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Tag: guided meditation

Embodied Compassion for Difficult Emotions
When you’re overwhelmed and feeling the urge to resist or repress painful, confusing, or distressing emotions, use this meditation from recovery coach Emily Jane to practice staying present with courage and compassion.
One of the core principles of mindfulness practice that can be a challenge for people is the notion that it actually makes more sense to accept our emotions rather than resist them. Especially when it comes to painful, confusing, or frightening emotions, this move towards ourselves in compassion can feel incredibly counterintuitive.

This week, author and recovery coach Emily Jane guides us through a practice you can use anytime you need support bringing curiosity, courage, and compassion to difficult experiences.

Embodied Compassion for Difficult Emotions

You can read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or, listen to the audio practice.

When we experience difficult emotions, our natural tendency is to repress or resist them, and yet it is often this very resistance that creates even more stress and suffering. In this meditation, we will begin to gently shift our relationship by creating space for our uncomfortable emotions. We will invite them in and sit with them with compassion, like an old friend.

We will start the meditation with some mindful awareness, then turn towards the emotions, sensations, and parts of ourselves that we might usually avoid or wish we didn’t have to feel.
1. Begin by finding a position that feels comfortable, either sitting in a chair, on your bed or the floor, or lying down. When you’re ready, you can close your eyes or lower your gaze. Allow your shoulders to relax down, your jaw to soften, maybe opening and closing the jaw a couple of times, creating a little movement and inviting some release. Let all the little muscles around the eyes, the forehead, the cheeks to soften as best they can.
2. Now bring awareness to the surface beneath you. Feel into that support, how it holds you. If your feet are touching the floor, feel into that connection between your feet and the ground, feeling into the support that is already here.
3. Notice the temperature of your body and of the temperature of the air around you. Notice the weight of your body and the gentle pull of gravity holding you.
4. Now bring your awareness to the natural rhythm of your breath. Follow the pathway of the breath through the body. Noticing how it enters the body, where the breath lands in the body—perhaps the chest, the belly, the ribs. And notice how it leaves the body. Just take a moment to feel one full breath from beginning to end, and then the next.
5. Now take a slightly deeper inhale through the nose, allow the breath to flow down into the belly and then exhale with a sigh. And again, breathing in through the nose and exhaling slowly with a sigh.
6. Now bring awareness to your body as a whole. Notice what it feels like to be you in this moment, in this body. See if you can approach your experience with curiosity and a sense of compassion.
7. Become aware of any sensations, noting any emotions that are present or areas of tension, discomfort, or heaviness. Whatever is here, see if you can just allow it to be here and just gently make space for it.
8. Now, become aware of that part of you that is aware. The part of you aware of the breath, the body, the sensations and emotions. See if you can lean into the awareness itself, this observing presence, and notice its qualities. Perhaps there is calm here, a stillness, or a sense of peace and compassion.
9. Rest for a moment in this compassionate awareness. If it feels supportive, place one hand on your heart. Feel the warmth of your hands, the gentle pressure, just offering the body care and support.
10. Now bring to mind a difficult emotion, memory, or situation. Nothing too intense, just something you’ve been finding a bit challenging. Perhaps something that’s been worrying you lately, an interaction that’s upset or annoyed you, or just a feeling that you’ve been carrying.
11. As you bring this to mind, notice what happens in your body. Maybe sensations begin to emerge, restlessness, tightness, heaviness, or a sinking feeling. Maybe you notice an emotion. Just feel into whatever arises and name the emotion. Describe any sensations.
12. See if you can simply observe the sensation, just being a compassionate witness to the discomfort or pain and allowing the experience to be here without immediately pushing it away. Remember: you don’t have to pretend it’s all okay, and you don’t have to like it. But see if you can welcome it, making space for it, letting it be exactly as it is. And if this feels challenging, that’s okay. It’s in our human nature to resist discomfort, so if there’s resistance, just notice that too without judgment.
13. As you sit with this emotion or sensation, notice that there is space around it. Space inside the body, space around the body. The support beneath you is still there. The breath is still moving, and this emotion, this sensation, is only one part of your experience. It’s a part of you, but it’s not all of you.
14. Now just move a little closer towards the emotion and gently place your hand over the area where you feel the emotion or sensation most strongly. Through your hand offer these words, “I see you. I’m here with you. I offer you space, compassion, and love.” Notice what happens when you say these words. Maybe this part of you responds to the words. Maybe you experience less resistance towards it. Perhaps there’s a softening or you even find peace in the discomfort or pain. Perhaps nothing changes at all. Whatever happens is okay. There’s no right way to experience this.
15. Just spend a few more moments being with this emotion, with this sensation. Then return your awareness to the breath, and as you inhale, imagine breathing compassion into the body. Let it flow into the center of the emotion, and as you exhale, allow it to expand into the space around you. Breathing in compassion, breathing out compassion. And as you breathe, allow this emotion to integrate into the fullness of your being.
16. Now begin to sense the body as a whole. The support beneath you, the ground holding you, feeling the support of gravity. Remind yourself gently with these words, “I can be with difficult emotions when I create a compassionate space for them.”
17. Now gently bring your awareness back to the space around you. Notice any sounds in the room, the temperature of the air. Invite some gentle movement into the body. Maybe a gentle sway or gently just shaking the arms. Take one final deep breath into the belly and exhale fully. When you’re ready, you can open your eyes, returning in your own time.
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June 25, 2026
Free Meditation Apps Worthy of Your Attention
There’s no shortage of mindfulness and meditation apps these days, promising to help you combat anxiety, sleep better, hone your focus, and more. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reports that more than 2,000 new meditation apps launched between 2015 and 2018, and offerings have only increased as a result of higher demand during the pandemic—according to the New York Times, mindfulness apps surged in 2020. We took the overwhelm out of finding the most valuable and easy-to-use meditation apps that are available free and narrowed it down to these five apps.

