What Children Say

Anna is 12 and going through one of those “phases”. No motivation for school. She feels tired and bored. At home, her mother has to run after her all the time.

We work with the concept “Responsibility Backpack”. In her backpack she finds 10 responsibilities like taking a shower, being nice to her friends or dancing class.

Now we also tip out her mother’s responsibility backpack. It is full and heavy. Anna realizes that three of the responsibilities are actually hers: doing homework, cleaning up her room and helping at home.

She begins to realize just much her single mom has to carry. Aha moment!

Anna decides that it is time for a bigger backpack. A responsibility backpack for teenagers. She fills it with all 13 tasks for which she is responsible.

We check if the backpack fits. She does notice that it is a bit heavier now – but she says she can handle it.

Ramona is only 5 years old. She kicks, hits, and has frequent fits. Even her three siblings don’t want to play with her anymore because of this behavior.

We set out to find her feelings. As is so often the case, she says they are red. Ramona sees mean smileys everywhere in her arms, hands, legs, and feet. She peels these smiley faces off like masks and throws them in the trash (middle).

Then we take a strong hose and wash everything away that is left over. She loves this part and laughs out loud.

A perfect moment to use this laughter! She laughs several times out loud into her hands, catches the laughter, and then sticks it somewhere in her body. We repeat this until she has laughter and joy everywhere inside her.

When asked where her “be kind-switch” is, she sticks her foot in the air, points her finger at her heel and says: “Here, right here in the heel. That’s where my be kind-switch is”. And yes, it is turned on.

At the end of the session, she chooses a necklace with a white stone as a gift. She explains that white stands for “behaving like an angel”.

In mindTV sessions, we often let children (and adults) describe what their bad habit would look like as a person. By doing this you give it a face, an identity – that is impressive!

Besides his personified nail-biting, a nervous little guy with a small body and a big head (bottom right), this 10-year-old boy drew some more aha-moments from the session:

Hair and nails (in the middle) are both grown by his body. He did not like the idea of eating his hair at all. Just the thought made him feel sick. So why eat nails?

By now he had probably eaten a whole bowl (top left) full of dirty fingernails. This comparison also made an impression on him and obviously stuck. 😊

Under the microscope, he saw all kinds of disgusting crawlers, living on his fingernails (left).

And because excitement was the trigger for his nail-biting, he splashed around a bit in a lake of serenity towards the end of the session.

When children deal with the loss of a parent, sadness, anger, and other painful feelings are completely understandable.

Of course, these feelings will not magically disappear. Nor can the loss be made forgotten. There are some things however we can give these children for their journey.

At the beginning of the session, this 9-year-old girl sees a lonely grey tree in her inner world. She touches it and immediately feels intense sadness and anger. On a scale from 0 to 10 she says it’s a 9! Some of her anger is directed at the parent who “left” her.

She says she needs all kinds of good feelings. We visit an amazing rainbow together. She fills a huge cup with rainbow water. It gets warm and tingles as she drinks the water and fills the emptiness inside her.

Later in this touching session she gets to meet her inner friend, who gives her additional strength and helps against loneliness.

At the very end we return to her inner world. The grey tree is shiny and beautiful now. She watered it with rainbow water.

The sun and the clouds in her drawing reveal it:
Up in heaven where her parent is, there is now more peace again.

Luisa is 5 years old. She could not yet part with her pacifier.

Watching TV in her mind she visited the fairy world. There she met the Pacifier Queen and agreed with her that she would give her pacifier to the fairies.

Luisa was quite choosy and only after some time did she find the perfect place. It was the rainbow cupboard in the queen’s house. The queen promised to take good care of the pacifier.

It’s moments like these that make this work so unique. 🥰

Lia’s wish was to have more self-control. She was sometimes overwhelmed by her emotions and she did not always know when to stop when dealing with other children.

In the session she flew over an enchanted forest. Behind a mountain was the world of fairies. A particularly kind fairy poured out self-control over her so that she could better control her emotions. 😃

Some children see fairies, others animals or superheroes. As a visualization coach you give impulses and ask questions, but we always work with the children’s visual world. They choose where the journey should go.

The other day a 6-year-old boy came in with a pretty crazy sadness. His parents were helpless, because he too could not tell them exactly why he was sad so often.

At the beginning of the session his whole heart was one big tear. After an intensive and touching session, in which we found amazing answers together, he drew the change:

His heart is alive again. It is full of the love of his parents (red). 🥰

Around his heart he painted remains of sadness. He was not yet ready to get rid of it completely. It’s not surprising, given the strength, persistence and complexity of his feelings.

Some children are ready to let go of something from the first moment. Others need more time. ⏳

A competent visualization coach does not put children under pressure. One does not insist on having to get rid of negative feelings, but carefully finds his way at the child’s pace until they recognizes on their own what they no longer need and can let go.

With this girl a lot of new things came together after a move – this made her nervous and restless inside.

During the session she installed a magnet in her chest. It would attract the positive and repel the negative.

She understood that positive things come back when you radiate positivity yourself. After the session she drew the new, good feeling of happiness, warmth and sunshine inside her. And turned her positivity upside down – the many plus signs. 😀

As a gift she received a necklace with a citrine stone, which she now wears around her neck. It will remind her every day of all the positive things inside her.

And as homework, she now regularly checks whether the magnet inside her is correctly adjusted.

In order to protect his ears, heart and mind from mean words, 9-year-old Milo installed magic headphones and a filter helmet in the first session.

Two weeks later he came for second session and said that the headphones and helmet were not strong enough. So Milo got creative!

He designed a completely new concentration helmet with a friendly skunk inside. The skunk got his own bed and even his own cuddly toy.

Milo laughed out loud several times as he described how the skunk’s smell did what it was supposed to do. The two boys, who sometimes bully him, ran away as fast as their feet could carry them.

Of course, visualization cannot change the circumstances or the behavior of others. You can however achieve a lot in terms of building strong self-confidence and a healthy self-image. A self-confident child has a completely different body language. Self-confidence makes all difference, because the child is no longer an easy target.