Meet The Creator

“Are we going to do meditation stories today?” asked Max.

Those words, said by one of my young students, were the spark that led to the creation of Wee Meditate.

Let me take you back to that day, a few years ago, when I sat at a small, round table with a little boy named Max. Like most elementary classrooms, the air smelled like crayons and pencil shavings.

Max struggled to place pegs in a wooden board, his frustration and anxiety rising with every missed attempt. Max had been assigned to me as part of the field work for my Master’s Degree in Special Education.

I was told teachers had tried, without success, to teach him, but his anxiety and behaviors made it almost impossible for him to learn.

Legally blind, and losing his ability to walk, Max (age 8) had Batten disease, a progressive, debilitating, and terminal illness. But unlike the professionals who had worked with Max before me, I am a meditation teacher, writer, and a storyteller.

For years I had taught meditation and mindfulness to my young students through stories and made my classrooms calmer and kinder places. I reached across the table, took his little hand in mine and said, “Max, I am going to tell you a story.”

He put the pegs down, leaned in close, and listened as I wove a blend of meditation and mindfulness techniques into a story, kind of like a meditation fairytale.

Max became a superhero, who, along with a cast of animal characters, used meditation techniques to feel calm, right there, in that moment.

As I told the story, Max meditated with the characters, becoming calm and relaxed. I began teaching him his lesson, again weaving his learning objectives into a meditation story.

With permission from my principal and graduate advisor, I wrote a curriculum that taught Max’s IEP goals through stories.

Max’s anxiety decreased, he became excited and engaged about learning. Max met his IEP goals that year, and I discovered the power of meditative stories to change a life.

Max’s parents said that meditation had reduced his anxiety, improved his behaviors, and enabled him to relax when he wasn’t feeling well.

One afternoon as I walked toward Max’s classroom I heard the tip-tapping of Max’s cane coming down the hall.

I said hello to him and he asked, “Are we going to do meditation stories today?” When I said yes, a huge smile lit his face and he yelled, “Yay!”

Max was no longer an anxious and depressed child who had behavior challenges. He was happy, vibrant and hopeful, and he loved meditating in the storybook world I created.

Meditation had become Max’s superpower, and his parents had never considered meditation as something that would help him, or something that he could do.

I realized there were many meditation resources for adults, but found there were none designed especially for children of all abilities.

Internet searches showed children meditating on a mountaintop or sitting quietly on a cushion with their hands in a mudra position.

But what about a child who meditates in a wheelchair, with a service dog, or while rocking in a swing? What about meditation for a child who is deaf, has vision loss, or autism? What about a child with asthma who can’t focus on their breath, or a child who needs to meditate from their hospital bed?

Meditation looks different for every child, but it can be done by everyone, and it wasn’t being presented in that way. I thought of Max, and remembered the transformative power of meditation in the life of a little boy with a debilitating and terminal illness.

I realized that there are so many other little ones, like Max, whose lives would be enriched by learning how to meditate.

The benefits of meditation, like reduced anxiety, better sleep, and increased focus and immunity, needed to be made accessible and kid-friendly.

So many children were missing out on meditation because they didn’t have a meditation platform that is story-based, inclusive, and representative of their needs.

With the dream of making meditation inclusive and accessible for every child, I created Wee Meditate.

Wee Meditate is the only meditation platform that teaches meditation in the way that children learn best, through stories, with engaging animal characters, which represent every child.