Summary

Mindfulness.com
- Platforms: iOS, Android, web
- Highlights: Over 2,000 guided meditations with a customizable “For You” experience, quick mini exercises,sleep aids, and calming soundscapes.
- Paid Upgrade: Offers Mindfulness Plus+ for enhanced features like daily coaching.
Insight Timer
- Platforms: iOS, Android, web
- Highlights: Massive library of 80,000+ free meditations from 10,000+ teachers, live events, and a global community showing real-time meditation stats.
- Paid Upgrade: Annual subscription unlocks courses, offline downloads, and advanced player controls.
Smiling Mind
- Platforms: iOS, Android, web
- Highlights: Not-for-profit with structured programs for different age groups and needs, including quick sessions and family-friendly content.
- Cost: Entirely free with no premium options.
UCLA Mindful
- Platforms: iOS, Android
- Highlights: Developed by UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center, featuring bilingual guided meditations and research-based practices, plus longer “podcast” sessions.
- Cost: Free.
Healthy Minds Program
- Platforms: iOS, Android
- Highlights: Merges neuroscience with meditation training using a four-pillar approach (Awareness, Connection, Insight, Purpose) and offers micro practices for on-the-go mindfulness.
- Cost: Free.
5 Free Meditation Apps We’re Happy We Downloaded

1) Mindfulness.com

Available for iOS, Android, and web

Entry price: Free

With over 2,000 guided meditations from world-leading teachers, this app caters to both beginners and seasoned practitioners.

The interface includes five tabs: Mini, where you can find quick and easy mindfulness exercises you can do anytime throughout the day; Meditate, where you’ll find all of the app’s 2,000+ guided meditations; Sleep, which houses restful and relaxing meditations for deep sleep; Radio, where you can find mindfulness music and sound scapes for focus and calm; and finally the For You tab, which is really what makes this app stand out.

Throughout your use of this app, you’ll be prompted to provide information about your preferences, goals, and the type of support you’re looking for. The app will then offer personalized daily coaching videos paired with guided meditations on the For You tab. You can choose what length you’d like your daily meditations to be—from five to 30 minutes—depending on your schedule and level of practice. Opportunities to dive deeper include meditation courses, expert Q&As, breath work, journaling prompts, and more.

Whether you’re looking to reduce stress and anxiety or seeking support for overall mental health, the Mindfulness.com app is a solid resource. The multitude of functionalities offered by this app puts your mindfulness journey in your hands and enables you to grow in the direction of your choosing at your own pace.

Paid option: For $84.99 per year (with a 14-day free trial) or $169 for a lifetime membership, both with a 30-Day money-back guarantee, Mindfulness Plus+ includes: daily mindfulness video coaching and meditations; courses and tools to help manage anxiety, sleep, and stress; over 2,000 meditations, calm music, nature soundscapes, and more.

Available for iOS, Android, and web

Entry price: Free

Insight Timer has a huge library of content: over 80,000 free guided meditations from over 10,000 teachers on topics like stress, relationships, healing, sleep, creativity, and more.

Right from the beginning, the app feels like a global community—the world map on the home screen shows a collective of 18 million meditators, and announces, “741k today, 7k now.” After you finish a meditation, you’ll learn exactly how many people were meditating “with you” during that time—and by setting your location, you can even see meditators nearby and what tracks they’re listening to.

Once you find a teacher you enjoy—like Jack Kornfield, Tara Brach, Sharon Salzberg, or Rhonda Magee—you can follow them to make sure you don’t miss any new content. You can also tune in to free talks for life advice and inspiration. For those craving real-time interactions, Insight Timer offers live events every hour of the day to join on a whim or plan into your schedule.

You can even sign up to Circle for Teams, one of their newer offerings, which allows you to create circles (read: groups) to meditate in real-time with friends or colleagues.

If you prefer a quieter meditation, however, you can simply set a timer and meditate to intermittent bells, calming ambient noise, or soothing music.

Depending on your preferences, Insight Timer’s extensive collection can be either a blessing or a curse—an endless list of choices that leave you overwhelmed or a buffet of tempting options to sink your teeth into.

Paid option: For $60 per year (with a 30-day free trial), you get access to courses with well-known teachers, the ability to download meditations and listen offline, and advanced player functions like repeat mode and fast forward and rewind.

3) Smiling Mind

Available for iOS, Android, and web

Entry price: Free

Smiling Mind hits the sweet spot for a free mindfulness app in so many ways.

The not-for-profit app features hundreds of meditations, enough to keep you engaged without overwhelming you with choice. They are organized into structured programs like Mindful Foundations (35 sessions), Sleep (6 sessions), Digital Detox (8 sessions), and Stress Management (10 sessions), but you have the flexibility to choose where to start and to easily jump between programs. Most meditations are in the five- to fifteen-minute range, with a few practices up to 45 minutes for advanced meditators. Smiling Mind also offers bite-sized meditations between 2 to 5 minutes for moments when you’re in need of a quick, mindful pause in the day.

Downloaded by over 5.5 million people, the app also has a variety of specialized programs for families, children and teens of various ages, healthcare workers, and educators (including curricula they can use in the classroom); all developed with the help of psychologists and health professionals.

While you could use a meditation app as a temporary break from your hectic life, Smiling Mind wants you to take your mindfulness practice off the cushion and into the rest of your day. Interspersed with some of the meditation programs are instructions for “activities” like Journaling Exercise, Go Offline, Where Did My Food Come From, and Count Your Senses. In the Count Your Senses activity, for example, the audio prompts you to bring your attention to your senses by counting things that can be seen, felt, heard, smelled and tasted.

Smiling Mind was originally created for kids, so they offer a robust selection of kid- and youth-appropriate mindfulness sessions.

Created by a nonprofit by the same name, Smiling Mind is entirely free—so you don’t have the distraction of paid content that’s inaccessible to you as a free user. The app wants to put a “smile on your mind”—and it might just succeed.

