Express Yourself

People are not mind-readers... I have met a few that claim they are, but a mere few minutes with them prove that they are not.

Nobody knows your inner world unless you express yourself.

We tend to get disappointed or feel misunderstood, but half of the responsibility is ours, we need to express what we feel and what we want. We need to cast our spell, say the words, for the magic to happen.

Yes... With it, we run the risk of being TOO MUCH, but also the possibility of being heard and understood and maybe for once getting what we really want, and above all enjoying the freedom of being accepted as we truly are!

It is way better than walking around like the living dead feeling small and insignificant, disconnected from the world and everyone, and most significantly, disconnected from ourselves.

This is because expressing ourselves is not just about saying what we want, what we think and what we feel, but it is also about expressing who we are.

I remember nearly 10 years ago in one of our 300 hour Rainbow Yoga Teacher Trainings... I was shining doing some crazy yoga, reinventing it all! There were just a couple of people there that thought that I’m too much, too crazy, too loud, too intense, too not traditional... I listened and I adapted the schedule and the practice. Everyone loved the training anyway, but I felt that it was the worst one I ever taught. This is because I stopped myself from being me.

Look, you can’t please everyone, you are not an avocado. Or like my Rabbi used to say “there is one thing that even God cannot do... Please everyone!”

To shine, to thrive, to truly live, we need to be able to be us.


You got to be unashamedly you or you’ll feel dead.
Angel and I have spoken about it just a few weeks ago... She was a bit loud and intense talking to our teenager kids, in a good way though, and I said something along the lines of “you are too much”. Immediately I saw her light deem. I apologised and we both promised each other to never stop each other or pull each other down in this way.

We also have our 8-year-old youngest son Indigo here... He is intense! Loud, fast, inventive, impulsive... He never stops! Oh, how many times do we hear in our house “Indi, slow down” or “Indigo, it’s too much” etc? We try to do it less and less... What right do we have to subdue him and break his spirit?

But this makes me understand how I may be TOO MUCH at times and yes, it is important to adjust ourselves to our environment too... But not in the expense of us feeling like us, like we are true to ourselves, like we are allowed to be ourselves, like we are allowed to shine and express who we truly are and the gifts we have to give to the world!

It is always about balance... As long as we find enough space and time to express ourselves and enough people who believe in us (one is all that’s needed), people who will let us be ourselves, then we are in the clear.

It is an uphill battle though because since we were children people have tried to make us small.

So let’s push a bit more in this direction and spend the next hour expressing ourselves!

Bring: Paper + Texters

Growing Into Your Full Potential

Have a short discussion with the group about self-expression (you can use some of the ideas above and your own experiences).

Now give each participant a piece of paper and some texters and ask them to draw themselves.

It definitely does not need to look realistic!
Now ask them to add images and words to give themselves everything that they need to be their best self and their full expression of themselves.
If the group feels comfortable, they can share their drawings and explain what and why they have written and drew those elements.

5-10 Minutes

Personal Weather Report

Summon the weather report that best describes your feelings at the moment. Sunny, rainy, stormy, calm, windy, tsunami, foggy?

Each child in their turn shares their personal weather report.
Expressing how we feel helps us release those emotions AND it helps others to understand how we feel so that they can support us more.

5 Minutes

Sun Dance With a Weather Theme

This is an idea of one of the AMAZING students at our Online Level 2 training!

What if we had to do our Sun Dance on a windy day? Do the Sun Dance but be blown around by the wind!

Or what if you had to do the Sun Dance in a thunderstorm? Mabey combine a lot of jumps for when you get zapped by lightning!

Bring back everyone wether report from the previous exercise and create a short Sun Dance for each.
If you feel like your group is already open to being super creative, let each of them create their specific weather Sun Dance.

5-10 Minutes

Red Scarf Leader

Let’s continue to express ourselves with movement!

With some fun music playing, stand in a circle holding scarves. If you can, have one scarf be a different colour (red in our example), or make a knot on one of the scarves to distinguish it from the rest. Whoever holds the different scarf is the leader and everyone else in the circle has to follow their movements (no words).

If you teach online, have each child find a scarf or a tissue or a pillowcase or another object that they can find in their home and have them take turns leading by calling their name.

The last movement of the dance should be passing the scarf in some way or another to the next person in the group. Everyone imitates and passes their scarf to the next person in the circle and now it’s the next person’s turn to lead. You can also indicate the passing of the scarves by counting all together “one, two, three” and passing the scarves on the “three”.

Fun in this game:
● Use dance and drama
● Use the scarf in your dance
● Combine yoga poses or movements
● Combine sounds (but no instructions or words)

This is about self-expression - So let loose and be creative!

5-10 Minutes

Freedom Within Safe Boundaries Dance

This exercise is about self-expression and it requires trust.

Divide into pairs. And if practising online, call a parent or a sibling in to help.
One partner closes their eyes or is blindfolded. When the music starts they dance freely and as wild as they wish while the other partner protects them from hitting other dancers.

Dancers, don’t hold back! Give it all! Make it a dance of your full self-expression and have fun
with it!

Change music and switch roles.

10 Minutes

Self Expression Circle

Sitting in a circle, or one at a time on the screen, everyone takes a turn sharing something with the group, such as performing a song, a dance, a poem, a joke, or an interesting fact, or teaching a new skill.
Everyone is encouraged to be supportive and attentive when others share.

5-10 Minutes

If You Really Knew Me

Divide into pairs. If teaching on Zoom you can use the Breakout Rooms feature to do that.

One student will be the listener while the other will be the talker. Instruct student the listener to listen attentively to the speaker for a specified amount of time (perhaps 30 seconds for very young children or a few minutes for older children) while the talker finishes the sentence “If you really knew me, you would know that...”.

They can finish this sentence with any information about themselves, whether it’s their family structure, the classes they like best in school, their hobbies, their pets, their favorite or least favorite things or anything else they’d like to share.
The talker repeats this sentence several times, completing it with a new piece of information each time.

When the time is up, we switch roles.
This game is another good way for students to get to know each other while practice active listening AND self-expression.

5 Minutes

Mantras/Positive Affirmations

Not often do we get a chance to wish ourselves well, to allow self-praise, to really believe we are worth it, school children and teenagers especially.
To allow ourselves to be more expressive we need to believe in ourselves.
The word Mantra means to protect the mind. Positive affirmations lift our spirits and make us feel strong and empowered, leaving less space for negative thoughts.

Have a discussion with your class about mantras and maybe give some examples first:

● I am in charge of my own happiness
● I am calm and in control
● I am good enough
● I deserve to be heard
● I am strong
● I am loved
● I am confident
● I am healthy

Ask each child to find an affirmation that they feel they are in need of today, then ask them to lie down, relax their bodies, close their eyes, breath deeply and repeat their mantra with each breath.

5 Minutes