their mats. Consistent across classes are the lively music playlists pumping the likes of Justin Bieber, Feist and Daft Punk. Teachers tailor those lists to the energy of the kids in the room.

Props and Games for Kids Yoga

Yoga props like blocks find company among pint-sized fitness balls, colorful ribbon streamers, and a KidRobot mustached rabbit. Games like “freeze dance” let kids blow off steam in free-form movement between focused yoga poses.

Savasana and SHORTY

After forty minutes of active yoga, little ones are invited to savasana. The lights and music lower, bodies become still and kids enjoy a rare and much needed rest. To complete the experience, students are
gifted a bracelet. After each class, they add a bead with a letter of the alphabet that spells out the name of their own practice space: S-H-O-R-T-Y.

As the mantra of Shorty Yoga goes, “May your coffee be strong and your kids savasana be long.”

Where to Find Shorty Yoga for Kids in Beverly Hills

Shorty Kid Yoga
Beverly Hills
333 1/2 S Robertson Blvd
Beverly Hills, CA 90211
424.646.3330
shortyyoga.com

Abby Wills

Abby Wills is the co-founder and program director of Shanti Generation, a media program that guides teens to bring mindfulness into life: shantigeneration.com.

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Imagine how different the world would be if families regularly engaged in mind-body awareness and integration practices, like yoga and meditation. This could create time for everyone to be themselves, without judgement, in an holistic way. While it is admirable to want to develop a family yoga practice, it’s not always easy. Sure, there are those unicorn families who have their yoga lifestyle so dialed in that family practice just magically happens. For most of us, a few helpful pointers can guide our thinking and lead us to start developing family yoga moments.

Be True to Your Own Practice

As parents or guardians, the most practical and sustainable way to integrate yoga and meditation into family life is to be true to our own practice. Our balanced presence in daily life provides the foundation for yoga to grow in our families. And in our own practice, we enjoy at least some degree of control. For a family practice, it may be helpful to relinquish the need to control and enter the experience with an attitude of allowing and encouraging. I hope the following considerations will help you guide your family to a peaceful experience of yoga together.

1 Drop expectations

If your intention is to create a peaceful family dynamic through yoga and meditation, start by releasing specific expectations that could cause you any stress. For instance, let go of needing family yoga time to be of a certain length or to follow a regimented plan.

2 Create customs around your own practice

Whether it’s an asana practice on a mat or sitting practice on a cushion, or both, let your family know that this is a special time in your day or week. Invite your children to join by being on their own mat or cushion. They can participate or simply be present in a respectful way. You can offer books or coloring supplies near you. If you don’t mind them climbing on you like a jungle gym during downward facing dog pose, let them. If it’s bothersome to you, set the boundary lovingly that you are connecting with your own body. Encourage them to do the same.

3 Seek out experienced children’s yoga and meditation teachers

Look for classes, apps or DVDs to introduce the idea and then build on that. It’s a funny thing, but some kids are more drawn to practicing when they know yoga and meditation exist beyond their own parents. As a kids’ yoga teacher, I found it super helpful to have my own sons participate in classes with other teachers to learn the basics. Then we were able to call on that experience at home. You will also pick up ideas on how to approach the practices in child-friendly ways.

4 Resources including books and card decks are helpful for young kids

A couple of my favorite decks: Mindful Games by Susan Kaiser Greenland and Move With Me Yoga Adventures by Leah Kalish. Both sets are loaded with simple, family-friendly yoga and mindfulness activities. Animal medicine cards or nature-based cards are also helpful. Allow your kids to choose a card and play out the animal or force of nature. For younger children up to age six, stories are wonderful. Let the practices start to grow organically from reading a book or engaging with a deck.

5 Purposeful Timing and Setting

When you are ready to create a more focused time for family yoga, a few considerations can be helpful. First, what is your motivation for wanting your family to practice together? It may seem obvious at first, but the more clearly you articulate the purpose of family practice to yourself, the more able you’ll be to communicate it to your loved ones.

Allow your intention to guide the process. This way, if you meet resistance, you can navigate it gracefully. Next, choose a time and place wisely. What time of day and week seem most balanced for your family? Is there a place in your home that lends itself well to practice?

For my family, a lazy Sunday morning by the fireplace provides a peaceful setting. Or outside on a big blanket under a shady tree. You might also enjoy seizing a moment that presents itself, rather than planning ahead. Go with what feels right to you.

I suggest choosing a time when there is space to play, rather than attempting to use yoga to intervene during hurried or stressful moments. Finally, consider your child’s developmental phase for how much time to spend. For children under three years old, allow unstructured, completely organic engagement with your yoga practice. Pre-school children ages three through six can begin to build up to 20 minutes of playful practice. Children aged seven and up can begin to focus longer, depending on their interest level.

6. Safety first, always

If you are not sure a practice is safe for your child, choose a different one. It’s not important, and can be detrimental, for young children to practice advanced backbends and inversions. Stick to simple, basic postures that involve the least risk of injury or long term alignment impact.

7. Process over progress

Temper the temptation to constantly correct and adjust your little ones postures. Model appropriate alignment. Children tend to resist family yoga time when it becomes too rigid. Partner yoga postures are wonderful ways to connect and breathe together. Sitting back to back and simply feeling each other’s breath is a powerful starting point that can create harmony. Or have one family member at a time take child’s pose while everyone else places one hand on their back. Feel them breathe and send them love.

Allow Mindful Moments in Family Yoga

Family yoga time will likely look and feel very different than your personal practice. Be open to what each family member brings to the situation. Remember that often times the obstacle is the path. Work with whatever presents itself in the moment. In doing so, your family may just experience a mindful moment, whether it involves a traditional practice or not.

Abby Wills

Abby Wills is the co-founder and program director of Shanti Generation, a media program that guides teens to bring mindfulness into life: shantigeneration.com.

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by Adam Avin, a teenage founder of the Wuf Shanti Program
As a 14-year-old, I’m striving to live my life to the fullest. But it’s hard when the TV is turned on and all I see are things that scare me. It seems that around every corner, there is danger. The tragic event at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, should never have happened. I get emotional just talking about it, so I can’t even imagine what was going through those students’ and teachers’ heads during that massacre. It is like a horror movie that comes to life.

The statistics of teens, and even younger kids, who are feeling depression, anxiety, and anger has been rising. I think there are many things we can do to help them so that they do not express themselves by shooting up schools or movie theaters and killing people or themselves. Suicide is a real threat for kids as early as middle school.

Like most kids, I have a phone and I am on it a lot, yet we don’t talk to each other enough about how we are feeling. It’s important for people to communicate with each other so they can process their emotions in a healthy way. I definitely encourage kids, if they are feeling depressed, anxious, or angry to talk to a counselor, teacher, or an adult they trust.