Paid option: None

4) UCLA Mindful

Available for iOS and Android

Entry price: Free

If all the research on mindfulness has persuaded you that you need to meditate, the UCLA Mindful app could be a good place to start.

Developed by the Mindful Awareness Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the app features about a dozen meditations of different types in English and Spanish. You can learn to focus on your breath, your body, or sounds; work with difficult emotions; and cultivate loving-kindness in sessions ranging from 3 to 19 minutes long.

If you’re new to mindfulness, you might choose to take advantage of their Getting Started section, which offers information on what mindfulness is, how to choose a meditation, which posture is best for your practice, and what research-backed benefits you might expect from it.

As a bonus, the app also offers longer meditations that it calls “podcasts.” These are half-hour audio recordings of meditations that include talks, typically by UCLA Director of Mindfulness Education Diana Winston, before and after the meditation, as well as plenty of silent practice time.

If you’re looking for an app that is heavily grounded in the science of mindfulness, you can put your trust in UCLA Mindful.

Paid option: None

5) Healthy Minds Program

Available for iOS and Android

Entry price: Free

The Healthy Minds Program app wants to help you develop the skills for a healthy mind—by strengthening mental focus, decreasing stress, and growing resilience, compassion, and better immune health.

Founded by neuroscientist Dr. Richard Davidson (who also founded the research institute Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison), the app integrates neuroscience and research-based techniques with meditation training to increase overall well-being.

The framework of the app’s mindfulness and well-being training is organized into four pillars: Awareness, Connection, Insight, and Purpose. Each pillar consists of three to five parts, and each part contains three series and multiple sessions within. For the Connection pillar, for example, the Innate Self-Worth series includes five sessions packaged to foster self-worth (think sessions like Practice Seeing the Good In Ourselves, and Learn Negativity Bias). You have a choice of either a Sitting or Active type of practice—“active” practices include guidance for being mindful while you exercise, or during your commute—and you can customize the length of time (five minutes to 30 minutes).

The app offers a collection of 27 meditations outside their four-pillar wellness framework, including one-minute Micro Practices for when you’re in need of a brief respite.

At times the podcast-style app may encourage more thinking compared to typical guided meditations, but for the listener who is seeking guided meditations with the greater goal to increase awareness, cognition, and well-being, Healthy Minds Program app may be just the ticket.

Paid option: None
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June 17, 2026
A Meditation on the Art of Stopping (Extended)
In this practice, teacher Shalini Bahl reminds us that in its simplest form, mindfulness is just about stopping—stopping to notice, to breathe, to gently interrupt our engrained habits of thought with our quiet presence.
We often think of mindfulness and meditation as a drawn-out, sustained exercise—when in reality, they’re just a collection of micro-moments of stopping, breathing, really noticing our own bodies and our own lives, getting distracted, and then coming back again. Over and over.

As this week’s teacher Shalini Bahl puts it, today’s guided practice is about the art of stopping: letting go of our regular habits of the mind—the pushing, pulling, running in circles— and instead just being for a moment.

This is an extended practice, but as a bonus, we’re also sharing a micro-practice version below that you can take into busy days.

And don’t miss Shalini’s article on Mindful.org that’s all about the power of micro-practices to affect our daily choices.

A Meditation on the Art of Stopping

Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
1. Start by coming to a comfortable posture where you feel supported. If you need more cushions or something to support your back so you feel the elongation along the back of your spine and rolling your shoulders up, back, and down. Rest your hands facing palms up or palms down. When you feel ready, lower or close your eyes.
2. Receive the sound of the bells as an invitation to the mind to be fully present. To this body, to this breath. Notice the fact that you’re breathing. There’s no need to change your breath in any way. If it’s shallow, let it be shallow, if it’s deep, let it be deep. Just rest your awareness in this breath, entering your body, following it as far as it wants to go. Notice the slight pause when the in-breath changes to out-breath. Then rest in the awareness of that exhale until the out-breath fully leaves your body. And then the pause, resting in that pause before the breath enters the body.
3. Follow this cycle of breathing at your own pace, resting in awareness. You’re not thinking about your breath, you’re really starting to sense the breath, the coolness, the touch of the breath as soon as it enters your nostrils. Feel it move in your body, the expansion, as you breathe in, in your lungs, in your chest, in the belly, wherever you feel it. As you inhale, breathe in and then exhale, really sensing that contraction, the letting go.
4. Every time your mind wanders, which it will, just notice that with kindness. Let go of that thought for now, knowing you can always return to the plans, to your thoughts, after the practice. For now, just let go of those thoughts and return back to this awareness of the breath.
5. Just for these few moments, let go of any rushing, of any judging, of expectations. Allow yourself to breathe just the way you are, as you are. Give your full care and attention to every inhale. To every exhale. And the spaces in between.
6. When you’re ready, find one place in your body where you can really feel the direct sensations of breathing. It could be the touch of the breath in the nostrils or the upper lip region where you feel the coolness of the new breath entering the nose, the tingling in your nostrils, or the warmth as you exhale, touching your upper lip.
7. If it feels more natural for you, you can turn your attention to feel your breath in the region of your chest or your belly. Find that one place where you can feel the direct experience of breathing. For the next few minutes, stay there with the direct sensations of breathing. Again, keep it effortless, just a very gentle resting in that awareness of the breath.
8. If it feels dull, you can open your eyes a little bit. Make your inhale more conscious. If your mind is really active, give more attention to the exhale, the slowing down of your exhale.
9. What we are practicing here is the art of stopping and letting go—letting go of our distractions, of our regular habits of the mind, of pushing, pulling, running in circles. We’re just being here, fully present to your breath, allowing yourself to feel your breath directly.
10. Notice your expectations of what’s next, of how things should be, even how this practice should be. Notice how your attachments can get in the way of your experience of inner calm in this moment. Soften the grip of those attachments and just return to your direct experience of the breath. Just this one breath.
11. Now, expand your awareness of this breath, of the feeling of this breathing in your whole body. You can stay either focused on that one place or you can expand the awareness of this breath moving through your body. Feel your whole body breathing in, breathing out. Notice those micro-moments of letting go of distractions and staying present.
12. Before we end this practice, take a few moments to listen within to what’s present. Just listen, taking a few moments to listen as your mind and body are a little calmer. Maybe there’s clarity of way you can bring in more of this practice of inner calm in your life, whether it’s in your relationships, with yourself, in your work. Just listen within to where this practice of inner calm can be most skillful, most beneficial to you and your loved ones. May we carry forward these qualities of inner and outer calm in all our actions and interactions.
Micro-practice here:
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June 5, 2026
A Meditation to Bring Comfort and Kindness to Pain and Illness
Chronic, complex medical conditions rarely have easy answers—but as meditation teacher Juliana Sloane reminds us in this soothing practice, we can always meet our suffering with creativity, gentleness, and compassion.
Learning to live with pain and illness is challenging, arduous work. Often, people can go for months or even years without sufficient answers. Life gets turned completely upside down. The body you thought you had suddenly becomes something you don’t recognize or know how to work with.

