Students will learn:

1. How to recover from hurt feelings, like a sea star healing from a lost arm.
2. How to grow kind and heartful thoughts for themselves, others, and the world.

Ask students:

1. Who practiced mindfulness since last week on your own?
2. What did you practice?
3. Why did you practice it?
4. How did it help you?

Who can tell me what we learned from the dolphin last week? We learned to about body awareness from dolphins!

• Dolphins never bump into each other, even while swimming fast.
• We can use our own body senses and being aware to move safely and mindfully.

Guide students in a short fun practice:

• Put your arms out to your sides along your body and point your index fingers (Demonstrate). Now we’re going to raise our arms straight over our head and point your index finger towards each other.  Let’s close our eyes and try to touch the tips of our fingers together just by sensing the body like a dolphin, not using our eyes—our eyes are closed (demonstrate).
• Now you try it! (Give student some time to try and touch their fingers together without looking. What did you notice? Was it difficult or easy to try and touch your fingers together?

There are over 2000 species of sea stars, and they come in all different colors, shapes, and sizes. An amazing thing about sea stars is that if a sea star loses an arm by being attacked or is threatened by a predator, it can get away and grow a new arm.

Here’s a video of a sea star that’s being attacked by another sea star:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SLY7FkKKjEi5pUvcFTtXvN732-D6dusE/view?usp=sharing

Here’s a video of sea stars growing their arms back!

Starfish Limb Regeneration

We can learn from the sea star that when someone hurts our feelings, we can recover from our hurt. Like sea stars, we can choose to cultivate heartful thoughts of kindness that can help us heal our heart. Heartful thoughts are kind wishes and feelings that come from our heart.

So the next time someone makes you sad, you can take a pause, feel your mindful body, anchor your breath, and practice heartful thoughts which will allow you to heal your heart and feelings.

Magic Phrase: Heartful thoughts like the sea star.

Let’s practice heartful thoughts like the sea star and see what happens.

Practice in stillness (3 mins): 

Today we’ll learn about our hearts and how we can use them to send love and heartful thoughts to others, ourselves, and even to animals and plants. Rather than placing our hands on our belly, this time we will place our hands on our heart. This will be our signal to dive into our mindful bodies and mindful hearts. 

(Remind the students of the Blue Heron body if necessary.)

As you close your eyes, take a deep breath and bring your attention to the area of your heart. You might feel your heartbeat. As you continue feeling your heart area, imagine someone in front of you who makes you really happy every time you see them. It could be a friend or a relative. Imagine that person healthy and strong. Now see that person really happy. They may be smiling back at you, or doing something that they really like doing. See that person as the best they can be. Imagine that person peaceful, comfortable, and safe.

We will now send heartful thoughts to that person. Make sure you fill up your heart with love and kindness. You can repeat out loud or say quietly to yourself as you continue imagining that person: 

“May you be healthy.

May you be safe.

May you be happy.

May you be peaceful.” 

(Repeat). 

Now, you can send them a kind wish of your own. You may say, “I love you” or “I hope you feel better” or another kind wish of your own.

Now we’ll do the same thing for ourselves to practice for when we feel hurt. Repeat after me, either out loud or quietly to yourself:

“May I be healthy.

May I be safe.

May I be happy.

May I be peaceful.” 

(Repeat.)

Now, you can send yourself a kind wish of your own. You may say, “I love myself” or “I appreciate myself” or another kind wish of your own.

You can continue to practice seated, but if you want to get up and move and feel comfortable doing so, you can stand up, widen your legs and spread your arms like the sea star and send heartful thoughts of kindness to the whole world:

“May everyone be healthy.

May everyone be safe.

May everyone be happy.

May everyone be peaceful.” 

Then we can bring our hands back to our heart and repeat these phrases.

Now, you can send a kind wish of your own to everyone, using your own words to express kindness to everyone: plants, animals, people, the earth. 

Afterwards, if there’s time, you can repeat the cycle of hands held wide and then placed on the heart.

Invite students to practice heartful thoughts like the sea star throughout the week at home or school. 

Congratulate students and close with three mindful breaths all together.

“Now that you’ve learned to be heartful like a sea star, practice sending kind thoughts to someone you love or someone who might need it.

Let’s end with three deep whale breaths together.