Mindfulness for Teenagers and Teen Anxiety. The aim of Leona’s teachings is to bring Mindfulness, Meditation, Wellness and Emotional Resilience to teenagers and to enhance their daily lives with ‘forever’ coping tools and techniques to use during the daily demands and struggles of life that they face.
Leona is an Irish based IMMA Accredited Creative Mindfulness Kids Practitioner and Mindset Life Coach. She lives in Co Meath with her 3 children and her husband.
She is a regular Mindfulness and Wellness writer for the Celtic Media Group. She is also a debut children’s author with the first book in her new ‘Lucy’s Mindful Life’ book series for children being published in Spring 2022!
Having suffered with anxiety, fear, worry and panic as a young child, into her teenage years and early adulthood, Leona is delighted to share with you the tools and techniques that she uses daily to live alongside her own anxieties. Her personal experience and teachings empower children, teenagers and adults ‘from the inside out’.
Leona is delighted to bring to you her creative and empowering Mindfulness for Teenagers and Teen Anxiety online programme!
The aim of Leona’s online programme is to bring Mindfulness, Meditation, Wellness and Emotional Resilience to teenagers and to enhance their daily lives with ‘forever’ coping tools and techniques to use during the daily demands and struggles of life that they face.
Leona empowers those she works with and instills the knowledge that ‘Everything we NEED is already WITHIN us’, we just need to learn how to use these internal, built in tools! Leona helps teenagers to realise, learn and use their internal strength and internal resources to build their confidence, mental, emotional and physical resilience and self belief.
Leona teaches teenagers using the Mindfulness, Kindness, Compassion, Self-Compassion and Resilience practices she uses daily in her own life to help her to live a calm, happy, peaceful and confident life. Leona’s teachings contain adapted methods from the works of Louise Shanagher and Dr Christopher Willard.
Leona has designed and will deliver her teachings in the following format:
Each weekly class includes the following elements:
Leona’s teachings help teenagers to learn and understand that they don’t have to be afraid of their thoughts and emotions, that they don’t have to believe what their thoughts tell them, that they are not their thoughts, that they are so much bigger than their thoughts.
Each lesson will help teenagers to realise that it is ok to experience different thoughts, emotions, feelings and the physical sensations that these can create in their body.
Teenagers will feel empowered that they now have mindful tools in their ‘Mindful Tool Box’ to help them to self-regulate their breathing, their thoughts and their emotions.
Teenagers will learn the importance of accepting each emotion as they experience it, learn to be-friend themselves and these emotions and cultivate a knowing that all emotions and feelings are ok and that they all belong in our body and heart, they are a part of us too.
Teenagers will be equipped with a set of ‘forever’ coping tools and techniques to use in their daily lives, which will enable them to live comfortably alongside their anxieties, fears and stressors.
Image by Deirdre Rusk Photography @ https://www.deirdrerusk.com/
In Lesson 1, we talk about how our thoughts and emotions can create a 'Mind Storm' and how it is normal to experience different thoughts, emotions and physical feelings inside of our bodies when this happens. We also do a lovely breathing exercise, a guided meditation and answer some reflective questions.
In Lesson 2, we talk about how we can describe our busy minds of thoughts and emotions like a 'Monkey Mind'. We talk about and practise how we can calm and tame the busy monkeys in our minds. We also do a lovely breathing exercise, a guided meditation amd answer some reflective questions.
In Lesson 3, we talk about how Mindfulness and Meditation are like a 'work-out' for our brain and how they can help to strengthen our brain and keep our brain fit and healthy. We also do a lovely breathing exercise, a guided meditation and answer some reflective questions.
In Lesson 4, we talk about how 'Ruminating Thoughts' can play over and over continuously in our mind and what we can do to help to break the cycle of these 'Ruminating Thoughts'. We talk about how we can imagine that our mind is like the 'Bright Blue Sky' and that our thoughts are like the 'Clouds' that pass by in the sky and we also do a lovely breathing exercise, a guided meditation and answer some reflective questions.
In Lesson 5, we talk about the importance of being kind, caring and compassionate towards ourselves and towards others. We talk about how we can learn to treat ourselves like we would treat our very best friend through kindness and self-compassion. We also do a lovely breathing exercise, a guided meditation and answer some reflective questions.
In Lesson 6, we talk about how Mindfulness and Meditation can help to build our 'Resilience', our ability to cope with the stresses and strains of daily life. We talk about how focusing on our strengths and accepting our weaknesses help us to build our outer and inner confidence. We also do a lovely breathing exercise, a guided meditation and answer some reflective questions.
Hi, I’m Leona McDonnell and I am a Mindfulness Teacher. I empower the children, teenagers and adults that I work with through Mindfulness, Meditation and Wellness with the belief that they already have all of the resources they need inside themselves to be the best version of themselves possible …. they just need to learn how to connect to and utilise these internal resources.
I teach those I work with how to experience calm, peace and serenity in their everyday lives and I teach people how to reduce the everyday chatter in their minds.
Having always being a very nervous and anxious child and teenager, from being afraid of my own breath, my own heartbeat, my own shadow, from undergoing numerous emergency medical surgeries with complicated recoveries, ICU admission, from anxiety, trauma and post natal depression to getting glandular fever in my mid 30’s, with 2 young children at home, working outside the home and also running my own Healing Practice, I hit breaking point in my own life some years back. I was stuck in a state of ‘Flight’, in a state of continuous panic. I had a broken mind, a broken body and a depleted soul. I didn’t know what to do, where to go, how to fix things. It was the toughest time and recovery of my life….
I then stumbled upon a local Yoga class and I decided to join it to see if I could create some calmness into my invasive mind and thoughts. I can remember not being able to even change my own natural breathing rhythm for the first few weeks, as I was in such a panicked state. As time went on, I grew to love Yoga as it made me reconnect with my body and my breath. It made me learn to trust my breath again.
I then went on and sought out Mindfulness tools and techniques that I could introduce into my daily life. I slowly learned how to become more present in my life. I learned how to stop ruminating in my past and how to stop worrying about my future and just be present and accept the only moment I could change, which is the present moment, the most important moment. I learned how to ‘Train my Brain’ using Mindfulness tools and techniques. Coupled with Gratitude Journaling, Meditation and with a lot of time spent outdoors in nature, I began to feel much better. I began to feel much more centered in myself, more grounded, calmer and more present.
After a number of years of my own daily Mindfulness, Meditation and Yoga practice, I felt amazing and had a zest for life! At this point, I decided that I needed to share with and help as many children and adults as I could with what helped me to transform my life! So I went on and did my Mindfulness training and here I am today!
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