What can we do? I think we can look at education. For example, what if schools offered a mandatory course in communications in which kids learn to talk to each other and share how they feel?

Curriculum for Coping with Stress

And we could implement a “Coping with Stress” curriculum. Kids can learn how to deal with their emotions in a better way. If they practice the tools they learn, and it becomes an automatic response to stress, then they will grow up to be happier and more mindful adults.

Wuf Shanti and Youth Yoga Education

Since I believe we are all part of the solution, I created a dog character, Wuf Shanti. Wuf Shanti travels the world teaching yoga, meditation, and mindfulness to kids in fun ways with music and games through books, videos, and a mobile app. Shanti means peace. I wanted to honor my great-grandpa when he passed away by paying forward his mantras of positive thinking, kindness, and gratitude to the next generation.

Wuf Shanti promotes health and wellness in kids, and encourages peace and positivity. The Wuf Shanti team visit schools and children’s hospitals (in costume for younger kids and not in the costume for older kids) to teach young people, parents, teachers, and doctors how to practice yoga, meditation, and positive thinking, and about the health benefits of a yogic-minded lifestyle.

Health Benefits of Yoga for Youth

Health benefits of these practices include reducing stress, depression and anxiety, helping manage anger and impulse control, increasing focus, concentration, self-confidence, respect for others, empathy, and boosting the immune system. Scientific research has shown that with a mind-body connection, our thoughts have the ability to help make us well or unwell. Yoga, meditation, and mindfulness can improve the healing process, help us handle stress, and have better interaction with others. That’s why I think a “Coping with Stress” curriculum is so important. It can help kids learn to be in better control of their emotions.

Many people believe that yoga is about doing physical poses. But there is also a mental component that is practiced off the mat to help us have inner peace. This includes breathing to relax, stay calm, and centered. It is about diversity, inclusion, kindness, and compassion. It is about self-love and love for others, no matter where they come from. Yoga is for everyone. This is the key to education and why encouraging youth to practice is important.

The Dalai Lama said, “If every child in the world is taught meditation, we would eliminate violence within one generation.” It seems clear to me, especially now with everything going on in this world, that we need to be teaching things like this in school to help our generation grow up to cope better.

Let’s Begin to Make a Positive Impact

We should be able to communicate without so much anger or violence. I don’t know why some people become violent or how to solve the gun issue, but I do know that there are things we could be doing in schools to help kids deal with emotions. People who are supposed to be our role models, like politicians, athletes, and celebrities are having a hard time listening to each other and becoming unified. There is too much negativity. And now we need to be trained to be positive and kind so that we can make a positive impact on the world.

We can’t keep doing the same things and expect a different result, so let’s try something new. Gandhi said, “If you really want to reach peace, then begin by educating the children.” Let’s begin.

Adam Avin

Adam Avin is the 14-year-old creator of Wuf Shanti, Yoga Dog for Kids. He wants to help get this message out about the benefits of yoga and meditation to kids everywhere, and their parents, teachers, and doctors. With everything going on in the world, Adam wants to help stop the violence. Wuf Shanti includes award-winning videos, books, and apps: wufshanti.com

www.wufshanti.com

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“I learned how much power music has and that it affects so much more of the brain…it has so much power over your emotions. It makes you feel happy when you’re sad and it makes you feel energized and calm. Different music can have different outcomes. It’s really cool.”

These words are from Chloe, one of 53 sixth graders who participated in a Music for Social and Emotional Learning pilot program at The Incubator School, a Los Angeles charter school focused on creating entrepreneurs. Coordinated by Frank Fitzpatrick, founder and director of WHY Music, the multimedia, experiential learning program brings together music, movement, and mindfulness – or as Frank says, the 3Ms. Frank’s vision is to show the world how music effects our emotions, relationships, and learning capacity.

A talented cast of musicians, therapists, and teachers brought the 3Ms to life. During Jason Triefenbach’s ArtBeat for Humanity sessions, students created logos that they connected to their dreams via streamers and then used to decorate a gigantic REMO table drum. Megan Kling of HealthRHYTHMS led the youth through a series of drumming techniques to provide a beat to the 3Ms. David Tobocman accompanied Frank on piano during centering exercises set to classical music.

Music was also integrated into the movement sessions that I taught, accompanied by Matt DeMerritt (De La Soul) on flute and Aaron Wills (311) on bass. We led school-appropriate yoga with basic mindfulness practice and creative guided imagery.

Frank shared stories illustrating the powerful impact of music, yoga and mindfulness, (including telling about the time when he used meditation to cope during a shipwreck). Devyn Rush (of American Idol fame) had a captivating story to share in her Hey U.G.L.Y. presentation on anti-bullying.

WHY Music believes music can help youth navigate difficult emotions, connect more compassionately with peers and reach their academic potential. By illustrating the interconnectivity of music and social-emotional learning, Frank offers a formula for music programming in schools. Support these efforts at WHYmusicinschools.com.

Abby Wills

Abby Wills is the co-founder and program director of Shanti Generation, a media program that guides teens to bring mindfulness into life: shantigeneration.com.

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If you dream of yoga being offered in more schools throughout Los Angeles—connect with the nonprofit organization Youth Yoga. May marks their second annual Youth Yoga Week and since last May they’ve organized ongoing yoga programs at Abraham Lincoln High School and Ramona Opportunity High School (an all-women school for at-risk youth). So far during Yoga Week free classes will be offered at Abraham Lincoln and Ramona Opportunity as well as Los Angeles High School for the Arts, Widney Alternative High School, Hollenbeck Middle School, Harris Newmark Continuation High, and Metropolitan Continuation High. If you are a teacher looking for a place to volunteer, or part of a school looking to offer yoga, visit YouthYoga.com

Julie Hale

Julie Devi Hale, MFT, eRYT is a psychotherapist, yoga and meditation teacher who attends to private clients in Los Angeles as well as runs retreats regularly in her home away-from-home; the Sequoia National Forest: juliehale.net

The post Youth Yoga Week appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

So, your kids are all ready for the new school year.

Backpack? Check!

Pencils and erasers? Check!

Notebooks? Check!

Ujjayi?

Ujjayi?

You don’t mean you forgot the ujjayi, did you???

Back to School time can be very stressful for children. New classrooms and sometimes new schools. New kids, sometimes nice ones…sometimes not so nice. New situations, new teachers, new homework, new pressures.

No matter what the situation, ujjayi breathing is a tool that will help your children succeed in the new school year with flying colors.

