It is wonderful to end Beginning Anew with the practice of Hugging meditation between friends and family members. You could probably do this in a classroom as well. The Beginning Anew from June 18th could also be done in a classroom. It is very important that children learn to appreciate others for their good qualities as well as realize that nobody is perfect and that mistakes are meant for learning. Remember, that our Whole Body needs to be healthy, our Mind, Body, Heart & Soul. (At school you may want to teach children what a good hug looks like and feels like.)
ACTIVITY:
- Flowers – Have the children and the facilitators sit in a circle. Have colour pens, pencils and markers ready. Each child has a piece of plain paper and they can draw a big flower head, like a daisy with as many petals as there are people in the circle. They can write their name in the center of the flower. When that is done they write a good quality of something they like about themselves in one of the petals. If children cannot write, so encourage them to draw something in the petal or get help to write words they want to write, like, nice smile, helps others, etc. Now everyone passes their picture to the person on their left or right. Then everyone fills in the next petal and writes a good quality of the person whose name is on the picture. At the end of this session, everyone should have a flower full of good qualities about themselves offered by each person in the group. (This exercise can be done without flowers by giving each child the chance to have their flower watered by every other child in the circle. They can give compliments, thanks or notice positive qualities in this child. Also, you could use rays of sunshine instead of flowers).
- Hugging Meditation
- Stand facing one of your parents, siblings or friends.
- Look into his or her eyes. (If the parents are too tall, they can kneel down)
- Bow to each other.
- Hug slowly and gently.
- Take 3 breaths in each other’s arms.
- Look at each other.
- Offer each other a final bow.