<5-7 year old LOVE
Love is a very big word. It is not just for grown ups. Love is the best and biggest thing we can do in our lives. It is the only thing that will always make us happy, and make others happy too.
 
Isn’t it funny that the only thing that is absolutely free to everyone in the world is the only thing that will make us really happy.
 
When we love our family, we make them happy. If we love our dog or our cat, we can make them happy. But can we love the sky, or love the wind? Have you ever loved the flowers, or loved the ocean or the waves?
 
Everything needs to be loved, if you want to help make them happy. And do you know what else? They are all loving you too! So you need to thank them for their love and take time to feel their love so you can be happy too. A beautiful and magical thing about love is that you will never run out of love, no matter how much you give. Because every time you give out love, more love fills you up, and it comes from your own heart and the hearts of everyone else too.
 
 
The exercise
 
To feel the wind love you and the trees love you, you need to be very quiet and just feel. We need to feel love with our quiet heart and not thinking.
 
So can you get very quiet with me? Close your eyes. Can you feel your breathing?
 
Feel the way you are breathing in and breathing out. Breathing in air that feeds your body and makes you feel good. Just like that the trees and the flowers are also breathing. We share the same air. And the wind is blowing along mixing it all up. Sometimes the air that was just in you, was in the flowers, and now it is coming back to you. Your lungs in your chest hold the air and make it ready for your body to use. Feel the same air that has flowed through every living thing, flowing in, and out of you, as you breathe in, and out.
 
Love is just like this. It is flowing through every thing. The trees are loving you, the flowers are loving you and the wind is loving you, but we have to open our heart so that we can make it ready for our body to use.
 
So now, can you try and feel the love with your heart? You might try and sort of ‘breathe’ it into your heart. Feel the love of the trees and the flowers and the wind. Breathe that love in, and out.
 
Feel that every day just as they need sunlight to live they also need love. And just as they give us air so we can breathe, they also give us love. And we in return, give them our thanks and our love. Breathe the love in, and out.
 
Just like the flowers we need our food to live but also we need our love-food to be happy.
 
Continue breathing love in and out for a few minutes.
 
Reflection / Contemplation
When you are ready, relax a little but keep your eyes closed. Just for a few moments think about one or two things you can do in your life to love more. Perhaps you need to tell your mum or your dad that you love them or give your dog a big hug. Or perhaps you could love the sky or the wind or the moon next time you see them, or love a butterfly or a bird as they fly by. Remember that you can help make them happy and you will be happier too.
 
Lastly remember the one truth of this meditation. That it is love that makes you happy and love that makes the whole world happy. You should do your part. Love yourself, your family and also remember to love the wind and the sky and the trees and the flowers. Giving love will make your heart open so you can receive love from all the things that are loving you..
 
Finish
 
When you are ready take a couple of deep breaths and relax – your meditation is finished.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Peace
Have you ever wondered why people fight? Have you been to a place where people have been fighting and felt a bad feeling in that place? Have you been in a fight yourself? How did you feel? Were you angry? Did you want to hurt the person you were fighting? What about if you lost the fight, do you remember how angry you felt? And if you won the fight, do you remember the bad feeling that you had about hurting someone else?
 
Can you imagine war? Thousands of people fighting, people being injured by guns and knives. So many angry people. Thousands of people being hurt. Imagine how they feel. In wars many people are killed, many of them do not even know what the war is for. The people that hurt someone else – imagine how bad they might feel, imagine their nightmares when they sleep. Then think about how unhappy they would feel.
 
Do you see how no one wins when people fight? Can you feel how people’s anger just hurts others and hurts also the person that is angry? When you are angry, you make others angry too, and angry people start fights, angry people start wars that make many people unhappy.
Sometimes people think that angry people are strong. But anger comes when people cannot hack it and they are scared. Just like a dog that barks and barks or a cat that screeches when they are scared, they are trying to make the thing that they are barking at scared too, but really they are the most scared. Sometimes they are scared because their mother has left or their brother fights with them, but always there is something that has scared them.
 