Here’s how it works:

It’s easiest to learn in a comfortable cross-legged seat, though ujjayi can be used any time, anywhere.

Begin by having your children breathe in and out through their mouths like a huge sigh.

Ask them to feel how the breath feels (sort of cold) at the top of their throats.

Now, have them close their mouths and breathe with the same sighing feeling, imagining they were breathing from the cold spot in their throats, instead of from their noses.

When the ujjayi breath is done correctly, it should sound like the waves of the ocean on both the inhale and the exhale. A deep, guttural whisper that is neither a sniff in nor a blow out.

So, what’s the point? Why is ujjayi as important as paper (or an iPad) for your children’s success in school?

Simply put: Ujjayi is the great self-regulator. Breathing ujjayi massages the nervous system and helps to promote homeostasis.

I always tell all my students that if they ever feel challenging feelings (sad, mad, angry, frustrated, jealous), then practice the ujjayi breath. If they find themselves in an important exam, facing pressure in sports, or being upset by other students’ behaviors, practice the ujjayi breath.

And the good news: they don’t have to stop what they are doing, sit down, or close their eyes to do it. All they need to do is breathe. No one even needs to know they are doing it. Just 5-10 deep, conscious breaths and they will not only feel calmer, they will also have time to regroup and rethink their reactions.

Once your children know how to instinctively come back to their breathing, they will be able to use it in any situation where they feel as if they are losing control. Not only will it help them to get through the school year, it will help them to get through life.

Shana Meyerson is the internationally acclaimed creator of mini yogis yoga for kids and YOGAthletica. She is based in Los Angeles.

Shana Meyerson

The post The One Tool Your Child Needs for School appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

It’s been 14 years since I entered my first yoga class…reluctant, kicking and screaming. A seasoned athlete, I couldn’t imagine what yoga could possibly offer for me besides, perhaps, some nice sitting and humming.

And then it all began. The love affair that would change my life forever.

It wasn’t just Bryan Kest’s asana sequence that had me at “Namaste”—it was his message. Everything he said just rang so true to what I believed. It all made some much sense. It touched me, it moved me, it spoke to me, and it called me in.

Long story short, I was blown away. And all I kept thinking was: “I wish I had found this when I was three instead of 30. How different my life would have been.”

It was just a few months later that I completed my first 200-hour training, and mini yogis yoga for kids was born. My goal: to provide the children of Los Angeles with all the gifts—and, yes, I’ll go so far as to say enlightenment—that yoga had to offer. I wanted to change some lives. This was 2002 and hundreds of schools summarily dismissed and rejected my offer to come in and teach their students yoga. Seriously. They thought the very concept was ridiculous.

Fast forward to 2015, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a single school in LA without yoga. Yes, the LA mind has opened up (wide) and here’s what you need to know about how to get your children involved and make sure they don’t miss the yoga bus. Here’s what you need to know about how to change your children’s lives.

CHILDREN’S YOGA: A PRIMER

My first fantasies of children’s yoga included rows and rows of angels, sitting in full lotus, eyes closed, faces serene, deeply ensconced in profound meditation.

Okay…so, that’s not exactly what kids’ yoga looks like.

Yoga for kids is down and dirty fun. Yes, it’s meditation and focus and savasana. But even more so, it’s toys and games and songs and books; it’s loud and playful and  creative and interactive and sometimes full-contact, and every cool kid thing you can think of rolled up into one big yoga ball.

A children’s yoga class is a place where kids can experiment with their bodies and try new things. Where they can fall without fear of failure and transform something classical and venerable into something integrative and dynamic.

Here’s the first thing you need to know about children’s yoga. Though it all revolves around real yoga (asanas, philosophy, meditation, etc.), it looks very, very different from your typical adult class. So different, in fact, that a strict traditionalist may look at it and mutter under his pranayama that it’s not even yoga. But it is.

Remember, yoga means “yoke.” It is the binding together of one’s mind, body, and spirit into the alignment of pure intention. It is our realest, truest, highest self.

How do we achieve that as adults? We dim the lights, lower our voices, play soft music, light some candles…we disassociate from the noise, the chitta.

But for a child to be one with his or her element, the process is a little different.

Put a child in a dimly lit room with candles and soft music and the first thing s/he will want to do is turn on the lights and make some noise. And then s/he will be scolded and told to quiet down and behave.

No child is in his or her element while being reprimanded, squelched and subdued. Children find their inner peace—their yoga—when they are playing, exploring, and fully expressing themselves. Kids are in their element when they are just being kids. That’s where this whole practice begins.

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM A KIDS’ YOGA CLASS

From a good one, you should expect all the same things you see in your own classes. The same seated meditations, the same asanas, the same savasanas, the same dharma talks…just in a brighter, more exciting, more kid-friendly package.

In a children’s yoga class, you’ll hear a lot more barking in downward facing dog than usual, meowing in cat pose, and mooing in cow face pose.

The chants of kirtan are replaced with the sounds of playground songs, nursery rhymes, and Laurie Berkner albums.

Instead of focusing on your own process and keeping your eyes on your own mat, we work in circles in a mostly interactive format.

Here’s what distinguishes a strong children’s yoga class from Mickey Mouse Playhouse: First, it will be fun and just as creative, with structure and discipline balanced by personal freedom and individuality. It won’t be as unforgiving as ballet or karate where everything has to be done just so, but it will teach the same lessons about self-control and self-confidence. Second, though the presentation will be dramatically different from an adult class, the foundations of the content remain the same. All the postures are real yoga asanas. The children aren’t just playing pantomime, pretending to be animals and calling it yoga. They will be playing games and acting things out within the structure of true postures and practices.

So…all great kids’ yoga classes need great kids’ yoga teachers.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A KIDS’ YOGA TEACHER

Of course you want a terrific yoga instructor for your child. The best. But how do you distinguish one teacher from another?

You ask questions:

1. What kind of training does the teacher have? Ideally, you want someone who knows his or her stuff. Someone who can teach the good stuff and keep your child safe at the same time. Any instructor you choose should have at least a 200 hour adult training under his or her belt. And, preferably a kids’ specialty training, as well.

1. What kind of experience does the teacher have? Keep in mind that kids’ classes are so different than adult classes. Likewise, kids’ class experience is so different than adult class experience. There are a lot of teachers out there with a ton of adult teaching under their belt who have no real facility or affinity with children at all. Choose a teacher who loves being around children.

1. What kind of yoga practice does the teacher have? Ideally, you want a teacher who has a dedicated, consistent practice. It shows commitment to the practice, personal proficiency and knowledge, and it shows that yoga is more than just a job to them. It’s a lifestyle.

