The “Love Bubble” Meditation

Today’s afterschool yoga class stared with a seated meditation. I have been so pleased with the progress of meditation in this class and like to start the class by calming and focusing all the minds. We sat in a comfortable, seated position, with hands in our laps, palms up, one hand cradled inside the other. I started by asking the students to listen for the sounds around them and then to locate a place of silence in all the noise, so our minds could rest. We then turned our focus to our bodies, paid attention to how we felt, and let go of any tension (here I led them through a foot-to-head “heaviness” exercise. At the belly we stopped for a moment and felt our breath and at the overhead, I mentioned that should feel their brows were cool); our final focus went to the breath, first as something to hear and then as something to feel. I started the “Love Bubble” meditation: I suggested to them to “feel happy” to “feel love” to “feel good”. I asked them to think of someone they wanted to send some love to, this person could be alive or passed on, a parent, a grandparent, a sibling, a friend…anyone alive or not. While thinking of this person, we felt “happy”, “love”, and “good”. We then imagined a large pink bubble surrounding our loved one. We allowed this bubble to float up to the sky above us and then drift into the air, heading towards “our loved one”. As the bubble floated away, I had them once again find their silence, relax their bodies and breathe.

Today’s classes theme was: “things that fly” and “things in the sky”

For warm-up we started seated: Fly Like A Butterfly, arm flap, Wind-Releasing Pose (Pavanamuktasana) and Caterpillar (which is what I called spinal warm up today). Then standing, feet firmly planted, swing arms and torso side to side loosely for Helicopter.
In the sky, we saluted the sun (Suryanamaskar); Triangle pose (Trikonasana) led us to ½ Moon (Ardha Chandrasana); Airplane; Eagle (Garudasana); Squat led us to Crane (Bakasana); Final power pose, Rainbow or commonly known as Wheel or Upward Facing Bow Pose (Urdhva Danhurasana). I of course gave spots to all during Crane & Wheel.
Down we went for ½ Pigeon stretch.

Savasana: Lying down, completely still, hands by your side, palms open to feed the birds we had just conjured up, I brought back the “Love Bubble” and had them imagine it was now en-wrapping them. It was filling them with happiness, love and goodness. We felt ourselves float up to the sky and let the air currents gently move us around, and then imagined gently floating back to the ground, with a warm body and cool forehead.
Seated in Easy Pose, we did acapella version of “We’re The Rockin’ Yogis & Yoginis”.

Namaste!