Creating Connection
Whether you are a teacher or a parent to a child or adolescent, connections are imperative in order for relationships to exist. You do not have to be a yoga teacher to incorporate yoga tools as part of your every day. Most of yoga lies in the simple yet complex thing that keeps us alive – breathing.
Yoga has this profound ability to connect mind, body and spirit through breath and movement. When children feel safe, heard and understood, their capacity and yearning for connection and knowledge expands. When we can connect, we get to discuss fundamental things such as emotional regulation, self-awareness and turning inward to find calm in an overstimulated world. You will quickly experience the subtle yet profound changes of mind and body that happens within you as well.
Practicing the simple act of breathing with your child in a time of a meltdown or a chaotic day gives you the chance to follow a path that benefits both of you. If connection doesn’t come easy to you or your child, remember that simply breathing creates compassion and provides you opportunities to be present with your child. Breathing allows you to “connect and redirect.”
As Daniel Siegel,a professor of clinical psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute,suggests, combining the left and right brain provides clarity and understanding by using the logical left brain and the emotional right brain. When your child is upset, they are functioning in their part of the brain known as the limbic system, operating on the emotional level where the only way to get through is emotionally. Once you have met your child emotionally through connection, you can then begin to use logic and problem solving to get both of your needs met. It is important to remember, as Siegel says, “ no matter how nonsensical and frustrating our child’s feelings may seem to us, they are real and important to our child. It’s vital that we treat them as such in our response.”
Yoga Ed. is an educational company dedicated to changing education through the practice of yoga. Below are provided step-by-step instructions.
Try these two yoga breathing exercises:
Balloon Breath – Place one or both hands on your belly and breathe deeply. Inhale, feeling your belly rise. Exhale and feel the belly lower. Invite children to imagine their bellies like a balloon. As they breathe, they blow their balloon up into their hands. As they breathe out, they deflate their balloon away from their hands.
Lion Breath - To release excess energy or tension. Sitting tall in your body, imagine you are a lion waiting to pounce. Inhale through your nose. Exhale with a roar, opening your mouth wide and stick your tongue out, bringing your hands to the sides of your face, fingers spread apart (like a lion’s mane).
Implementing these two exercises will help you create deeper connections with your child.
Tania Zimmer is a yoga instructor at Better Gym Gig Harbor.