You have to find the teacher first. Where there are classes, there are teachers! Let’s start there.

FINDING THE RIGHT INSTRUCTOR

When considering yoga for your children, you have two choices: studio classes or in-home classes. I use the word “in-home” because sometimes private sounds expensive or intimidating. And in-home doesn’t necessarily mean one-on-one private…

If you prefer to have your children in a studio class, visit your local studio (or community center, school, or fitness center). Many studios offer at least one public children’s class a week, or a few, for different ages.

When choosing an age grouping, keep in mind not only your child’s age, but his or her maturity level. A mature six may feel very out of place in a class of 4-8 year-olds, whereas a younger eight may feel right at home. Keep in mind when looking at a studio class’s age range that the participation will typically skew young, as many parents see their kids on the older age of the spectrum as too old and/or mature for the younger crowd.

Of course, the biggest challenge with studio classes is scheduling. Kids these days are busier than their parents. Heck, they’re busier than the President. So, there is a chance that what is available may not fit your schedule. That’s when you might want to consider in-home classes.

In-home classes may be one-on-one, but since kids don’t take up that much room, pushing aside a coffee table will often be enough to make a space to accommodate a whole handful of little (or little-ish) people right in your living room. And, generally speaking, bigger groups mean lower cost per child.

With mini yogis, for example, in-home classes start at just $15 per child…and parents are always free (if they wish to join). That’s less than a studio class, you can pick any day and time that is convenient for you, and you can’t beat the location.

While the allure of inexpensive classes may be tempting, keep in mind that there are tremendous benefits to private one-on-one lessons. Totally personalized, individually tailored yoga that addresses any special needs or challenges that your child may be facing in life.

Or…there’s always the teacher within you. Yeah, you!

As a yoga-loving parent, you may want to consider taking a yoga-for-kids teacher training and teaching your child yourself. Most children’s teacher trainings are conducted over the course of a single weekend and everyone is welcome. You don’t have to be a certified instructor to join in…just join in. It’s fun for you and a great tool for bringing fun, engaging yoga home to your family.

If all else fails, there’s always the possibility of bringing your child to your yoga class with you. Some kids thrive in an adult environment while others will languish with boredom. It depends on an individual’s personality and maturity whether that kind of a situation will work out.

THE BOTTOM LINE

No matter how you look at it, slice it, or approach it, yoga is a powerful practice that will enhance your child’s entire life. Starting your kids early with a fun, engaging yoga class will create a yummy taste in their mouths for the practice as they get older. Babies who start in mommy-and-me grow up to be toddlers who love the practice who grow up to be elementary school kids who look forward to it after school and grow up to pick yoga as their electives in high school, eventually becoming fine, well-balanced adults who practice for a lifetime.

Now’s the time. Your child’s life is waiting…

Shana Meyerson is the internationally acclaimed creator of mini yogis yoga for kids (miniyogis.com) and YOGAthletica (YOGAthletica.com). She is based here in Los Angeles.

Photos courtesy of mini yogis yoga for kids.

Shana Meyerson

The post Kids Yoga : A Primer for Parents appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

by Melissa Brooke Soltman

“If it’s good for the kids, it’s good for humanity,” declared our energetic, fearless facilitator, Cayetana Rodenas, at the Rainbow Kids Yoga three-day Yoga for Kids and Families Teacher Training in San Diego. Senior Trainer Rodenas steered 30 eager adults on a journey through laughter, exuberance, and fun—key elements of a kids yoga class.

Gopala and Angel Yaffa, the co-directors and owners of Rainbow Kids Yoga, are a passionate duo. They model their work after their dynamic family life, spreading the gift of yoga through play. Rainbow Kids Yoga takes a holistic approach, supporting the whole child and family; they believe that grown-ups are big kids so their trainings are as much for the adults participating as for the children they’ll reach.

By experiencing activities designed with props and music, we learned to support the mindset children live in: a dynamic place filled with curiosity and sensory experiences. As teachers, it is our role to stimulate their imaginations and validate their explorations hoping that they will keep the confidence they gain as they grow. The curriculum emphasizes teaching trust, confidence, sensory awareness, and concentration.

The application of kids yoga reaches beyond the studio. In our training circle, I exchanged smiles with a third grade classroom teacher, a woman opening a yoga studio in rural France, a husband and wife duo eager to bring this work to low-income communities in Mexico, a woman working in a juvenile detention facility, and another aspiring to teach military children. Particpant Kaela C. Saez will return to her studio Errobi Yoga, in rural Ustaritz, France. Her experience of the training, “Everything was hands-on, loving, and based around the principle of self-acceptance—with a fun twist.”

Gratitude filled the room when we took our positions for our final activity: Angel Walk. I closed my eyes and began my walk down a sacred aisle formed by strangers-turned-friends on either side. As I walked, they whispered compliments and appreciation, touched my hands and shoulders and offered squeezes of encouragement. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

For more information about Rainbow Kids Yoga, visit: rainbowkidsyoga.net

Melissa Brooke Soltman is a writer, sexual health educator, and yoga teacher: hellomelissabrooke.com

Melissa Soltman

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I believe we all have messy journeys. Sometimes we feel like we have life figured out: work, relationships, our physical and emotional health. And then, there are times when we meander from the path: falling into bad habits, wondering if we are relevant, and questioning our purpose in life.

For me, the journey has definitely been a winding one, but there have been tools that help me get back on track when life gets crazy. I learned how to meditate when I was nine years old (yes, my father is Deepak Chopra); through that practice, my father taught my brother and me what it means to live with intent. After our meditations, he would ask us to repeat the following phrase:

I am responsible for what I see

I chose the feelings I experience

And set the goals I will achieve.

Everything that seems to happen to me

I ask for and receive as I have asked.

He would then ask us what we wanted. As kids in Boston, we asked for things like tickets to a Celtics game or a trip to Hawaii. He would smile, and then guide us to ask for love, inspiration, hope, connection, and meaning. In this way, we began to ask for the qualities in our life that would make us feel healthier, happier, more connected, and purposeful. For me, intents come from the soul—they represent who we aspire to be as individuals, members of our family or communities, and citizens of Mother Earth.

As my life became busier, as I delved into my career, took on more responsibility, and became a mom, I forgot many of the lessons that had helped me stay anchored. My life, like so many others, often feels overwhelmed by the tasks and responsibilities that I need to do to just get through the day.