Can you think for a moment about peace? When you are feeling peaceful, you feel as though everyone is your friend, as though every person might be a part of your family. When you feel peace, you are happy and strong. You feel as though there is nothing to be afraid of and that there is nothing you cannot do.
 
Inside all of us there is peace and strength and also there is anger and fear. It is up to us to decide which we want to be. Do we want to be a person that is angry and scared and makes other people angry too? Do we want to be a person that starts fights and wars? People like that can never be happy. Or do we want to be a person that is peaceful and strong? A person that makes people want to stop fighting and find peace and happiness too?
 
To be the peaceful person we must be strong. We need to let go of fear and anger in our lives and focus on peace and strength.
 
Meditation is a great way for us to focus on our strengths and let go of our weaknesses.
 
Exercise..
Close your eyes and relax. Try not to think of other things but just for a moment watch your breath. Feel the air flowing in and out of your body.
 
If you get really good at this all you will be able to notice is the air flowing in and out.
 
Then could you please imagine that it is not air that you are breathing in but peace. Think about a time when you have felt very peaceful and very strong and try and breathe in that feeling.
 
 
Breathe it in and feel the peace flowing throughout your entire body. Feel that the peace is flowing into your heart and then down to your toes and up through your arms and to the top of your head. Imagine that peace as a white light that is full of strength and calmness and it is filling you with that light.
 
As you breathe out try imagining that you are throwing out of yourself, any fear or anger that you might have. Throw out the anger like it was dirty water.
 
Breathe in and out like this for a few minutes and when you feel completely full of peace and strength you can forget about breathing out anger and imagine that you are breathing peace into the world. You are creating peace for others to feel. You are helping the whole world to feel more peace, this is a very powerful gift that you are giving.
 
After a few minutes, you can finish by sitting quietly for a moment and just have a think about the things you can do to be more peaceful and strong in your life. When you are ready take another deep breath or two and you have finished your meditation – well done!
 


Loving yourself
Have you ever heard people say you should love your self? Do you remember how important love is? It is the source of all happiness in your life and the happiness in our world. So to love your self sounds like a good place to start doesn’t it?
 
Well yes, but that doesn’t mean you immediately start going on about how great you are, or to think about how you beat someone else at sport or some other endeavour. It doesn’t even mean you should spend all day in front of the mirror marveling at how beautiful you are.
 
The highest love brings the highest and most lasting happiness, whereas lower love brings a temporary happiness. You know how sometimes you feel that you love pizza or ice cream. Then you eat it and you feel happy, but in 20 or 30 minutes you will have forgot about that love and you will be back to normal. This is a lower love. The highest love is much more powerful, in a second, it might completely change your life and make you happier for ever.
 
So to find the highest love you need to remember a time when you felt a really powerful love for as many things as possible. Think about that for a moment or even try it yourself right now. Try and feel from your heart a love that expands into as many things as possible. The trees, the flowers, the birds, your cat, your dog, your mum and dad, your brothers and sisters. The more things you can love in one moment, the higher your love will be.
 
Now you might be starting to understand about loving yourself in the highest way. This sort of love is not about loving the makeup you wear or the jeans you just bought, this love is about seeing the part of you that is in everything. Just like the air that you breathe, in one minute it is your air, inside your lungs, in the next, your friend will be breathing parts of that same air, we are connected to each other by the love that flows around the whole universe. So the way to love yourself in the highest manner is to love the part of you that is in everything.
 
Let’s try an exercise and you might see what I mean..
 
Firstly I would like you to sit down in front of a mirror and look at your face. Try not to start thinking about how you look, or whether your hair is brushed, but just look at yourself gently and calmly.
 
Soothingly repeat these words to yourself.
 
“I accept you” then breathe out and in.
“I believe in you” breathe out and in.
“And I love you that connects me” breathe out and in.
 
As you repeat these three sentences over and over keep looking at yourself in the mirror and feel these sentences in your heart.