This week, meditation teacher and hypnotherapist Juliana Sloane offers an imaginative meditation that invites softness and self-compassion in the midst of discomfort.

A Meditation to Bring Comfort and Kindness to Pain and Illness

Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
1. In this meditation, we’ll be using some imaginative and mindfulness-based practices to work with discomfort or illness or pain in the body. These practices have been shown to be very supportive for symptom management, as well as finding ways to meet challenging health situations with more patience, more kindness, and more space.
2. Begin by getting comfortable, allowing yourself to find a place seated or lying down where you can really relax. Close your eyes if that feels comfortable, or soften your gaze.
3. Imagine that right now, any place in your body where you rest your attention could begin to soften and relax and get more comfortable. Begin by resting your attention on the muscles around your mouth. Invite those muscles around your mouth to move into relaxation, ease, comfort, letting those muscles just let go.
4. Now notice the space inside your mouth. The surface area of the roof of your mouth, the sides of your cheek. Rest your attention on the back of your tongue. And allowing the back of your tongue to begin to relax. Let that tongue come down maybe from the roof of the mouth or allow it to just soften or loosen or come into resting.
5. Bring your awareness to the cheeks and jaw and just let that jaw, those cheeks loosen and soften. You might feel the mouth open slightly as you do, or you might feel those cheeks just get heavier and looser.
6. Bring your attention now to the muscles around and behind the eyes. Let those muscles around the eyes relax.
7. Move your attention up to the forehead, letting those muscles in the forehead soften and relax. Notice the top of your head and imagine that as you rest your attention there on the top of the head, you could even allow the scalp to relax.
8. Now slide your attention down the back of your head, almost like that relaxation could just flow down the back of your head. Down your neck and shoulders, letting those shoulders loosen and soften and relax.
9. Notice the space between your shoulder blades, and breathe that sense of softening and relaxation into that space. Let your attention flow down to your arms and hands, inviting every muscle in those arms and hands to begin to relax and soften, as if those arms and hands could just get heavy, as if they’re saturated with that comfort, that ease, that relaxation.
10. Let that same softness flow down into your chest and belly. Down into your legs and your feet.
11. Now, choose a sensation that doesn’t feel too overwhelming. It might be a specific symptom or a place where there’s pain in the body. Rest your attention there on that place where the symptom has been, or the place where you’re experiencing discomfort. Get a little closer to it with a sense of curiosity and creativity and even resourcefulness.
12. Now imagine: if this sensation had a color, what color would it be? You might notice the specific color, whether it’s dark or light. Notice how big that color is, how much space it takes up. Imagine what qualities, what resources this color might need—for example, maybe it needs kindness. Maybe it needs patience. Maybe it needs more understanding.
13. Sense into what might support this color here in the body. When you land on that, allow yourself to imagine if that resource, if that supportive quality had a color, what color would that be? Once you have that supportive, beautiful quality in its colo, imagine that you could take this resource, this support, this other helpful color, and you could wrap it around that first color. And as you do, you can imagine that now this supportive color is moving into that space and changing the color of the entire area, filling it with that supportive, resourcing energy of that color. You might imagine this almost like you were wrapping that area with color and that color had a healing balm or a medicinal quality to it as you infuse the space with that color, bringing that kindness or that patience or that understanding.
14. Imagine that that supportive, beautiful color could begin to move outward. It could fill the body so that you could rest in this color.
15. Spend some quiet time with this image. Notice what’s different. Know that right now, you can send that color that’s so supportive, so soothing into any place it’s needed. Let’s rest in that color for one more moment. Then, gently come back into the room, stretching and opening your eyes.
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June 3, 2026
A Meditation on Working With Our Fear And Parenting From Love
Experiencing a season of struggle with your kid? You’re not alone. This gentle practice can help reconnect you with steadiness so you can keep parenting from love.
In our concern for our children, sometimes we respond from a place of fear and worry. From time to time, we can even lose touch with the love that lies beneath that concern.

Reconnecting with the ground of our love and the wish for our children to be happy and well, especially in moments of difficulty, can be incredibly beneficial.

This practice from Wendy O’Leary offers a pause of support and encouragement that can bring you back to that core of compassionate wisdom—and you can return to it anytime you need help parenting from love.

