This is a nice meditation for a chilly day for children of all ages.  Every child is unique so if there’s anything you suspect may frighten or make your child uneasy, please use your creativity to modify it in order to best serve your child. If you use this meditation with your child, please let me know how it went.  I love getting feedback from parents and children about what works the best.


Take a deep breath inhaling and exhaling slowly a few times....

Imagine you are walking through a forest on a bright, cold day.  Your nose is chilly and your hands are a little cold, so you walk rather briskly.  You come around a bend and are happy to see a very inviting, cozy looking home with smoke coming from the chimney.  The sign on the door says “welcome, please come in” so you walk into the home.  The living room has golden walls and sunlight streams in through a skylight.  There is a fireplace filling the room with a rosy glow and a comforting feeling of warmth.  You take off your winter coat and you see a soft chair near the fire to sit on.  A cute furry creature, your favorite animal comes to sit near you. You close your eyes enjoying the warmth of the room.   Place your hands over your heart and notice how your hands warm your heart.  Take a couple slow breaths here for a moment. Now think of someone you love very much.  It could be a friend, a parent, a brother or sister, a teacher, even an animal - someone who has shown you kindness and love.  Imagine seeing this person comes into the cozy room.  They light a white candle on a table nearby and come to sit next to you. You start to feel the love generated by this person. When you feel loved by someone, you may be able to feel your heart soften, allowing their love to come directly into your heart.  You may also feel your own love for them flowing out of your heart back to them.  Someone once said that confidence is knowing you are loved.  Can you feel how when you’re with someone who truly loves you, accepts you just the way you are and knows how valuable you are, you can feel good about yourself no matter what else is going on around you?  Love gives you positive energy and makes you feel strong.  It brings out the love that lives inside of you.  

Now imagine that your loved one gives you a hug and says goodbye for now.  You are still in the cozy place and it is filled with the glow of the love between you and your special person.  Once again, you put your hand over your heart (in real life or you can imagine it) and you feel it beating softly.  Your heart is the place where all the love that’s inside of you flows from you into the world.  It’s also the place that has information for you that’s important and true.  You hear a voice that is kind of quiet at first and you realize that it is the voice of your heart.  Your heart wants to talk to you here since it is safe and quiet and you are able to listen.  You become even more still and listen to the voice.  Your heart has a message for you. Take another deep breath and listen to the message from your heart.  Now ask your heart what is the best way for me to allow my heart to do what it wants.  Imagine yourself doing it and seeing your heart full of light and flowing with love.  How does your life look when it is guided by the heart?  

Enjoy the feeling of your heart-centered life.  The heart never runs out of love so your dreams can be as big as you want them to be.  Notice how it feels when your heart is flowing.  Take another breath and still keeping your heart open, you blow out the candle and let the fire go out - the light and warmth will remain in your heart.  Slowly, you say good bye to the animal and put on your winter jacket.  You can always come back here, so you scan the space once more to remember it and walk out through the front door noting the house number as you go.  You walk back through the forest, but it feels a little different than when you were walking before.  There is a warm glow around you and sunlight streams down through the trees and you see things more clearly and vibrantly.  All the colors of the trees, ferns and flowers seem to be glowing and more colorful than you remember.  You breath in the pine scented air and you could swear that you feel love coming from the trees, rocks, birds, butterflies and nearly everything you see.  You feel just as safe and loved in the forest as in the cozy home.  So you enjoy your walk and slowly return to the beginning of the path.