About two years ago, I was speaking to a group of 50 people about meditation and finding balance. As I shared tips on feeling healthy and finding purpose, my mind was having a separate dialogue. I was feeling noxious from the sugar and caffeine high from the chocolate chip cookie and double macchiato I had right before my talk. I was thinking about picking up our clothes from the dry cleaner, ordering snacks for my daughter’s school party, and buying food for our dog Yoda. I was overwhelmed, felt bloated, and was completely not present with the audience who was listening to me. I decided to lead the audience in a meditation so that I could deal with my own drama, and in those moments I admitted to myself that I was not living authentically. I made a decision to make some changes in my life—a journey I have written about in my new book, Living With Intent: My Somewhat Messy Journey to Purpose, Peace and Joy.

One of my driving intents is to be a good mom. However, I have realized that love alone—for my children, my husband, and my family and friends—cannot give me balance and unbounded happiness. The responsibilities that come with parenthood, careers, community, and friendships, the things that give us connection, can also create stress, anxiety, and make us feel overwhelmed. As women, in particular, we are so busy taking care of others that we often forget to care for ourselves.

My intent while writing my book was to examine my life and choices and remember who I am, connect to my deepest desires, and know how I can serve. I was fortunate to tap into the wisdom of great teachers like my father, Eckhart Tolle, Marianne Williamson, Dr. Dan Siegel, Dr. Andrew Weil, and Arianna Huffington.

My hope is that by sharing my journey, we all can find more purpose and meaning in our everyday lives.

Mallika Chopra is the founder of Intent.com and the newly released book, Living With Intent.

Staff Writer Lakshmi

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As Mother’s Day approaches, I am reminded that I never had children of my own, something that always surprises me. I love children, and I always assumed I would have them. It’s not that I didn’t want them; it’s just that my life didn’t turn out that way.

It’s okay: I have filled the void by finding other ways to mother. I’ve mothered my friends, lovers, animals, and other people’s children. I’ve helped raise my sister’s children and their children’s children. I have a grown stepson and a multitude of at-risk teens whom I mentor and mother in my own I AM Dreams With Wings workshops. I spend several weekends a year at prisons listening with a mother’s unconditional love to the men and women in blue. My mothering plate feels pretty darn full. Then why does it bother me when mothers bring their babies and toddlers to my beach yoga class to play in the sand while we practice?

It’s not that their children aren’t cute and cuddly, but they can be distracting and noisy. As we greet our practice with our palms together, connecting and chanting “Om,” I hear screeches and cries and mothers shushing their children. I take a deep breath and exhale an exasperated sigh thinking, “Oh, great, another round of Romper Room yoga.”

With every breath, I practice letting go and recall the following quote from “The Mother,” the co-founder of Integral Yoga at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India: “The true aim of life is to find the divine´s presence deep inside oneself and surrender to it, so that it takes the lead of the life, all the feelings and all the actions of the body.”

I begin to soothe and mother myself while reminding myself that yoga is not about perfection or having things be the way I think they should be. It is the practice of allowing things to be as they are—kids or no kids.

Some days it’s easy, and I enjoy it when one of the toddlers crawls over to my beach mat and plays underneath the arch of my down dog. Other days, I beg our teacher Joanne to add “child-free classes” to her schedule. This has gotten me nowhere except into self-judgment for being grouchy. When did I become like this? What part of me doesn’t like kids? Is it the part of me who doesn’t have one to bring? Is it the part of me who misses her mother? Aww, that may be the catch. Further questions arise: Who will mother me? How do I mother myself? Am I allowed to play in the sand?

As I flow through my sun salutations, I try to be mindful so as not to judge the situation, or even myself. I hear my teacher’s voice, “Notice where you are and how your body feels.” I allow myself to observe my judgments and then let them pass through the way I imagine a mother would. I move forward in my practice through each asana telling the child in me, “It’s really all okay,” and my body relaxes, too.

Between classes, I learn more about my teacher.

Jeanne Ortiz grew up on the sands of the Caribbean. After the birth of her first son, Jeanne wanted to give him the same feeling of freedom she’d had as a child. She began teaching yoga on the beach as a way to entertain him as well as to take care of herself. Jeanne began inviting other moms, creating a community of moms in need of some self-nurturing time. “It’s a community of moms helping moms,” says Jeanne. “What a wonderful way to mother yourself,” I thought.

At the end of class, I lay on the beach in savasana, listening to the waves crashing on the shore, to the giggles and cries of happy children playing in the sand, and to the voice in my head saying, “That’s what we are all here to do, child—mother ourselves as a good mother would.”

Lorelei Shellist, author of Runway RunAway: A Backstage Pass to Fashion, Romance and Rock ‘n Roll, is a speaker, host and model, Image Consultant, Inner Beauty Empowerment Coach, and the founder of Fashion Icon Archetypes™ Personality Programs. She holds master’s degrees in Spiritual Psychology, and in Consciousness, Health and Healing from the University of Santa Monica. Lorelei coaches executives, women, and at-risk teens, and facilitates spiritual psychology workshop activities with prison inmates through the Freedom To Choose Foundation (freedomtochoosefoundation.org). Visit: loreleishellist.com

Lorelei Shellist

Lorelei Shellist, author of Runway RunAway: A Backstage Pass to Fashion, Romance and Rock ‘n Roll, is a speaker, host and model, Image Consultant, Inner Beauty Empowerment Coach, and the founder of Fashion Icon Archetypes™ Personality Programs. She holds master’s degrees in Spiritual Psychology, and in Consciousness, Health and Healing from the University of Santa Monica. Lorelei coaches executives, women, and at-risk teens, and facilitates spiritual psychology workshop activities with prison inmates through the Freedom To Choose Foundation (freedomtochoosefoundation.org). Visit: www.loreleishellist.com

www.loreleishellist.com

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The Sanskrit word santosha means contentment. Contentment is a slippery idea: If we say that we are not content, or feeling discontented, there are those who will look upon us as being ungrateful, or needing to work harder. If we say that we are content, there is sometimes the illusion of complacency. How can we teach our children gratitude and contentment, when we often struggle with our own relationship to contentment and what it means?

In order to teach something, it is important to fully understand it ourselves. One of my favorite definitions for the word contentment is “an ease of heart.” This implies that the need to struggle has been lifted, and we can flow with the waves of life. As parents, if we remember the first time that we settled into a chair embracing our newborn children, then we can remember the magical moment when we felt not just an ease of heart, but also a filling of the heart.

Children are naturally pretty content with whatever activity they are absorbed in at the moment, but with the challenge of so much advertising teaching them to ‘want’ more, how can we as parents help them to maintain the contentment of living in the moment? The holiday season is a perfect opportunity to explore this with our children. During Thanksgiving, it is customary to speak of that which we are thankful for in our lives. Thankfulness for what we do have, and an awareness of the richness of the familial bond can help bring a sense of safety and contentment to our children. Here are some simple activities that you can try at home to help cultivate gratitude, and ultimately contentment.

