Growing up in war-torn Lebanon, I lived through my share of trauma. I wish I had known about the magic of yoga and mindfulness to help self-regulate my emotions when I was a child. My discovery of yoga has been a healing practice with profound results. I found a way to say, “I feel better now!” Through life’s twists and turns, an idea grew into a way to help children learn mindfulness and say, “I feel better now,” too.
Fear, hopelessness, death, loss, despair, anxiety, and anger were emotions I experienced as a child. Learning yoga helped me in my adult life, and I wanted to share these lessons. This desire drove me to become a yoga teacher and create a children’s storybook about the power of yoga and mindfulness.
A Shift occurred within me with just one Yoga Class
After a foot injury, I decided to try a yoga class to keep active. It took just one class. A huge shift happened in me both physically and mentally – I felt incredibly calm. After that, I started going to yoga regularly because it made me feel grounded, and my mind felt clearer. Not long after, I decided I wanted to learn more about yoga and mindfulness and became a yoga and mindfulness teacher. I have been teaching for eight years now and love teaching mindfulness to children.
Most people start yoga to gain flexibility or strength and view it as a physical workout. But I can tell you that the asanas or postures in yoga are only one aspect of the practice. One significant benefit of the practice is that yoga helps calm the fluctuations of the mind.
Learning to Pay Attention, We Practice Yoga…
Growing up in a War Zone taught me a Unique Perspective
At an early age, I wish I had had yoga to help calm my nervous system and switch off that constant state of alertness, shifting from fight or flight to rest and digest through simple breathwork. When we constantly live in a state of fear or alertness, a simple tap on the shoulder can become an electrifying trigger, which is unhealthy.
The little things? The little moments? They aren’t little. The best way to capture moments is to pay attention. This is how we cultivate mindfulness. Mindfulness is a way of befriending ourselves and our experiences without trying to control them. We are not mindful by nature. Thinking, rather than awareness, is our default setting. Our awareness of thinking is our only robust capacity to balance thinking. When we become aware of our thoughts, we have the choice to choose our thinking”. Jon Kabat-Zinn
Yoga can help us “unlearn” or reverse these habitual patterns and reactions ingrained in our minds and bodies. Everything we feel (stress, anxiety, anger, sadness, etc.) registers in our body in the form of tension. Tightness, rigidity, and yoga can help undo that damage by bringing more awareness to it first, then more fluidity and softening (physically and mentally). For these few reasons and so many more, it would have been so incredibly helpful to learn these empowering tools as a child.
Teaching Yoga and Mindfulness to Children through the Power of Story
A few years ago, I was invited to teach yoga at the local elementary school. To keep the little ones attentive and involved, I created a story and acted it out with the kindergarteners in yoga poses. It was a fun, interactive way to engage the students, and the kids and teachers were thrilled.
Later that night, I told my husband Erik about my fun day. He suggested I make my story into a book so all kids would be able to experience yoga. It was a fantastic idea yet daunting because my schedule was so busy. An illustrated book that would introduce children to the tools of yoga and mindfulness to help them manage difficult emotions with a bit more ease was just perfect.
I tucked the idea into the back of my mind and let it percolate for a couple of years.
Connecting the Dots when we Needed it Most
When the pandemic hit in 2020, life as we knew it came to a halt, and I, just like everyone else, suddenly had a lot of time on my hands. I also had the same uneasy feeling as many other people, including children. Thankfully, I had my personal mindfulness and yoga practice to help me stay grounded through all the uncertainty and chaos defining our lives. But what about everyone else?
The pandemic brought so much suffering and isolation from sadness, anxiety, loneliness, anger, and confusion. On a personal level, my husband was ill at the time, which only amplified these overwhelming feelings. Every day, I would go outdoors to walk in nature and do mindfulness activities.
Whether it was a simple walk, ten minutes of yoga, a breathing technique to engage my parasympathetic nervous system, a positive affirmation, a mudra, a gratitude reminder, or simply directing my intentional attention to my sensory system for a few minutes, it worked. I had the tools to do all that. This is what I teach.
It was the Perfect Time to Bring my Idea to Life
I realized then it was a perfect time to bring my project to life, to bring a message of hope to children (and their caregivers) everywhere. Introducing mindfulness and yoga activities to children would help them cope with the array of hardships with a bit more ease and remind the readers they were not alone in this crazy time.
