Embodied Meditation: Quantum Coherence for Developing Conscious Empowerment

Embodied Meditation: Introduction to the Middle-School Program       June 1, 2016

Dear delightful friends,

Over the 35 years that I’ve been in clinical practice I have heard one comment over and over, many times a year. People will find themselves at the end of their session feeling transformed and cock their heads in wonder and say, “Why don’t they teach us these practices when we’re in school? My life would have been so different.” I KNOW, if only.

So here I am out digging in the garden a couple of weeks ago and that same question echoed thru me out of the blue, and I paused wondering why. The response came in loud and clear, “Because it’s now time for you to do it, start with the middle-schoolers.”

REALLY? What a great idea! 

This project is now consuming me day and night…researching what is happening with meditation in schools, lots of studies mostly with TM and Mindfulness with a couple of big celebs behind it. 

I was not finding anything about building the coherence of the subtle energy bodies along with the flow patterns of grounding and centering until I remembered HeartMath Institute (lots of support there for building heart, mind, essence coherence). Lots of significant information in the Quantum (energy) Sciences, and Energy Medicine and Energy Psychology, some of my favorite domains.

I’ve been wondering about the local schools systems, their possible interest, paths of engagement, funding. I’ve been talking with enthusiastic parents, they’re loving the idea and are eager for me to start programs for the younger students as well. 

I have no real questions of the efficacy of this program. Beyond all the research that has recently been done with meditation in schools, I’ve seen what happens with these energy-mastery tools every day in myself and in my work for 35 years, both with adults and children. 

I’ve taught these practices to four-year olds who went from wild to self-aware, and happy to have tools for their personal use. 

One of my clients was a 7-year old girl who had such anxiety that she would tremble, burst out crying and in horrors. She was so much more sensitive to energy than her parents could understand. But I was also that child, and am that adult, and I have a container for what she’s experiencing. 

After a couple of sessions she constructed her home meditation space and practiced every day, along with the friends she was teaching. She learned a handful of tools and empowered herself to be relaxed, fully present, grounded, centered and open-hearted. For her birthday she brought along 3 friends and we had an energy-attunement party. We all left feeling exquisitely present, alive and joyful.

And then there was that call from Billings Middle School last spring, asking my assistance. They were focusing on their “roots” and the roots of depression and the root of death were on some of the students’ minds. I was being asked to help them to get to the root of their questions.

In my experience the root of any question about life is something along the line of, “how rooted are you in the fullness of you, in the expansive NOW, and in relation to self, earth and the greater community?” I used this question, with a mix of experiential energy activations and coherence building practices with them. In 2.5 hours these students went from being “anywhere BUT here, to present, insightful, engaged and erudite while they shared their experience of their transformation.

The teacher, who bravely participated in the activities was agog, as well as being aware of his shifts in his body and in his consciousness. He also mused wistfully about how the middle-school experience would be so different if these skills were part of the curriculum.

This is what I want to do. I want to offer students, teachers and parents tools and experiences, enabling quantum skill acquisition and conscious capacity building. Practices of coherence change our perceptions of who we are, and our experience of what’s possible. In our very distracted society it feels essential that we learn to come back to an embodied experience of living, one which gives us access to a felt sense of wholeness, a resonance with our emotional intelligence, and a path to our inner resources.

Do you want to see meditation in the schools? I am prepared to build a curriculum and teach it. I would  love some brilliant people around me to assist me in putting Embodied Meditation into the schools. I am very excited about this journey, and would be delighted to share it with you.

Whether you are a parent, a webmaster, a business support person or a school savvy person, I would love to talk with you about all this. If you feel called to contribute to the many expenses of this project I'm delighted to receive your support. It will probably take a village to get this rolling. Contact Cherie Byrd, MA

In great joy and deep appreciation,

Cherie