Toddlers: Ask them who they love. They will often say mommy, daddy, grandparents or the family pet. As parents, we can draw an outline of these people and pets, and let them color it in. Place it on the fridge, and bring it to the holiday table. Not only will children have pride in their artwork, but they will have a budding awareness of the richness of family love. Just a little heads up on this tip, hearing your child talk about who they love can lead to tears of joy in mommy and daddy. Have a handkerchief nearby.

Grammar School Kids: Now we can start to ask our kids who and what they are grateful for. Younger kids can paint a picture of those that they are grateful for and share it on Thanksgiving. Older kids can write letters of gratitude to whomever they feel grateful. This is also a time when we can talk about our philosophical and spiritual beliefs. If your child says that they are grateful to God, Divine Spirit, Mother Nature; have then write a letter to the Divine. This is an opportunity to enrich the feeling of belonging, as well as being loved, protected and guided.

Teenagers: Meditation and pranayama are fantastic tools for teaching santosha. Next time you are headed to your Yoga class, call the studio and see what age requirements they have for practicing. Many studios will allow participants ages 13 years and older to attend class. Or there may be classes scheduled for this age group. The meditation, the deep breathing, as well as postures, can promote a sense of gratitude. Talk with your teenager after class about what they enjoyed, and what they are grateful for. Feeling grateful for time together, grateful for a strong healthy body, or other qualities mentioned, is a way to segue onto the topic of contentment. This can be especially important during this stage of life when many kids are facing body image issues, issues with bullying, and issues of acceptance.

Let us remember all that we are grateful for in our lives, especially the miracle of our sons and daughters. As we start to grow in our own feelings of gratitude and contentment, we model this for our children, and teach them about an ‘ease of the heart.’ We can also show our children simple ways to express their gratitude, and ultimately, their feelings of contentment.

Let our hearts overflow with thankfulness ––Colossians 2:7

Desi Bartlett

Desi Bartlett MS, CPT, has been teaching health and wellness for more than 20 years. Originally from Chicago, she has a degree in kinesiology and her master’s degree in corporate fitness. Desi holds advanced certifications in Yoga, personal training, group fitness, and is a certified pre- and post-natal fitness specialist.

desibartlett.com

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Many of us in the Yoga community believe in the idea of reincarnation. If you subscribe to this thought, then perhaps you have had the awareness that your child is wise far beyond their years. Sometimes it feels like we are living with ancient, wise Buddhas, who just happen to be running around in Seventh Generation diapers. These beautiful beings have much to teach us, especially with respect to the practice of Yoga.

Many Yoga teacher training programs take the time to teach alignment, pranayama, sometimes even meditation and if we’re lucky, basic Yogic philosophy. As parents, we are in a unique position to learn some of the most profound teachings in the sanctity of our own family. Two lessons that we can learn from our children are Beginner’s Mind and Staying in the Moment.

Photo: Adam Latham, angeladam.com

Beginner’s Mind

Witnessing a child’s delight when experiencing nature for the first time can be a powerful reminder to see the world through fresh eyes. Watching a toddler arrive at the beach can be a magical moment. The whole beach is like a giant sandbox waiting to be explored. The best part is that the enchanted reaction happens anew almost every time that they arrive. This awareness, this sense of delight, with no judgment and no projection, can be a powerful reminder to approach the Yoga mat as a fresh, magical place of discovery every time that we practice.

If you have ever practiced next to someone who was mumbling expletives under their breath when falling out of a balance pose, or turning bright purple from holding their breath in an inversion, then you have seen what Yoga looks like when the innocence of child-like play has been lost. Many teachers cue to maintain a childlike approach to the practice, but what does that mean and how can you both learn that approach and learn to teach it (if you are a teacher, not just of Yoga, but all studies)?

If we take the time to observe our children, we can learn the technique.

This four-part technique involves:
1) Slowing down.
2) Letting the inner smile rise.
3) Looking at the mat as a place for exploration and play and…
4) Getting over ourselves. (The practice is not a performance nor a place for comparison to others).

Next time you are practicing a particularly challenging sequence, try these steps and see if you can discover something new, joyous and magical in the intimacy of the marriage of breath and movement.

Staying in the Moment

This is perhaps the single most challenging practice to learn and to teach. It seems to be innate in adults, that there is an almost constant review of the past, “I should have said this, or I wish I would have done that,” and/or an incredible amount of list making for the future. Staying completely centered in the present, in this moment, in this breath, is sort of like taming a wild cat; it can get a little ugly.

Again, we can look to children for our lesson on staying present. If you have ever spent any time with a two-year-old, you know that toddlers are always in the moment. They want to do whatever it is that they want to do, and they want to do it NOW!!! When these amazing little people are on swings or slides, or just singing a song, there is no thought of, “Oh I wish I would not have cc’ed that person on that email,” or “Maybe I should change my Facebook status.” There is only pure, rapt attention on the task at hand. The best part about learning this technique is that you can do so through spending time with your child, playing and having fun.

The next time you have an hour free, try putting away all electronics and commit to following your child’s activity. Allow yourself to be fully present and truly engaged in whatever they are doing. Not only will you experience the freedom of living in the moment, but you will give your child the gift of a parent who is present on all levels; physically, mentally and emotionally. Imagine if all of our parents had been able to connect with us in this way, even for an hour a day. In the words of the Van Halen song, “Right Now… It means everything.”

Our children are truly our gurus. They are beloved souls that have come into our lives to teach us innumerable lessons. Call it destiny, karma, or the divine will, out of all of the millions of possibilities in this world, you and your child came together. So, slow down, and take notes on their approach to life. Even better, don’t take notes, because that might take you out of the moment. Try to see the world through their eyes. Everything is new, everything is amazing, and everything that matters is happening right now!

Desi Bartlett

Desi Bartlett MS, CPT, has been teaching health and wellness for more than 20 years. Originally from Chicago, she has a degree in kinesiology and her master’s degree in corporate fitness. Desi holds advanced certifications in Yoga, personal training, group fitness, and is a certified pre- and post-natal fitness specialist.

desibartlett.com

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Have you ever found yourself wishing that the practice of Yoga were available to you as a child or teen in school? Fortunately, many kids and young people today will look back on their school days and recall learning downward facing dog and/or breath of fire.

The benefits gained through regular Yoga practice are increasingly well-documented and reported in the mainstream media: From enhanced strength and flexibility to mental clarity and self-connection, we know that Yoga enriches our lives in abundant ways. Yet can Yoga help us learn as well? The answer strengthens the case for cobra in the classroom: There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that Yoga-based programs in schools can aid students by cultivating the qualities associated with successful learning.