A Meditation on Working With Our Fear And Parenting From Love

Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
1. Get into a comfortable seated position. You can close your eyes or gently look down and soften your gaze, whatever works best for you.
2. As we settle in here, bring your attention to your breath or feel the sensations of your body as it connects with the earth. Feet on the floor, backs of the legs on a chair or a cushion. Invite the attention to settle in a bit. Arrive in this moment by dropping into the body with the breath and the sensations of the contact points of the body. Gently settle in.
3. Now, I invite you to shift your attention to think about your child, maybe even picturing them in your imagination, calling to mind a time when you felt warm and loving feelings towards them. Notice what they were doing and remember how you felt in that moment. You might even imagine that someone has asked you, What do you love about your child? What words, phrases, images, or descriptions come to mind?
4. Gently check in and notice how you feel in your body, mind, and heart as you recall what you love about your child. You could even invite that feeling of love and connection to grow and expand in your body, gently resting here in this felt sense of love for your child. Let yourself marinate in this feeling of love and warmth and care.
5. Now, think of the time when your child was struggling. You don’t need to think of the most difficult struggle—instead, go with something that is a three or a four on a one to 10 scale.
6. As you allow the situation to more fully enter your awareness, check in again with your body. Often, when we are focused on a difficulty, especially when it’s related to our child, there can be a habitual tendency to contract and lean forward. Check it out and see if that’s true for you. To counteract this tendency, gently lean back just a little. This can be a physical leaning back or even an energetic settling back. Settle back and now invite the body to soften, even widen, creating space to hold whatever is there. We aren’t forcing anything here, it’s just a very gentle invitation to settle back and soften. Gently softening around the edges of any emotions we’re experiencing.
7. Now intentionally invite back that sense of love, holding the challenge in a spacious field of loving care and awareness. To help you do this, you might once again remind yourself of all the things you love about your child. You could even offer them some wishes of well-being and happiness as you picture them in your mind. May you be happy. May you well. May you safe. Or any wishes that feel true for you in this moment.
8. If the situation you’re calling to mind requires some response from you in some way, you might ask yourself, How would this love respond? You can also offer yourself a bit of care, because if your child is struggling, you are, too. So maybe place a gentle hand on the heart, or take a moment to remind yourself of our common humanity. You might say something to yourself like, Every parent struggles with their children sometimes. Every parent worries about their child at times. Or another phrase that might fit your situation. You could even say to yourself, This is hard, and I’m here for you, honey.
9. As you’re ready, you can open your eyes to close our formal practice. This practice can be a powerful way of reconnecting with feelings of love and cut through the worry and fears that we often experience as parents. It can be helpful to do the first part, remembering the love and care as a brief daily practice for a while, so you can more easily call up those feelings of love and connection in the midst of a challenging moment when you need the most help parenting from love. We want to acknowledge the hard stuff and not lose sight of the good and love that is underneath our worries and sometimes even our difficulties with our children. With my very best wishes, may you be happy and peaceful and move through life with ease and equanimity. Thank you for practicing with me.
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May 22, 2026
Rest Your Body In Gratitude With A 12-Minute Meditation
Take a restorative moment to release tension and feel deeply into gratitude for your hard-working body.
Taking a moment to pause with the intention to simply allow our bodies to rest in awareness can bring about a great sense of restoration and renewal to the heart. Our bodies are so overworked and often ignored. This guided awareness practice will allow us to feel a sense of gratitude for our body, in all of its beauty and mystery.

A 12-Minute Meditation to Rest Your Body in Gratitude

Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
1. Starting off, find the posture that feels comfortable for you in this moment. There are many different postures that we can choose from. Check in with your body to sense into what posture is best for me right now?
2. Once you’ve found that posture, just begin to notice and feel your body here and present in this moment, not trying to fix anything or to change anything about the body. Oftentimes, the body can be used just for the purpose of working, striving, and achieving, but in this moment, we’re inviting our bodies to just rest naturally.
3. Take a few moments to feel what it means to be alive in your body right now. With attention resting lightly on the body, just notice: How is my body expressing its aliveness in this moment? Maybe that’s with lots of sensation, maybe the body just feels relaxed and at ease, or maybe there’s energy moving through some of our bodies. Whatever is true for your body right now, allow this aliveness to be what you sense into in this moment. This is my body and I’m grateful for my body.
4. Now, allow your attention to lightly rest on the sensations associated with the body touching whatever is supporting it. Maybe it’s the floor or a cushion, or a bed or couch. Allowing your attention to lightly rest, feel the liveness of the body touching and being supported by whatever is under you. This is my body resting, supported by what’s under me at this moment and I’m grateful for this body and for this support and this moment to rest. Resting just like a newborn rests in the arms of a parent or caregiver. Allow your body to rest, letting the support, the stability, and the comfort of having something holding you really infuse your body and your awareness. In this moment, I’m being held and supported and this support is stable, and unconditional, and I am grateful. Continue to feel the connection and the support of whatever is holding you in this moment, remaining connected to that experience.
5. We’re going to begin to invite our bodies to rest in the feeling of the space around the body. So, we’re really just allowing our attention to rest on the skin of the body. And with each exhale, let your attention begin to relax and expand out beyond the skin, just going out a few inches around the skin, resting in this space. Rather than focusing entirely on the physicality of the body, now we’re inviting the energy in the body—the tingling, the sensations—to actually rest in the space around us. You might use your imagination a little bit to imagine that, with every exhalation, you begin to sense your body being held by the vastness of the space surrounding the body.
6. It may be helpful to start with your back, inviting the back to rest. Just let go into the space behind you. And shifting to one side of the body, feeling that side, feeling the skin, and then inviting that side of the body to just let go. To relax into the space around that side of the body. And then going to the front of the body: feeling the skin, the body sensations, and the aliveness, and just allowing the front of the body to be held and to rest into the space in front. And lastly, arriving at the other side of the body, sensing the skin of the body, then letting your attention relax into the space around that side of the body.
7. For a few moments, as you’re breathing in and out naturally, allow your attention to rest as the body is resting, in the space around the body. The body can let go now. Breathing in, feeling the body held in our awareness. Breathing out, we’re grateful for the space around the body. It allows the body to relax.
8. As we bring this practice to a close, the invitation is for you to place a hand on your heart, feeling a sense of gratitude and appreciation for the body, the space around the body, and this moment of resting. And remember that gratitude for the body is a way that we can always reconnect with this sense of rest, presence, and ease.
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May 14, 2026
A Light, Slow, Deep (LSD) Breathing Meditation
Our breathing often becomes shallow, tense, or restricted during the day, and we don’t even notice it. Try this Light, Slow, Deep breathing technique to soften, relax, and expand again.
Thanks to our autonomic nervous system, life-sustaining processes like our heartbeat, digestion, and breathing all happen without us even having to pay attention. But our environments, stress levels, and other factors can definitely affect the health and efficiency of these processes.

