Ever feel like your mind is a constant buzz of notifications and overwhelm, leaving you desperate for a pause button to find, even for a moment, a place of calm and peace?
Guided meditations are a chance to soak in the benefits of mindfulness meditation. They help us to slow down, check back in with reality and the present moment, and regulate our nervous systems.
Traditionally, meditation involves focused attention on a point or a mantra, training the mind to refocus as it wanders. Tons of modern research shows that just a few minutes of mindfulness in a day can improve focus, emotion regulation, and overall well-being.
Starting meditation can feel intimidating. I put together a guide to walk through the benefits and point you to some recordings you can download for free to support you in building this life-changing habit.
Guided Meditations- Why Meditate?
Meditation helps train the mind to live in the present. Rather than getting swept away by frustrations from the past or anxieties about the future, in guided meditations, the mind learns to separate from these moments and exist in the here and now.
It’s not about perfection or completely “stilling” your mind. Rather, meditation gives us a chance to actually observe and pay attention to what does happen in our mind, so we don’t mindlessly react. Plus, we learn to separate our sense of Self from every thought that we notice runs through our minds.
Meditation Benefits
Research in the area of mindfulness has found a well-rounded set of benefits of guided meditations, including:
- Greater emotional regulation- through activation of the calming parasympathetic nervous system
- Improved focus and concentration
- Enhanced self-awareness-nothing gets you familiar with yourself like sitting and observing your thoughts
- Reduced reactivity- breaks chain reaction patterns by placing a space in between thoughts (i.e., stimulus) and responses
- Physical health- if none of the other benefits buy you in, this one should: better sleep, lower blood pressure, stronger immunity, and less inflammation
How To Meditate
Creating a strong foundation will help set you up for success as you sit in meditation. While you are sitting and concentration on your breath, it’s easy for your mind to convince you that your body is uncomfortable and that you cannot do this.
I highly recommend a meditation cushion to support your body in a comfortable posture. It will elevate your hips above your knees to reduce tension in your hips and low back. In How To Meditate, Pema Chödrön includes points about posture:
- Legs crossed
- Straight yet relaxed spine
- Open chest
- Steady breath
As you focus on a mantra, a guided meditation, or simply your breath, be gentle with yourself. If you mind wanders, simply notice that. You can even say to yourself, “those are thoughts”, and then return back to the practice.
Free Guided Meditations
To help you get started with mindfulness meditation, I’ve created a set of free guided recordings that you can download and listen to anytime. Practitioners tend to agree that building the habit in a way that it will stick is the most important part. Therefore, aim for shorter practices on as many days as you can.
Whether you need a quick reset during a busy day or a grounding practice before bed, these meditations are designed to support you. And they are all under 10 minutes long. Use the buttons below to download your meditations today!
Leaves On A Stream
In my mind, this is the perfect exercise to begin a meditation journey. This meditation, part of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, walks you through the process of mindfulness itself using visualization.
More specifically, this mindfulness exercise helps you detach from unhelpful thoughts by visualizing them as leaves floating down a gentle stream. You learn to observe them with curiosity and let them pass, building the skill you’ll incorporate into each meditation session.
Secure Attachment Meditation
Developing a secure attachment is key to showing up in healthy ways in relationships. Insecure attachment styles lead to reactive patterns of escalating or shutting down conflict. Secure attachments give individuals the confidence to regulate their emotions and find internal stability before reacting.
Loving Kindness Meditation
Self compassion is not just a nice idea. It is tied to physical and mental health outcomes like lower anxiety, depression, and disordered eating. It lowers stress hormones and improves mood. And, when we are cruel and unkind to ourselves, we also project these patterns onto the world. For the world to be filled with people who treat each other with respect, we must offer ourselves that respect first.
Sometimes, self compassion is difficult. We may fear that we’ll lose motivation to push ourselves if we show ourselves too much love. Or, we may believe that we do not deserve love and are safer in criticism and isolation. When self compassion is too difficult, we can start offering these loving and compassionate energies toward others first.
Inner Child Imagery
Connecting with your inner child through guided imagery can be a powerful way to heal past wounds. By connecting with younger versions of your Self, you can provide that person the nurturing they may have needed and not received and therefore, update and release old patterns.
This meditation invites you to visualize and comfort your younger Self, offering the love and reassurance you may have needed. By embracing your inner child, you can cultivate deeper awareness, self-acceptance and emotional healing.
Body Scan
A body scan is a transformational way to reconnect with your body and tune into the subtle sensations that often go unnoticed. Our emotions are communicated from our brains, into our bodies, via the nervous system. They show up as tension, warmth, tightness, or ease in different areas of the body.
By bringing gentle awareness to these sensations without judgment, we can better understand how stress, emotions, and daily experiences affect us physically. This practice fosters a deeper mind-body connection, making it easier to recognize, respond to, and communicate our needs. Regular body scans can increase resilience, improve emotional awareness, and create a sense of balance and grounding.
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