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Tag: guided meditation

A Meditation to Help You Make Any Decision—Big or Small
In this week’s practice, meditation teacher Toby Sola guides us through a practice to help get clarity when facing all different kinds of decisions.
You might not think of mindfulness as being a resource to help with decision-making, but moments of intentional silence can sharpen our mental clarity and help us discern which choices feel most aligned.

In this guided practice, meditation teacher Toby Sola offers a simple technique you can use, whether you’re facing a life-changing choice or are just feeling overwhelmed by all the smaller decisions that often crowd our busy lives.

A Meditation to Help You Make Any Decision—Big or Small

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

Note: This practice includes long pauses of complete silence to give you time to spend in contemplation. If you want more time, feel free to pause the recording as you go.
1. To start, lengthen your spine and relax your shoulders and arms. Sitting is great because you’re both alert and relaxed.
2. Take a moment to think of a decision that’s been on your mind. It can be a big one, like if you should have kids, or it can be a small one, like if you should buy peanut butter.
3. Once you have your decision, come up with two statements: an “I will” statement and an “I will not” statement. For example, I will have kids and I will not have kids. Or, I will buy peanut butter and I will not buy peanut butter. You may have to simplify your decision in order to create I will and I will not statements.
4. Say your I will statement a few times to yourself in your head. Don’t say it out loud, say it to yourself, in your mind. Now continue to use mental talk to list the reasons behind your I will statement. Your inner monologue may sound like this. Peanut butter is tasty. It goes well with the apples that I have. I think it’s on sale right now. Start listing the reasons for your I will statement now.
5. Now let that go and say your I will not statement a few times. Begin listing the reasons why your I will not statement is a good idea. For example, The rest of my family doesn’t like peanut butter. It’s expensive.
6. Now let that go. Next, we’ll use our imagination to explore the decision. We’ll start with the I will side of things. Imagine what your future might look like if you go with the I will statement. Use your imagination to create mental pictures of this possible future. For example, if you’re considering whether to have kids, you might imagine waking up to kids jumping on your bed.
7. Now let’s move on to the I will not statement. Use your imagination to create mental pictures of what your life might be like if you go with the I Will Not statement. Imagine how your life might unfold.
8. Next, we’ll explore our emotional body. Bring your attention down into your body. Once again, consider the I will statement and notice if you feel any emotions. Maybe you feel excitement, joy, anxiety or nervousness. Maybe you don’t notice anything. It’s all good. Just notice any emotions that come up when you consider the I will statement.
9. Now switch to the I will not statement. In the way that you did with the I will statement, notice any body emotions that come up with the I will not option.
10. At this point, you may know what to do, you might not know what to do, you may realize that you need more information, or you may be realizing that you should be making another decision. Regardless of where you’re at, let’s take some time to feel good. To the best of your ability, cultivate pride and joy in your body. Intentionally smiling can help. Making decisions can be hard work, and even if we still don’t know what to do, at least we’re putting in the effort. We should feel proud of that—so smile; feel good.
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May 30, 2025
A Meditation for Clarifying Your Motivations for Using Tech
Your motivations for using tech can also point the way toward developing a healthier relationship with it. In today’s practice, Jay Vidyarthi guides us to identify our motivations and ways to establish more balance and intention in our tech use — without the guilt.
Recent studies have confirmed that the constant presence and use of tech in our lives has become a hazard to our well-being on multiple levels. Yet it’s not going anywhere—so how do we mindfully hold that tension and seek balance in our relationship to technology?

Meditation teacher, mindful tech designer, and self-identified tech lover Jay Vidyarthi observes, “It’s okay to enjoy technology. Tech becomes a problem when we get so attached to it that our lives fall out of balance—and this happens because a certain device or app or game or even your work email might satisfy a specific, lacking, healthy emotional need.”

In today’s practice, Jay leads us through a contemplative practice that can help us dig down and understand our motivations for using tech, while also helping us identify ways to be more intentional about the why, how, and when of our digital consumption.