For example, sitting hunched at our desks and staring at screens often means that our breathing gets shallow and irregular—which of course affects things like focus, energy, cognition, and attention.

This week, Shamash Alidina leads a guided breathing exercise called Light, Slow, Deep (or LSD), designed to re-set the breath in a way that opens the chest, relaxes tension, and calms the nervous system.

Most of us breathe backwards: too hard, too fast, and too much. We grip the breath without realizing it. LSD breathing is an invitation to do the opposite.
- Light means breathing with softness, a gentleness, as if the breath is barely disturbing the air around you.
- Slow means extending each breath, giving your nervous system time to settle like a pendulum that’s swinging wildly gradually finding its still point.
- Deep means breathing low in your lower abdomen, not in your chest, but down where the lungs are roomiest and most efficient.
Together, these three qualities activate your parasympathetic nervous system—the calm, rest-and-digest part of you that so often gets crowded out by the noise of the day. Think of it like turning down volume on a radio that’s been playing too loud. You’re not switching it off, you’re just bringing it to a gentler, more natural level.

A Light, Slow, Deep (LSD) Breathing Meditation

Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
1. Begin by finding a comfortable position. You could be on a chair, cross legged on the floor, lying down. You could even be standing and just gently moving. Whatever allows your body to feel supported and at ease.
2. The breath pattern we’ll use today is simple. Inhale for four counts, a gentle pause, and then exhale for six counts. A slightly longer exhale is key. Longer exhalations directly stimulate the vagus nerve, signaling to the whole system that you’re safe. So you don’t need to force anything, you just allow.
3. Let’s begin. Take one natural breath first. No need to change anything yet.
4. Now place one hand on your lower abdomen, just below your navel. This is your anchor and as you inhale you’re aiming to feel that hand rise like a tide coming in. As you exhale, the hand falls, the tide going out.
5. Keep going with that easy breath. Inhaling softly through the nose, feeling the lower abdomen expand. In two, three, four, pause. And exhale slowly. Two, three, four, five, six. And then pause. In, two, three, four, and out two, three, four, five, six
6. Inhale light and steady like warming mists rising from still water. Exhale, the breath dissolving. Body softening.
7. If there is any tendency to grip or control as you’re breathing right now, see if you can loosen your hold on the breath by just a few percent. Inhaling, the lower abdomen is rising. Your chest is barely moving, your shoulders are down.
8. Remember to keep exhaling longer than the inhale. All the way to the end. As you inhale, receive the breath rather than taking it in. Exhale and release. Not pushing, just allowing the air to naturally leave.
9. Now let the breath find its own natural rhythm. Your job is to simply notice it now as the witness, not as the controller. If thoughts arise, and they will, treat them like clouds passing through the still sky. The sky doesn’t chase the clouds, it doesn’t argue with them, it simply holds them. Allows them to be there, and they pass.
10. Feel how each complete breath cycle leaves you a little more still, a little more at ease. Like sediment settling slowly to the bottom of a glass of water. The water doesn’t try to clear itself, it just rests. And some clarity naturally comes. Breathing in, slow, light, low. Exhaling slowly. There’s nothing to achieve and nowhere to get to. The breath is simply happening—as it has, without effort, your whole life, long before any thought about it.
11. One way to breathe lightly is to breathe quietly. See if you can breathe so quietly that you can hardly hear your own breath. As you do this, you may sense a tiny amount of air hunger, a tiny urge to breathe more. And that’s quite natural. In fact, that’s a good sign. You’re rebalancing your oxygen and carbon dioxide in your body. More oxygen is getting into your cells and into your brain when you breathe lightly.
12. When you don’t force yourself too much, you may be able to notice a bit more saliva in your mouth, a bit more warmth in your hands and feet perhaps. This is the sign of the relaxation response engaging, a sign that you’re going in the right direction.
13. As we move towards the end of the practice, start noticing the quality of your mind right now. Is it quieter than when we started? Is it more spacious? LSD breathing doesn’t create this stillness, it reveals it. The stillness was always there underneath the movement. The breath simply clears the way. Inhaling light, slow, deep. And exhale, releasing any last effort.
14. Remember you can return to this breath at any point in your day—on the train, at your desk, before a difficult conversation. Doesn’t need any special equipment. Just a few moments.
15. When you’re ready, slowly allow your eyes to open if they’ve been closed. Take the outside world back into you, and carry this quality into your day. Well done, you’ve given yourself 12 minutes of genuine rest. Thank you for joining me.
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May 12, 2026
A Guided Walking Meditation to Notice the Beauty Around Us—Even in the City
This guided walking meditation from Kazumi Igus offers an opportunity to slow down and notice the wonder of the natural world in our urban environments.
City life can often feel frantic, loud, and cut off from natural beauty. It’s not often we slow down and take in all there is to experience. But even in urban areas, if you pay attention, you can hear the call of a bird, notice your favorite color in shop windows, and look up at the vast sky above.

In this guided meditation, we slow our roll and take in the beauty of our surroundings, no matter where we find ourselves.

