Picture a child sitting still with eyes closed, being asked to imagine a wide green field, a warm yellow sun, and a fistful of big colorful balloons, and then to send each worry floating out of their body and up into the sky. That is the whole design of "Let Go of Worries," a roughly six-and-a-half-minute guided meditation for kids that Ryan Judd published on February 19, 2019. Judd, who describes himself as an internationally known music therapist and ChildLight Yoga and Mindfulness instructor, built the piece for children with ADHD and anxiety, and its structure is worth studying closely: it moves from posture to breath to imagery to release, then brings the child back to the room with a short statement of identity. Nothing in it is complicated, and that is exactly the point.
The first minute is about the body, not the mind. Judd opens by inviting the listener to "find a nice comfortable place to sit and wiggle around until you feel just right," then to rest hands on the lap or knees and close the eyes when ready. Only after that does he offer an image: "keep your back nice and tall just like a tree while still staying relaxed," followed by a request to "keep your body still like a mountain" (around 0:33 and 0:43 in the video).
This pairing matters. A tree and a mountain are both images of stability that do not require effort to hold. The instruction asks for two things at once, upright and relaxed, which is a posture many adults find hard to hold for thirty seconds. For a child who may be restless or who has been sitting in a classroom all day, the image gives the body something concrete to do. The child is not told to "calm down." They are told to become a tree.
Judd then asks for "a couple of deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth," and adds a detail that reframes the breath as a physical event rather than a mental one: breathing in should travel "all the way down to your feet, filling your whole body with a nice relaxed feeling" (around 0:48 to 1:14). A young listener can follow that instruction literally. The breath has a destination, and the destination is the feet.
The soundtrack is not decoration. Throughout the piece, Judd leaves long gaps marked by music, and at one point he says, "you let the rhythm of the music relax you" (around 1:23). For a children's practice, this is a deliberate choice. A steady rhythm gives the ear something to follow when the voice pauses, which is the moment a restless mind is most likely to wander off. Because Judd is a music therapist by training, the musical layer reads less like background ambience and more like a second instrument in the room, one that carries the tempo of the exercise.
The gaps also do work. Each pause gives the child time to actually do what was just described: to feel the breath reach the feet, to picture the field, to find the first worry. A script that rushed past those pauses would ask more of the listener than a seven-year-old can usually give.
The central image is the one that gives the video its shape. Judd tells the listener that they are holding "a bunch of big colorful balloons" and asks, "what colors do you see?" (around 3:07). He then explains their purpose: "these are very special and can help you let go any worries or concerns you may have" (around 3:11). The instruction is simple: "think about one of your worries and picture it floating right from your body and into a balloon."
"Now see it floating right from your mind into one of these balloons. Now grab this balloon, hold it up towards the sky and let it go."
Ryan Judd, Let Go of Worries guided meditation, published February 2019 (around 3:52)
The technique works by giving a worry a shape a child can see and a direction it can travel. An abstract feeling of dread has no edges. A balloon has a color, can be held, and can be released. Judd moves the worry out of the body and into an object, then into the sky, where it becomes small and then disappears. A child who has trouble naming what is bothering them can still choose a color and let it go.
Judd also builds in a sequence rather than a single release. He says to "take another balloon" for "whatever else you might be worrying about," then to keep going "with more balloons until all your worries and concerns are gone" (around 4:37 to 5:03). The repetition is what separates this from a one-off gesture. It acknowledges that a child may have more than one worry, and it lets each one be handled separately, at its own pace, without requiring the child to solve it.
Before any balloon appears, Judd spends almost two minutes constructing a setting. The listener is asked to "use that amazing imagination of yours and take a vacation from your worries," then to "picture yourself standing in a big beautiful field" with "some song birds in the distance" (around 1:47). The imagery continues with tall green grass, "big strong trees all along the edge of this field," a blue sky, and "the warm yellow sun" warming the face and body. Then comes scent: "you can smell the fragrant wildflowers in the field." Judd sums up the effect in one phrase: "you are just feeling so safe so relaxed" (around 2:37).
This is the part of the practice most likely to be overlooked, and it may be the most important. Asking a child to release worries while they are still anxious asks them to do a difficult thing in a difficult state. Building a place first, rich with sound, light, temperature and smell, gives the nervous system a reference point. When the balloons arrive, they are arriving into a place that has already been established as calm. The worry is not being thrown into the void. It is being released from a place of safety.
The sensory detail is also a teaching tool. Each image asks the child to notice something specific: a sound, a color, a warmth on the face, a smell. Noticing is what the rest of the meditation depends on. The child who can notice a wildflower smell can, with a little practice, notice the breath, the feet, and eventually the worry itself as it leaves.
The ending is as deliberate as the beginning. Judd lets the music "slowly fade out," then guides the listener back into the room: "wiggling your fingers and toes, rubbing your hands together and slowly opening your eyes" (around 5:54 to 6:14). These are small, physical, grounding movements. They tell the body that the session is over and that it is safe to move again, a transition that matters for a child who may be going straight from the meditation to sleep.
Judd then makes a promise that changes how the practice works after the video ends: "whenever you need to you can return to this special place in your imagination" (around 6:14). The field, the trees, the balloons, and the sky are now a place the child can go on their own. A bedtime recording becomes a portable skill.
"Remember you are one-of-a-kind, you are wonderful, you are loved."
Ryan Judd, Let Go of Worries guided meditation, published February 2019 (around 6:29)
The final lines are short and direct. In a practice about letting go, the closing affirmation is the one thing Judd asks the child to keep. It is the only part of the session that is meant to stay.
According to the video's accompanying description, Judd lives in Exeter, New Hampshire, with his wife and their two young boys. He describes himself as an internationally known music therapist and Billboard chart-topping recording artist, and as a ChildLight Yoga and Mindfulness instructor. He holds a master's degree in music therapy and counseling psychology from Naropa University, and the description says he has run a private practice and has been "helping kids find fun ways to relax and de-stress for more than 20 years."
That background explains the blend of musical timing, body-based instruction, and imaginative imagery. The meditation is one of a series on the Cool Koala app, which the description says offers "fun, imaginative and engaging bedtime meditations for kids between the ages of 5 and 10," with a new meditation each night of the week. The stated aim is to "improve self-regulation and increase emotional well-being," which is a more specific goal than simply helping a child fall asleep.
The format is easy to borrow. The video's structure can be followed without the recording: ask the child to get comfortable, set the posture with the tree and mountain images, take a few slow breaths and follow them to the feet, build a calm place with several senses, then invite the child to release one worry at a time into a balloon. Close by bringing attention back to fingers, toes and eyes, and end with the one-of-a-kind affirmation. Pauses should be longer than feels natural, because the silence is where the child does the work.
If this video is useful to you, watch it once through as a listener, then a second time with an eye on the transitions: where the voice pauses, where the music carries the room, and where Judd moves from one instruction to the next. Try writing your own short version with a child in mind, changing the setting to something familiar to them, such as a park, a beach or a backyard. The structure is what carries over. The balloons are only one way to give a worry somewhere to go.
For more on how guided imagery and breath work in children's practice, return to the video itself and to Ryan Judd's description of the Cool Koala series, which contains the fuller context behind each meditation.