Photo: Courtsey of Leah Kalish and Yoga Playgrounds

Yoga has been present in the private school sector and afterschool programs in Los Angeles for more than a decade. Recently, the movement to integrate Yoga into public school curriculum has grown tremendously. Shana Meyerson, founder of miniyogis® Yoga for Kids said, “When I started taking Yoga into the schools about ten years ago most of them laughed at the idea. Now, you’d be hard-pressed to find a school in Los Angeles that isn’t offering Yoga to children,” says Meyerson.

New Roads School in Santa Monica is one example. They have offered Yoga as part of the psycho-physical education curriculum since opening its’ doors fifteen years ago. “Having practiced Yoga for so many years, it was clear to me that the benefit to kids would be enormous,” says Head of School David Bryan. “So much of what we ask young people to do in conventional PE classes asks kids to speed up and takes them ‘outside of themselves’ – into a ball, a goal, a hoop. But Yoga asks them to go inside, to center themselves, to slow down and coordinate their minds and bodies. It is a natural fit for a school setting. And the kids really come to appreciate it,” Bryan says.

Yoga practice certainly fits the bill for physical education (PE) standards, but with PE programs being cut all over the place, how else can Yoga serve a school’s needs and find sustainability in the system? If the well-known physical and mental benefits of Yoga are not enough, leading educators along with scientists are currently researching and revealing the social, emotional and cognitive advantages of contemplative practices such as Yoga. In October, 2009, the Dalai Lama’s nonprofit Mind and Life Institute gathered some of the worlds’ foremost neuroscientists to sit on panels with nationally recognized educators to discuss the current state of education and the changes needed to support effective education programs. “We must prepare teachers to create classroom communities that support mindfulness,” said Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor of education at Stanford University. “Teachers need to learn to be in relationship. Teachers need skills to help children see their role in building an empathetic society,” Darling-Hammond continued. Founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, Marian Wright Edelman, echoed these sentiments in her statement, “You can have the fanciest classrooms and abundant resources, but if children don’t feel loved, you are doing them harm.”

Can Yoga practice offer the kinds of skills needed to help create a culture of care and kindness in schools? Richard Davidson, Director of the Lab for Affective Neuroscience and the Waisman Lab for Brain Imaging and Behavior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, during the dialogue stated that research shows meditation practice induces or stimulates processes of neuroplasticity, the changes in the brain which are often as a response to experience or training. “Short-term training in cultivating compassion leads to altruistic behavior,” says Davidson. What does this all mean in terms of learning? According to Davidson, “Negative emotions interfere with our ability to keep information in mind.” Studies show that adults who engage in meditation practice enjoy more skilled emotional regulation, including the ability to return to baseline. Yoga teachers experienced in working with children note the positive effects of the practice on emotional intelligence.

Danay DiVirgilio, founder of YogaBuddies, says that through Yoga practice students “develop an ability to recognize their emotions. These new skills have a positive impact on the way the children think and interact at home and at school.” The connections between learning and emotional regulation were researched and documented in the Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) movement which emerged in the 1980s in response to challenges adolescents face including substance abuse, schoolyard violence and peer pressure, according to Dr. Daniel Goleman, psychologist and author of Emotional Intelligence. The SEL movement, comprised of educators and scholars from diverse fields including psychology and neuroscience, has made great strides in recognizing how effective SEL programs work to close the achievement gap. In a talk on SEL on The George Lucas Foundation’s Edutopia site, Daniel Goleman identified the core components of effective Social and Emotional Learning programs as: self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, impulse control and sound social decision-making. This is helpful information for advocates of school Yoga programs who know from experience that Yoga practice can help kids develop the hallmarks of social and emotional intelligence. Practicing Yoga deepens self-awareness and enhances our ability for self-care, both fundamental aspects of SEL.

Research results reinforce that Social and Emotional Learning programs improve academic achievement. Concurrently, there is a growing body of evidence confirming the numerous social and emotional benefits of mindfulness and meditation. If we want to connect the dots between SEL learning programs,Yoga (including meditation) and mindfulness practices in a way that appeals to school administrators, teachers, parents and legislators, we might do well to follow the lead of creative experts such as Susan Kaiser-Greenland, author of The Mindful Child, who has committed to a secular approach in providing meditation techniques to children and teens under the umbrella of “mindfulness.” In 2007, UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC) conducted a pilot study on Kaiser-Greenland’s Innerkids program. This decidedly secular program, located in Los Angeles, taught mindfulness exercises to forty-eight pre-kindergarten students over an eight-week period of time. Results showed improvement in executive function in the brain; one of the associated tasks of executive function is to govern our ability to moderate behavior. The outcomes of the Innerkids program are relevant to schools’ needs. While some of the traditional practices Kaiser-Greenland draws from are culturally connected to Eastern traditions, including Buddhism, she has chosen to include only the universal components of the practices. At the heart of her program is mindfulness.

Yoga practitioners know that an authentic practice necessarily includes mindfulness. One could argue that movement without mindfulness is not Yoga. Furthermore, many, if not most, Yoga programs for schools include a dedicated element of mindfulness practice in the form of meditations, reflections, and even developmentally-appropriate mindful games. In this process, there is frequently an emphasis on drawing out the essence of Yoga practice while setting aside aspects that can create conflict in the public school forum including Sanskrit words related to deities. Rather than “watering down” the Yoga, as critics have feared, these Yoga practices taught in schools have become more refined, distilled and relevant to Western lifestyle. Leah Kalish, founder of Yoga Playgrounds, points out that in order for Yoga teachers to successfully implement programs in schools, “it [Yoga] has to be relevant to [students] and their lives; Yoga has to empower them in ways they recognize.” Perhaps Kalish and Kaiser-Greenland are onto something; the more clear we are about what is actually being offered to schools in Yoga programs, the more the programs will be valued.

There is great power in truly naming what is. Simply saying “Yoga” may not be enough information for some constituents in the school system to support. In fact, for some folks, the word “Yoga” holds a threatening connotation and there are loads of misunderstandings about what Yoga practice really entails. This can be seen in modern-day assumptions, including Yoga is a religion or a cult, or a person must already be flexible to do Yoga. In other historical periods, yogis were seen as sorcerers or magicians. The question then becomes: How do we elevate our field to become a viable solution to the problems schools currently face?

According to Leah Kalish, to reach the next level of sustainability in school-based Yoga programs, there is a need for “more teacher training and support over a longer period of time, such that teachers truly embody what they teach, and Yoga principles can become part of the school culture.” Currently, there are a few dozen teacher training programs in the US geared toward Yoga teachers who want to teach in children and teens in school settings. These trainings range from one-day workshops to 130-hour comprehensive certification programs. The settings for these trainings range as well, from Yoga studios to schools, with varying degrees of time interacting with groups of kids.

