Lesson 2. Heartfulness and Kindness
Guided Breathing Exercise | 5:00 | Heartful Breathing
This breathing exercise helps balance thoughts and emotions to achieve mental clarity, it also helps focus attention, increases emotional self-regulation and resilience.
Educators |
Before reading our breathing exercise remind your students to sit still with their mindful bodies on and spine tall like a mountain.
Now remind students to gently breathe in and slowly breathe out letting go of any tension they can feel in their mind and body.
Let's Begin |
- Close your eyes, and place your right hand on your heart.
- Take a moment to connect with your heart and try and notice how your heart is feeling right now.
- Slowly take a few deep breaths through your nose to the count of 4 and breathe out slowly to the count of 8, focusing all of your attention on your heart.
- Repeat one more time. Slowly take a few deep breaths through your nose to the count of 4 and breathe out slowly to the count of 8, focusing all of your attention on your heart.
- Now drop your right hand by your side and keep your attention on your heart, imagining your breath passing slowly in and out through your heart as you inhale and exhale.
- Imagine as you breathe in your mind in clearing and you are breathing in calm and peace into your heart.
- Now I would like you to remember a time in your life when you were thankful for someone or something in your life. Remember the feeling of love. It could be a friend a family member a pet or a special place.
- Stay with that feeling and notice how your heart feels
- Now send that thankful feeling to others that you care for in your life.
- You can also send that same sense of thankful feeling to yourself. Thank yourself for being you, for being kind, generous and creative, or for being a great friend. Notice how your heart feels now and how it feels when you send thanks to yourself.
- Slowly take a deep breath in and a deep breath out and when your ready slowly open your eyes feeling a sense of peace and calm.
Reflection |
- What did it feel like to focus on the heart area?
- Was it easy to think about something you were thankful for?
- How do you feel after that breathing exercise?
Mindfulness Lesson | 5:00 | Heartfulness
Objective: As students learn to build heartfulness, they can start to open their hearts to others.
Educators |
Today’s mindful skill is based on being mindful of your core feelings in your heart. Appreciation, gratitude, loving and caring. We are teaching students that speaking heartfelt phrases generates kindness for ourselves and others, and, also cultivates generosity and goodwill within ourselves.
When we say something positive like “I wish for your happiness” we find genuine care for others, or ourselves, in our heart. Even if we don’t feel happy at a particular moment, we can usually get in touch with at least a desire for happiness.
When we genuinely say “I wish to be happy”, we can usually get in touch with at least a desire for happiness, especially when we aren’t feeling good.
It takes courage to care for ourselves in this way and this sort of courage from just one student can transform a classroom environment.
Before We Begin |
Have some good wishes written on a whiteboard, some examples may include;
- May I be safe
- May I be happy
- May I be strong and healthy
- May I have a great day today
- May I try my best
- May I be helpful towards others
- May you be happy
- May you have a great day today
Let’s Begin |
Tell students today we will be learning about heartfulness. Heartfulness is a positive way of sending love and kindness to ourselves and others. This helps us to feel good and helps us to accept and care for ourselves, others in our lives and the whole universe.
Explain |
The practice of sharing kindness or heartfulness always begins with an understanding of friendly wishes, then they can more easily send loving kindness and friendly wishes to others.
The way we can do this is by connecting with our own hearts. As we send positive thoughts and wishes to our own hearts, we can then really open our heart to share our positive thoughts and wishes with others. This is what we call Heartfulness
Mindfulness Exercise | 5:00 | Heartfulness
Today we will be doing an exercise to explore how our heart feels and will learn how to send friendly wishes to ourselves and to others in our life, like a sibling, teacher or friend.
Let's Begin |
- Ask students to begin by simply closing their eyes placing their hands on their heart and seeing what they feel in there.
- Invite them to take some nice slow long breaths and notice what they feel in their chest at this moment
- Invite students to then begin to send themselves good wishes, keeping their hands to their heart. We can offer some examples for them to repeat such as, “may I be happy”, “may I be strong and healthy”, “may I be peaceful and calm”
- Ask the students to notice how this feels
Let's try again |
- This time, invite students to close their eyes again and place their hands on their hearts.
- Now ask students to picture someone who annoys them a little bit. As they picture this person, it could be a sibling, someone in class, a friend or even a teacher.
- As they picture this person, Invite your students to say some heartfelt phrases inwardly. You could offer some examples. " May you be happy", "May you be calm and peaceful", "May you have a wonderful day."
- Encourage students to continue thinking up some heartfelt phrases to inwardly, to send to this person if they wish.
- Ask students to open there eye's
- Now let's share some of the heartfelt phrases we were sending and perhaps write them on the whiteboard.
Reflection |
- How does it feel in your heart after this exercise?
- If there is time to explore with the class, ask how it felt to send good wishes to people with whom you are annoyed.
- Has that changed how we feel towards that person?
Mindfulness Life Practise |
Each morning you would like students to start cultivating heartfulness for themselves
Let your class know that the more they practise sending good wishes and kindness to themselves it is possible to totally change their attitude throughout the day. Using positive phrases is extremely powerful, whatever we pay attention to grows, whatever we practise we get really good at.
- Ask the class to practise using positive phrases that they may have learnt in the class today.
- Perhaps start the day with 3 good wishes for themselves and 3 others if they wish.
- Let your class know by spending time sending good wishes to ourselves and others we are strengthening and taking care of our hearts
Also, remember to practise your meditation
Guided Meditation | 9:34 | Heartfulness
Today in our meditation we will be practising Heartfulness. Heartfulness is a way of connecting with our hearts. It is also a way of caring and offering loving kindness to ourselves as well as others around us. As we practise sending loving kindness to ourselves and the world around, we begin to feel so good inside.
Join Isabelle as she guides another magical meditation for children.
Reflection |
- Did anyone send any good wishes listening to this mediation?
- How did that make everyone feel?
- Did you enjoy doing this type of mediation?
Mindful Game | Good Wishes Game
Objective: This game teaches children team building, open-mindedness as well as empathy and compassion towards self and others.
Materials |
- Make a dice a and write on each side
- Person to the left
- Person to the right
- A person directly opposite you
- To yourself
- To the teacher
- To the class leader
How to play |
- The group sits in a circle, legs crossed.
- Leaders begin by rolling the dice.
- Whichever side the dice lands on, the player must send 2 good wishes (heartfelt phrases) to that person.
- Give each player 10 Seconds to come up with 2 good wishes.
- No good wishes can be repeated,
- If a player can’t think of two good wishes in 10 seconds they are out and must sit with their legs straight.
- Pass the dice in clockwise direction until everyone has had a turn.
- If it is a small group, continue until the group runs out of ideas for good wishes.
Reflection |
- Was that game hard or easy
- How did it feel to send good wishes to others, or yourself
- How did it feel when you were sent good wishes
- Where did you feel it in your body
Mindful Journal | PNG Format |
Educators |
Slide your students' journal to your desktop and print.