I met with a young talented graphic designer and illustrator named Timothy Bada. We worked on the project for a year. I also teamed up with an amazing author named Crystal Heidl, owner of Byzantium Sky Press, who helped me through the whole publishing process.
The Entire Family Pitched in to help with the Book
My three beautiful children, all young adults now, pitched in to help me create the storybook. Romy, my oldest daughter, was my patient editor, my son Erik-Stéphane interjected with character names and suggestions, and my youngest Anna was Timmy’s invaluable yoga model for the drawings. It was truly a group effort and a beautiful labor of love.
“I Feel Better Now” was Born a Year Later
“I Feel Better Now” is about how we can learn to feel better when we are not feeling okay and when life gets hard. Life is never always easy or always challenging, and joy, just like pain, is an intrinsic part of life. We can’t have one without the other, just like you can’t have light without darkness. Life is never always joyful or sad; everything is in constant flux and continually changing, even our emotions. That is good news.
In “I Feel Better Now,” Tommy goes through rough times, navigating life during a pandemic. His life has been an emotional roller coaster of sadness, anger, hopelessness, loneliness, and fear. When his older sister Alia notices her little brother suffering, she takes him on an outdoor adventure around town and teaches him mindfulness practices to help him feel better.
Introducing Children to the Tools of Yoga and Mindfulness
“I Feel Better Now” is an easy-to-read and act-along story that introduces children to the tools of mindfulness and yoga, practices that can help them cope with life’s struggles and challenging emotions with more ease. Life doesn’t come without challenges. Pandemic or no pandemic, the stressors are constantly there.
For a young child, stress can be triggered before a math test, a class presentation, a public speech, or a nasty comment on the playground at recess. Mindfulness can help self-regulate, find pause, and control impulses.
Furthermore, children nowadays also have to deal with social media and its negative impact (feeling left out, being compared, feeling invisible, being bullied), leading to anxiety, stress, and depression. Mindfulness and yoga practices can help nurture more equanimity, compassion, positivity, and gratitude.
Practicing mindfulness can help us become more engaged in daily activities, which enables us to better appreciate life’s pleasures as they happen. That leads to improvements in concentration and happiness. From a scientific point of view, mindfulness has also been shown to lower blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate, oxygen consumption, adrenaline levels, and levels of the stress hormone cortisol. It is basically eliciting the relaxation response of our nervous system in ways that increase positive emotions and decrease negative ones, such as fear and anger.
It is easy to Introduce Mindfulness into your Daily Life
Drinking coffee can be done mindfully. Take your time to smell the aroma and feel the cup’s warmth in your hands instead of slurping it like a robot. Another simple example is taking a shower; instead of rushing, take your time to feel the water on your skin, the pressure of the water, the temperature, and the water’s sound. Notice the scent of shampoo and soap. There are so many routine daily activities that we can all learn to do mindfully, teaching us to be more intentionally attentive.
Mindfulness and the Brain
Mindfulness changes the Neuroplasticity of the brain. The brain is not a static organ, and it can change its structure by training it to think differently (think car head trauma rehabilitation or post brain cancer patients). With a practice of mindfulness, every time we engage in positive thoughts and behavior and let go of negative ones, we are retraining the brain to think differently as well. In neuroscience, there’s an old saying,” Neurons that fire together wire together.” Basically, practice makes perfect.
We are creatures of habit, so if we start by noticing what we are thinking, without judging ourselves, coming from a place of compassion, that’s a start. Most of our thoughts are negative and repetitive (this is how we are wired). With mindfulness practice, we experience a shift. We simply need to notice these habitual patterns to begin with because we are what we repeatedly do.
Awarded first place in the children’s book category of the 2022 Delaware Press Association communication contest
“I Feel Better Now” introduces children to the tools of yoga and mindfulness. These practices help improve focus, bring a sense of calm, decrease stress and anxiety. They also improve social, emotional learning (self-awareness, self-regulation, decision making, social awareness, and social skills) when faced with challenging situations and emotions. “I Feel Better Now” has been introduced in several schools in Delaware and at the French American School in NY. It is available for purchase online through Amazon as well as locally in my hometown of Lewes, Delaware.
Drop a comment below if you have a story about how yoga and mindfulness came to your rescue as a parent or for your child. We would love to hear from you!
