I woke up this morning at 4.30 with a horrible pain in my stomach. “What’s going on?” I thought, I had stuff on my mind but nothing that would cause this. When my little girl got up, she said to me “Mummy, what’s wrong?”. “Nothing”, I replied, as I ran out of the room heading for the bathroom for the fifth time!
On my return I tried to have breakfast, but this horrible pain would not settle. She looked at me and said, “I know what’s wrong, you wrote your blog now everyone knows your feelings and you are scared”. I looked at my little girl in shock and awe! How can someone so young understand so much when I didn’t even understand it myself! “Mum, you need to meditate with me”, she said. Instead of pushing her theory aside, I listened. She said, “Follow what I do, we do this in class!”
She made me sit on the edge of my chair with my back straight, lay my hands in my lap one on top of the other, and asked me to close my eyes. She then said she needed a “singing bowl”, we didn’t have one so she improvised and used a tin filled with stickers that was on the table. She struck it three times. She then asked me to repeat the word “Maranatha”, over and over in my mind, she said that they had been doing this in class and the mantra meant “God be with me” or “Our Lord Has Come”, in another language. We did this for a few minutes until she struck the “singing bowl” another three times. She then said “Open your eyes!” And I saw her beautiful, smiling face. She said to me “We meditated!” And yes, we had.
I kid you not, the pain had gone. I felt a heavy weight lift and I felt calm. I got a few cramps every now and then but the horrible pain had gone.
My little girl had looked into my soul and understood what I was feeling before I could. The fact that I had suppressed my intimate feelings about my and my son’s bullying experience for so long, had led to a very confronting, emotional backlash from my inner self once I had put it all out there for everyone to read. I see that now and I know that now, but it took my nine year old daughter, to show me.
We had a moment this morning, a moment I will never take for granted and I will never forget. “I love you”, I said as usual when I dropped her off at school, but then I added, “Today you taught me something amazing, and you changed my life forever, thank you!” Her smile said it all.
She took the “singing bowl” home from school today, (see picture above), and made us all meditate after dinner tonight! Who wanted to wash up after that! We were way too relaxed!
I learnt today that meditation connects us to our soul. I suppose I had always known this, but had never felt it before now.
Our kids are our greatest gifts. They have important, valuable things to say, what we need to do is make sure that we listen.