“I think it’s important for Yoga teachers who want to teach in schools to spend some time in today’s schools,” says Annie Buckley, long-time youth Yoga educator and author of The Kids Yoga Deck. “I think the biggest mistake people make in approaching any kind of education reform is to buy into the negative thinking that schools are somehow failed or bad and that this new fill-in-the-blank program will fix things. In light of this, it is imperative for a Yoga teacher to draw on compassion and try to understand the place where she will teach.”

In addition to understanding schools, Yoga teachers working with kids would benefit from understanding child development and how students learn. One of the roles of Yoga teachers in schools is to articulate the value of Yoga as it relates to all types of learning, including physical, mental, social and emotional intelligences. For true education reform and for benefitting students in all areas of their education, it’s not enough to provide fun, adventurous Yoga sessions in a classroom setting. The positive effects resulting from implementing Yoga programs in schools run much deeper. For greatest buy-in from family and teachers, among other reasons, it’s important that the benefits of Yoga and mindfulness practices are communicated clearly if we desire sustainable integration of Yoga in schools.

How Yoga Benefits More Effective Learning

• Chronic stress inhibits learning. Restful yogic practices, such as savasana (relaxation) and pranayama (breath techniques), can invoke the relaxation responses in the autonomic nervous system, allowing learning to progress more effectively
• Postures such as eagle pose and twisting triangle are cross-median movements that help to coordinate communication between the right and left hemispheres of the brain. This can aid in improved reading and spelling skills.
• Balance poses improve concentration and focus.
• Mindfulness helps to alleviate unhelpful negative emotions that hinder memory function.
• Increase resilience and decrease reaction time.

The overall benefits of Yoga programs in schools are too numerous to list here. Krishna Kaur, founder of Y.O.G.A for Youth, powerfully states, “I know without a doubt that Yoga is the antidote to the fear and violence that engulfs our world right now. Our youth are affected as much or more than the adults and it shows up in their addictions to drugs, alcohol, sex and violence. It doesn’t matter if our youth are from affluent communities or the inner cities, they are prone to react to the frequency of fear and violence that is so much a part of our daily existence. They are searching for meaning in their lives and Yoga can provide that for them. Yoga and meditation gives them tools to connect with their power and peace from within.”

Krishna and her nonprofit organization Y.O.G.A. for Youth have brought Yoga programs and Yoga teachers to young people in schools, afterschool programs and detention centers for fifteen years.

Another veteran advocate of Yoga in schools, Yoga Ed Founder Tara Guber says, “Yoga is a powerful life skill that children can take with them into adulthood. As a result of being exposed to Yoga in school, children are learning to focus their attention and to calm themselves; these are two skills that are vitally important for learning and for life.” Yoga Ed currently estimates that their programs are currently in place at over 200 schools across thirty states.

With so many valuable benefits, why don’t we see more schools embracing Yoga as part of their curricula? The answer from most people who have worked in this field is money. As school budgets decline and teachers are being laid off in record numbers, school administrators often view Yoga as a luxury beyond their consideration. The paradox seems obvious. At just the time when schools need the powerful stress relieving practices of Yoga most, there is a hesitance to invest in the face of drastic budget cuts.

Johannes Fisslinger, founder of Yoga Month, may have found a partial solution to help schools integrate Yoga programming even in this financial crisis. Fisslinger developed a campaign titled Yoga Recess to provide classroom teachers with free, developmentally appropriate yoga DVDs. The program is offering DVDs from Yoga Playgrounds, Shanti Generation and their self-titled Yoga Recess. So far, Yoga Recess has received nearly 5,000 requests for free DVDs from teachers across the country. Now, the challenge is to motivate the Yoga community to make donations to fill these requests.

Funding Recess 
In a fundraising effort, music producer and composer Frank Fitzpatrick and his nonprofit organization EarthTones has partnered with the Yoga Recess campaign. Proceeds from Fitzpatrick’s compilation album, Yoga Revolution, featuring artists including Michael Franti, Sarah McLachlan, Sting, Seal, Guru Singh, Wah!, Krishna Das, Donna De Lory, Snatam Kaur, Peter Gabriel and Angelique Kidjo, benefits Yoga Recess.

No doubt, the innovative, inspired leaders of the school Yoga movement will continue to engage in the slow, hard work of integrating the transformative power of Yoga into the classroom. Beyond Los Angeles, across the nation, other groups are doing similar work with much success. As parents and Yoga practitioners develop a deeper understanding of the immediate and long-term benefits of school Yoga programs, they will be able to advocate effectively for Yoga programs in their communities’ schools. More public support is needed to take this movement to the next level.

Support Yoga in Schools:

• Speak with parents in your community about the benefits of Yoga in schools.
• Share research data on the effects of yoga with school administrators.
• Invite a school teacher to attend a Yoga class.
• Donate to Yoga Recess to provide immediate Yoga programming in classrooms: yoga-recess.org
• Support an organization dedicated to bringing Yoga into schools:
  • Updog Downdog Yoga: updogdowndogyoga.com
  • Y.O.G.A. for Youth: yogaforyouth.com
  • Shanti Generation: shantigeneration.com
  • Yoga Playgrounds: yogaplaygrounds.com
  • Yoga Ed: yogaed.com
  • Yoga Buddies: yogabuddies.com
  • miniyogis: miniyogis.com
  • Yogi Beans: yogibeans.com

Abby Wills

Abby Wills is the co-founder and program director of Shanti Generation, a media program that guides teens to bring mindfulness into life: shantigeneration.com.

The post Cobra In The Classroom appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Getting on a yoga mat represents hope for many, and at the Westwood Salvation Army, the yoga of hope takes on new meaning. The Salvation Army is home for families and people who are transitioning in their lives and coping with challenges including homelessness, living in shelters, rebuilding lives after failed marriages, bringing up children as single mothers and fathers or those who are veterans reintegrating into society.

Regardless of the journey a person has walked before entering the Salvation Army transitional program, it represents a fresh start, hope and stability that can last two years without eviction for those who meet program requirements. The transition is more than simply physical as families move from survival to living through hope and possibilities.

The Yoga Angels teachers volunteer at the Salvation Army to teach yoga to children, youth and families. Through the practice, participants have an opportunity to free themselves of afflictions such as anger, fear and limiting self-perceptions.

Find more information or to get involved by teaching, donating or providing yoga props visit: www.yogaangels.com

By YAP staff

Brian Chance

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