The Big Circle of Colorful Dots
Sharing mindfulness with children with ADHD is one of my greatest joys.
For the past several years, Lisa Sheehan and I have had the good fortune to help administer a feasibility study as part of a clinical trial being run by Yale and funded by the National Institute of Health. In this program we work one-on-one with adolescents with ADHD for 16 sessions over the course of eight weeks teaching them short, age-appropriate meditation practices.
Sooner or later in the program there comes a moment when the child becomes aware of thoughts and impulses simply as part of their overall present moment experience. They become aware of Calm Mind, Monkey Mind and Stressed Mind and they begin to see that there are ways to get from Monkey Mind and Stressed Mind back to Calm Mind. They begin to feel the difference between those states of mind.
Recently, I was working with a 10-year old boy. We’ll call him Peter. We were about 12 sessions into our work together and had just finished a very brief meditation of about 2-minutes.
After I rang the chime signaling the end of the meditation, Peter said,
"Miss Erika, do you know what Mindfulness looks like to me?"
"No," I replied. "But, I'm really curious! What does Mindfulness look like to you?"
"Mindfulness looks like lots of colorful dots all arranged in a kind of circle."
He drew a big circle in front of his body by making a slow, graceful circular motion with his arms. I tried to picture what he was seeing, amazed at the description and how he was demonstrating it.
“That’s so interesting.” I said. “I’m curious - what does Monkey Mind look like to you?”
Peter began moving his arms wildly in front of him, in different directions, really fast. “It looks like colorful dots still, but they’re bouncing all over the place.” He spoke quickly and loudly as he demonstrated.
Ever since then I’ve become especially curious and love to ask people what mindfulness looks like for them. We are all the only witnesses to our inner experience. Each of our experiences may be different.
Meditation and mindfulness help us get familiar with our inner experience, which gives us information, and lets us see choices. For kids with ADHD, over time and with practice, they become aware of their ability to quiet their minds, to direct their attention and to let impulses come and go.
What does Mindfulness look like for you? I’d love to hear!!
Erika Long
Co-Founder, Community Mindfulness Project