Are you ready to meditate with Kari?
To lay down and relax and be still and quiet.
Let go of your day.
Let go of everything in your world.
Just be still.
Relax your muscles.
Maybe take a nice big deep breath.
Charlize was going back to school.
She was nervous.
She wasn't sure whether she was going to get a nice teacher.
She wasn't sure whether she was going to be with any of her old friends.
She didn't know whether she would be sat at a table with people that she liked.
She was nervous about just going back to school and hanging out at recess and being with people maybe she didn't know.
All of it was really overwhelming.
Instead of her being excited about going back to school,
She was really worried.
It was stressing her out no end.
Luckily Charlize had three stuffed animals.
Three stuffed animals that were cats.
They were cats that looked just like her favorite meditation stories,
Heidi,
Cherry and Veja.
She took to sleeping with them.
She took to taking them with her when she went places and she decided that they weren't that big and she could fit them in her backpack the first day of school.
The first day of school eventually came and Charlize went on her way with her free cats in her bag.
She had a lunch,
She had a new pencil case,
She had paper,
She had everything that she needed for school for the first day back.
But most importantly she had her friends with her,
Her cats.
They were right there at the bottom of her backpack.
It turns out that Charlize had a new teacher,
A new teacher that was actually new to the school so no one knew whether he was nice or not.
But on first impressions it seemed like he was a very nice teacher.
That was one thing less to worry about.
The other thing was she actually had one of her friends in the class,
The same class as her.
That was another thing that she was very happy about.
One thing that didn't work out so great was she was sat at a table with a bunch of kids that she didn't really get along with in the past.
Kids that were not so friendly you could say.
They were okay but they weren't really her friends and they weren't really her type of people.
They were a little bit clicky.
Two of them were girls that were in a clique of about five girls that everyone knew about.
They were kind of like the popular girls and Charlize really wasn't one of those type of girls.
She was awesome and she was cool but she wasn't in the popular gang.
You know what that's like.
Every school has a popular gang right?
So when she ended up being sat with two of them from that gang she wasn't very happy.
It came to recess and she decided that she needed to just sit.
Maybe not do very much at all.
Just sit and think about the pluses and the minuses of her first day of school.
The pluses were she had an okay teacher and she had a friend in her class.
The minuses were she was sat with two popular kids that she didn't really like.
There wasn't anything wrong with being popular.
I mean each to their own she thought.
But somehow there's this feeling that if you're not in the popular gang then you're less than or you're not as cool or you're just not as awesome right?
And Charlize didn't really think that.
She thought she was awesome.
She thought she was awesome because she listened to Cherry a lot and if you know Cherry you know that Cherry just thinks she's absolutely amazing.
She's very confident.
She decided to get the cats out of her backpack but she was sat at recess.
She was talking to them.
Nobody really noticed everybody was doing their own thing.
She heard Cherry inside of her mind.
OMG Charlize this is amazing.
You have a really nice teacher and you have one of your friends in class and you know so what if you've got two girls that you don't think you really like very much at your table.
That's okay.
You never know.
Maybe just maybe they'll get to know you and when they get to know you they'll see how awesome you are and you never know.
You never know they might actually be really nice girls.
They said me think so too.
Don't always judge a book by the cover Charlize.
Me thinks that you should give people a chance because you never know right?
Right Heidi?
Heidi said that's right.
That's both of you.
Good advice.
Charlize.
Just be open minded because these two girls might be just as nervous as you are even though on the outside you think they're super popular and confident and everything is fantastic in their world.
It might not be.
So you just be you.
You stay open minded and give people a chance.
Charlize listened to the advice of her bestest friends the cats.
Cherry said and you know what what else you need to to remember.
Remember this.
Remember that you are COOL.
COOL you're absolutely cool and you know everybody has their own special qualities and you don't have to be in a popular gang to be awesome.
You know that right?
Don't you?
Because I was never in a popular gang.
Look at me.
I'm absolutely amazing.
I'm like one of the best people I know in this all entire world.
I think that you should feel like that too because that way it doesn't really matter if people don't like you because you don't have to take it personal.
I never take it personal do I.
I said no.
No I don't because I just like people think whatever they want about me and that's absolutely okay because at the end of day is what I think about myself not what anybody else thinks about me.
It's what I think about me and I think I'm absolutely COOL just like you Charlize.
So that means if you think the same as me you'll be all right no matter what.
Because if people talk about you,
If people say bad things about you,
If people decide that they're gonna spread rumors about you,
If people decide that they're gonna exclude you and leave you alone and all that mean stuff that can happen at school then you know what just tell yourself I am COOL.
I am COOL.
I am COOL.
Just keep saying it in your mind like a mantra you know like some kind of yeah a mantra because mantras are awesome and mantras help you to believe in yourself if you say the right ones and I say I'm COOL to myself all the time and you know what it does it helps me to relax.
It helps me to not think that everybody else's opinion is so important because it's not.
It's not that important.
Cherry went on and on and on like a normal self but Charlize needed to listen.
She needed to hear all of Cherry's advice.
It was good advice after all.
When she went back into class after recess she decided to do exactly what Faye and Cherry and Heidi said.
Keep an open mind.
She decided to start a conversation with the two girls from the popular group.
Just little words like did you have a good summer?
What did you guys do?
That kind of stuff.
This led to a conversation.
They all started talking about summer and within like five minutes of talking when they weren't supposed to be talking in class by the way,
Of five minutes of talking she discovered she had a lot in common with these two girls that she would have never realized that she had in common with them if she'd have not kept an open mind.
Things could possibly be okay this year she thought.
She didn't want to be in the popular group or anything like that but it was nice to know that the girls in the popular group are actually a lot like her.
Not very different at all.
This made her feel very good.
When she got home she told her mom and dad all about her first day of school.
She went upstairs,
Did her homework,
Come downstairs,
Had her dinner,
Then had a shower,
Then got comfortable in bed,
Read her book for a while.
She loved to read.
She read her book for a while and then she decided it was time to relax.
Time to just let go of her day.
Her actual great day.
She thought about all the things to be grateful for about her day and then she closed her eyes and started to relax.
She did a few deep breaths like Kori talks about.
Nice deep breaths all the way down to her tummy.
This helped her to get comfortable,
To start to slow down and it didn't take very long at all before her mind started to get quiet and her body relaxed.
And eventually she was fast asleep.
With Heidi,
Cherry and Veya her stuffed toys laid right there next to her.
The end.