A Guided Walking Meditation to Notice the Beauty Around Us—Even in the City

Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
1. Let’s start with taking three deep breaths.
2. As we begin, I want to bring your attention to how you are moving if you’re walking through the city or trying to get from one place to another. How fast are you moving? How are you walking? What’s your pace? Do you have a destination and a timeframe? Or do you have some space? Wherever you are, slow it down just a little bit. If you can afford to walk really slow and won’t hold up traffic, you’re welcome to. And if you’re not walking and you’re in a wheelchair, you’re welcome to slow down. If you really need to be somewhere, try to relax into this space, whatever it is. Slow and steady, but maybe not too slow depending on where you are.
3. Bring your attention to how you are walking—your balance. Are you taking a step? Start to notice the small changes, the muscles involved. And whatever you’re thinking, all of it is OK. You’re just noticing where you are in this space right now.
4. Then, acknowledging that our minds sometimes race and we have a lot of things going on in our lives, just take a deep breath and bring your attention back to each step. Start to settle into a rhythm. Notice every muscle that’s involved with creating this locomotion to propel you forward and shift your weight. Maybe if you’re in a wheelchair, you’re using your arms. How are the hands involved? Are you holding something? Maybe a backpack, bag, or someone’s hand. Focus on really being present with your physical space, your physical body. Take a deep breath. As we move through our urban environment, we start to notice other things outside of ourselves.
5. The first thing I want you to bring your attention to is the smell around you. Depending on where you are, that can be pleasant or unpleasant. Breathing in, can you identify a particular smell? Maybe you’re getting a lot of smells all at once. Maybe you notice the change in smells as you move past different areas. And as you experience these smells, notice what you’re thinking. Are you creating a story? Are you finding yourself wanting to be near a pleasant smell or maybe pushing away, trying to avoid an unpleasant smell? If that’s the case, that’s all right. All of it is normal. Just experience the smell and label it as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. See if you can identify pizza, poop, grass, or whatever it is.
6. Then take a deep breath and shift your attention to sights. What can you see? Start by focusing on a color that brings you joy. If it’s a bright color you might notice it in wrappers from candy or chips, maybe in ads, signs, storefront windows that have lots of flyers. If it’s something more earthy, like green or brown, you might start to notice it in nature—the trees and plants. Just pick your color and start noticing it on your journey. Even if the color is on a man-made object like clothing, hats, backpacks, signs, and things like that, that’s a part of the urban environment. If it’s flowers, trees, plants, we’re just noticing the natural portions of the urban environment. Both are necessary.
7. Taking another deep breath, we shift to looking at nature. Starting with animals. And for this, let’s maybe not focus on people and their pets. Let’s look for the animals that exist in this environment without being owned by a person. You might notice lizards depending on where you are in the world, cats that don’t have owners, squirrels, insects.
8. I’d like to bring your attention to the birds. Birds are what we call an indicator species. They tell you if your environment is healthy. So look up. Look around. Listen. You might even need to stop for a moment. If you can hear birds, start to listen for the variations in their calls, maybe even a different species. If you have mockingbirds, sometimes it’s the same bird making a bunch of different calls. Really stop to listen to it as though they’re telling you something. If the sound of traffic muffles some of the calls, it’s OK. The urban environment is complex. It has both manmade and natural things. If you can see the birds, notice their behaviors, the coloration, and any other details that might pop out at you. And notice your thoughts while seeing or hearing the birds. You might be able to see or hear seagulls if you’re near a coast, rock doves, a.k.a. pigeons, finches, sparrows, chickadees. Notice if you can identify any of these species by site or by call. Take a deep breath, noticing where the birds are. Probably in plants, trees, bushes, or on grass.
9. Those of us who live in urban environments often have plant blindness and don’t notice the plants. Take a moment to notice leaves and if you can see any patterns in how those plants are growing. Are there any flowers? Maybe you can recognize a specific species. Can you name it? Take a deep breath. Experience being around plants and animals in nature.
10. And as you continue moving keep noticing your color, new plants, new animals. Notice what you’re thinking and if you’re telling yourself a story or if you’re asking a lot of questions. And if you are, take a deep breath and then focus back on the details of the experience—the shape of the leaves, the color of the feathers. As humans, we cannot survive without the natural parts of the environment. So it’s very important for us to be mindful of how our movement through the world affects the nature around us and how the nature around us can affect our experience. Take another deep breath. If there’s a big tree or a squirrel that’s standing there looking at you, or a plant that’s intriguing, take a moment to stop.
11. Be grateful for its part of this urban environment. Expressing some gratitude that you are even able to experience it today. Taking a deep breath. Finding your walking rhythm. Slow but steady, or whatever works for you. Continuing to notice your color, plants, the animals. And continuing to take deep breaths.
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April 30, 2026
Create Inner Balance With A 12-Minute Meditation
Life is never constant. And it can be difficult to remain balanced in the midst of change. Susan Bauer-Wu shares a guided meditation to ground us in the present moment and cultivate equanimity.
With equanimity, we can feel the possibility of balance in our hearts in the midst of life’s ups and downs. It’s a quality that’s both receptive and stable. In short, it’s the opposite of the reactive mind. With equanimity, there’s a feeling of ease and allowing as we ride the waves of change and different experiences. It allows us to be present to suffering and present to joy. It combines an understanding mind together with a compassionate heart. It doesn’t mean we are indifferent or that we don’t care or that we care less, it means we allow life to unfold without any attachments to an outcome or taking things personally. And finally, equanimity is opening to easing into each moment with care and gentleness.

A Meditation to Create Inner Balance in the Face of Change

Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
1. Settle into a comfortable posture. You can close your eyes or simply lower your gaze. Bring awareness toward your body. Notice your breath move through your body, feeling the chest or belly expand with your breath.
2. Take a moment to set an intention for the practice. Perhaps it’s to feel a sense of inner balance and ease. Take in the following phrases or the meaning of the phrases and quietly repeat to yourself: Things are just as they are. I’m safe in this moment. My happiness and suffering depend on my thoughts and actions, not simply upon my wishes. May I feel joy and ease.
3. Notice whatever is present for you right now. Resting in a feeling of OK-ness in this moment, just as it is.
4. Bring to mind someone who you care about and who may be going through a hard time. Extend these phrases or the meaning of the phrases to this person. I care for you yet cannot keep you from suffering. I love you yet cannot control your happiness. Your happiness and suffering depend on your thoughts and actions and not my wishes for you. May you feel joy and ease.
5. Notice how you feel. Notice the raw feeling of whatever is present for you. Sit with it. Just letting it be, right now.
6. Once again, bring awareness to the body, and the breath. Feel the ease of simply being and breathing.
Interested in Meditation? Here Are the Basics

Meditation is a core mindfulness practice that you can customize to meet you where you are, bring your attention to the present moment, and engage in more compassion and connection. Here’s what you need to know to get started. Read More

Eric Langshur and Nate Klemp

May 21, 2021
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April 16, 2026
A 12-Minute Meditation to Approach the World With a “Don’t-Know Mind”
We can find strength and resilience in familiarity—and use those feelings to explore the unfamiliar.
At the beginning of every meditation practice that I teach, I offer up a little bit of instruction for the posture, so that you can experience this practice as being as supportive as possible to your body.