A Meditation for Clarifying Your Motivations for Using Tech

Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
1. This is going to be a contemplation. So choose whether you want to meditate with your eyes closed in a certain posture or position, or whether you’d rather journal, in which case you can grab a pen or a paper or even type on your computer.
2. Hit pause on the audio if you need a little bit more space to get settled. There’s never a need to rush into this kind of thing, so try to find a place that’s quiet, maybe even inspiring, for your contemplation or journaling.
3. When you’re ready, start by thinking or writing about why you personally might be interested in a better relationship with technology. What’s motivating you here? Is it a general feeling? Are there specific patterns you’re trying to change? Are there specific things that have happened that felt off to you that maybe inspired this idea that you needed to work on your relationship with technology? Are there maybe stories you’ve heard in the media or the press about technology and what it might be doing to us? Are there positive experiences that you have with technology where you find joy or meaning or purpose that maybe you want to get more of, or maybe you want to get back to? Maybe those are memories from an earlier incarnation of technology that feels lost.
Are there positive experiences that you have with technology where you find joy or meaning or purpose that maybe you want to get more of, or maybe you want to get back to?
1. Consider or write down how a more mindful relationship with technology might positively impact you and the people around you, whether those are family members or friends or roommates or coworkers, or even just the barista at the coffee shop or the clerk at the grocery store.
2. If you’re having a hard time getting to deeper answers, try asking why over and over again like young children do. It’s a very powerful word. You might start with, Why am I interested in a better relationship with technology? Your mind might answer that with something like, I want to be less stressed. From there you might ask, Why do I want to be less stressed? Maybe your answer is because you want to be more present for the people you care about. You might ask why again, Why do I want to be more present for the people I care about? Keep going with this, and you’ll eventually find yourself at some deeper personal truths.
3. Now, as you do this, notice if any judgment or shame is coming up. If you’re journaling, you can look back over the page, but if you are contemplating, you can just reflect. If judgment is arising, just let that come and go. So for example, you might ask why and hear your inner voice get self-critical. Like, Why do I want a healthy relationship with technology? Oh, well, because I can’t control myself and I’m addicted and destroying my life with this technology. Our inner voice can go all over the place, as you well know. If that happens, there’s no need to resist it, but don’t give it more energy, either. Try to stay curious and focus on those motivations, those intentions, those answers that feel like they’re encouraging positive growth.
4. As we approach the end of our session here, see if you can distill what’s come up in this practice into a simple word or phrase. If you’re journaling, you can draw a big line on the page. If you are contemplating, you can clear your palate. Try to find something that captures the essence of what is motivating you, what your intention is to form a more mindful, healthier, better relationship with the technology in your life. Try to be very specific and concise.
5. Once you have something, commit that to memory or write it down. Then, let go of all the effort that we’ve put into this practice and let’s take a few moments to just be as we are. There’s nothing more to do, yet we’re not yet moving into the next thing. We’re enjoying this transition, this moment of emptiness and non-doing.
6. When you’re ready, you can gradually open your eyes if they were closed. Have a little stretch or a sip of water, whatever you need. And if you haven’t yet, you can write down the word or phrase you came up with, put that in a visible place, and let that be a reminder of your intention, your motivation, your commitment to an improved relationship with technology.
It’s important to remember that this doesn’t necessarily mean only setting boundaries around problematic use patterns. It also means setting yourself up to fully enjoy the parts of technology you enjoy and to find authentic connection online and to allow any meaning or purpose that you get from technology to fully flourish into your life. I hope this was helpful. See you next time.
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April 30, 2025
A Meditation for Finding a Middle Way When We Are In Pain
In this guided meditation, longtime meditation teacher and pain expert Vidyamala Burch offers a tender practice to help us be with our whole selves with openness and kindness, even when we are experiencing pain.
Being in pain makes being present extra challenging.

On a physical level, being in the present moment while our body is in pain is often extremely unpleasant. There is a part of us, understandably, that wishes we could escape from it entirely.

At the same time, the experience of pain itself can be overwhelming—to our senses, our thoughts, our emotions. It can feel like drowning, when what we long for is just a moment of peace to rest in.

In today’s guided meditation, longtime meditation teacher and pain expert Vidyamala Burch offers a tender practice to find a middle way—one that doesn’t veer into denial or give in to overwhelm, but rather allows all that is happening to be gently met, as Vidyamala says, with “wholeness, integration, and kindliness.”