A Meditation to Approach the World With a “Don’t-Know Mind”
1. I would like to invite you to come to a place that is truly comfortable and supportive to your practice. For some of you, this may mean a seated position on a chair, on a sofa, or even on some cushions on the floor. This might mean standing up, if that’s more supportive to your back and your posture. And for some of you, this may mean lying down on the ground. Please take a moment to come to whatever place is going to feel most compassionate to your body.
2. Some of you may want to fully close your eyes for this meditation practice. And others may want to employ what I like to call a “soft gaze,” which is looking down at the ground about two inches in front of the knees or the feet.
3. When you’ve settled into a comfortable position, I would love to invite you to take three deep breaths with me. As you’re taking those three deep breaths, you may notice that your body may begin to relax naturally. You may start to feel a little bit more deeply connected to whatever place makes contact with the earth. For some of you that’s going to be your feet, and for others that may be your back. Notice whatever place comes into contact with the earth in this moment.
4. Begin to draw your attention and awareness to the connection between your body and the earth. It might feel beneficial at this point to take another deep inhale and exhale here. When you’re finished, return your breath back to a natural cadence and rhythm.
5. You may notice the quality of the sound in the room that you’re in. Maybe there are some ambient noises that are coming from inside of wherever you are, whatever building you’re in. Or maybe there are sounds that are coming from outside. Please feel free to make these a part of your practice.
6. Begin to draw your awareness to the bottoms of your feet, wherever they are landing on the earth. What do you notice? Does the right foot or the left foot feel slightly heavier than the other? As you notice the difference between the right and the left foot, perhaps you might also become aware of other micro-adjustments inside of your body.
7. You may notice that the mind continues to produce thoughts, and that’s OK. The point of a meditation practice is not necessarily to stop thinking the thoughts that you are thinking, but rather to just be aware of the thoughts as they flow through the body and the mind. As you draw your awareness to your thoughts, you can also bring your awareness to the rhythm of your breath as it flows in and out of your body.
8. I would like to invite you to bring your attention to the muscles of the belly and notice if they’ve been drawn in a little bit tightly towards the spine. Is it possible to invite a sense of relaxation, and even vulnerability, to the muscles of the belly by allowing them to be soft? Don’t worry, no one is watching. How does it feel when you invite a sense of softness and relaxation to the belly? How does the rest of the body respond?
9. While your attention is here, you might begin to imagine a person, place, animal, or object that is deeply familiar to you. Perhaps this animal, person, place, or object reminds you of what it feels like to be home. Can you bring them into the room with you right now?
10. Notice if that invitation has an impact on your breath, as it rises and falls from your chest. You might even feel a bit more safe in the space of this practice as you invite the image of what reminds you of being home, of being held.
11. What is familiar to you, deeply familiar, about this person, animal, place, or object, that makes you feel as though you really know them? What is the feeling of knowing? What is the feeling of familiarity, and how does it land inside of the body? The invitation is to bring your attention back to the breath anytime that you notice yourself getting caught up in the story.
12. Now, bring to mind an image of something that reminds you of what it means to be strong and resilient. Maybe there’s someone who you really look up to, or a place you’ve been that made you feel truly strong and resilient when you were there. Can you bring into your mind’s awareness the embodied sensations of being strong and resilient? Does your body make slight changes and shifts as you recall how this feels?
13. Now we’re going to do a little bit of experimenting. Hopefully this will be fun. There’s a term called “don’t know mind” that is sometimes used in meditation to invoke a sense of curiosity.
14. What is it like to approach the world with a “don’t know mind?” You may find that this is a bit of a contrast to the feeling of familiarity that we began to explore in the beginning of this practice. The feeling of familiarity is the feeling of, “Oh yes, I know. I know this person. I know this place. I know this animal or this object. They are deeply familiar to me.” Perhaps the way we view things, which are seemingly familiar to us, can begin to shift and change ever so slightly when we apply the pure curiosity of “don’t know mind.” How does that land in the body? This exploration of not knowing, of not being quite certain?
15. At this point in your practice, you may notice if there are places in the body that begin to contract when we explore the feeling of “don’t know mind,” and that’s OK. This is the body’s intelligence. Can we unite this exploration of “don’t know mind” with those same sensations of strength and resilience, so that we know that no matter what, when we encounter moments of uncertainty and not-knowing that we have all the strength and resilience inside of our body to meet with that moment? What does it feel like to meet strength and resilience with not-knowing? Can we be truly curious about what arises in our awareness with this practice? Let’s take just a few moments in silence together now and explore the way that this feels.
16. When you’re ready please bring your entire body into your mind’s eye and notice the difference between the way the body feels now and the way the body felt when you first entered into this space of practice. Take the time to notice the way the feet feel slightly different in the way they connect to the earth.
17. Let’s all take one more deep breath in here.
18. When you’re ready, at your own pace and rhythm, please begin to, ever so slowly and gently, open up the eyes, without staring at anything in particular. Allow color and texture to flood back into your mind’s awareness.
19. From here we can begin the process of reorienting to the room that we’re in. Gently begin to turn and rotate the head and the neck, and take in the colors and textures of the space you are in. Notice if there’s anything new or different or alive in the space. What has changed since you started this practice?
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April 8, 2026