A Meditation for Finding a Middle Way When We Are In Pain

Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
1. Start by establishing a meditation posture. You can do it sitting; you can do it lying down. The main thing is to choose a position where you can be as relaxed as possible and yet alert. Once you’ve chosen your position, begin to settle. Allow the weight of the body to rest down into the support beneath you. If you’re sitting, it’ll be through the bottom, into the chair, through the feet, into the floor. For lying down, it’ll be through the back of the body, into the bed or the floor, and then the head resting into the pillow or cushion.
2. See if you can cultivate a sense of rest, allowing the body to be held. Let go of gripping. Receive the support of whatever’s beneath you. To help this, you could take a few deep breaths and then on each outbreath release a little bit more, letting the next in-breath flow back in in its own time.
3. With each in-breath, breathe in freshness and vitality. With each out-breath, let go of gripping. When you’re ready, allow your breathing to find its own natural rhythm. Allow your awareness to pour out of the head, where it so often seems to be located, and feel the body resting inside the movements and sensations of breathing.
4. Allow your awareness to fill in the body a little bit more. Let it pour down through the torso, through the hips, feet, and legs. We’re not looking in from the outside or thinking about the legs and the feet as a concept or an object. Rather, we’re resting inside sensations of contact with the floor, with the chair, or the bed. Maybe there’s a sense of tingling, buzzing energy. Maybe there’s dullness or numbness. Whatever our experience is, allowing awareness to fill the feet and the legs. If there’s pain or discomfort, see if we can meet this with an attitude of kindliness and care, softening automatic habits of resistance and tension. Allow awareness to come to the buttocks, letting the buttocks be soft, resting into the chair, into the bed.
5. Allow awareness to fill the whole torso—including the belly, the chest, the front and the whole back of the body and the back, the whole spine. Have a sense of the torso opening a little bit in all directions on the in-breath and subsiding on the outbreath. Be careful not to force or strain. Receive on an in-breath, letting go on the outbreath. Again, if you’ve got pain or discomfort anywhere in the back or the front of the whole torso, see if you can allow it into awareness with an attitude of care and kindliness. Let it be part of our experience, softening the resistance and the automatic tension that can so quickly arise.
6. Now bring awareness to the shoulders, arms, and hands. Let your hands be supported, resting on the legs or in the lap if sitting. Rest them at the sides of the body, palm upwards (if lying down) or on the legs, palm downwards (if sitting). Let go of gripping in the arms with tension, just letting them rest into gravity. Let the shoulders fall away from the midline of the body into gravity. Allow shoulders, arms, and hands to be full of awareness. This might show up as discomfort, tingling, heat. It could be sensing the contact with clothes, contact with the surface the hands are resting on. Receive all this into awareness with kindliness.
7. Now come up through the arms and up to the neck and the head. If you’re sitting, let the head be poised on the top of the spine, maybe tucking the chin in just a tiny bit, so there’s a release through the base of the skull and yet openness in the throat. If you’re lying down, see if you can let the weight of the head be fully held by the pillow or the cushion. Let go of holding on, gripping in the head, letting it rest. Let the jaw be soft, the lips and tongue be soft so the wind of the breath can flow freely through the back of the throat on the way into the body and then back out again on the way out of the body. Let the cheeks be soft, eyes soft, forehead soft. We could imagine the brain resting inside the head softly.
8. See if you can feel into the physicality of the head. So often the head can feel split off from the body. The head is just a thought factory, and then the body’s just this kind of thing that we drag through life. But the head is a limb of the body, just like the arms and the legs. Sense the feelings, the sensations in the head. Temperature, tingling, buzzing, softness, maybe even contact with the air brushing against the skin.
9. See if you can have a sense of wholeness in the legs, torso, arms, neck, and face. This experience of embodiment, moment by moment by moment, the flow of sensations in the whole body arising and passing, arising and passing.
10. If you’ve got pain or discomfort right now, let’s attend to that part of the body. Take your awareness to that part of the body and notice if it’s surrounded by resistance or hardness. Let’s see if we can find this sweet spot between denial on the one hand and overwhelm on the other. Denial will be a kind of turning away, a hardening and not wanting, a pushing away. Maybe there’s a little bit of breath holding. Maybe there’s tension in the head, tension in the bottom. If you notice that, then see if you can turn a little bit more towards the experience, metaphorically speaking, adding it into awareness a little bit more, very gently and tenderly, breath by breath. Let it be part of this flow of experience in the whole body. Breathe into that area and imagine that the breath is bathed in kindliness.
11. If, on the other hand, you’re feeling overwhelmed, the only thing in experience is the pain or the difficulty. The practice here is to broaden. Feel the bottom on the chair or the bed. Feel the support beneath us. Feel breath in the whole body. Feel the whole range of sensations in the whole body. The pain is just one aspect of this multifaceted experience of being alive right now. If you notice yourself hardening up again, tensing, turning away, suppressing, denying, blocking—use awareness to interrupt that process and soften. Relax the palms. Relax the hands. Come closer. Breathe kindly.
12. This is a training in wholeness, integration, and kindliness. We’re able to be with all of our experience with presence and kindliness. If we have a wound, we broaden. If we’re blocking off, we come closer. That is the practice. Our awareness is dynamic, subtle, receptive, fluid.
13. You can keep on practicing if you’d like to, but I’ll bring this guided meditation to a close. Let’s bring the weight of the body to the foreground of awareness, feeling, resting into the support beneath us. Feel breathing in the whole body. Broaden awareness to be aware of sounds around your environment. Open the eyes if they’ve been closed. Bring a tiny bit of movement into the body, maybe the fingers and the toes or some other part of the body. Notice any tendency to immediately halt the breath and immediately start pushing and rushing. Stay inside this subtle movement with a soft brow. And when you’re ready, come into bigger movement. In your own time, reengage with the activities of the day.
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April 8, 2025
A Meditation for Unconditional Love When You’re Struggling
In this guided meditation, Caverly Morgan invites us to move beyond “positive thinking” in difficult moments and instead tap into a deep well of unconditional love for ourselves
When we’re wrestling with experiences that challenge our identities or our confidence—like failures at work, relationship struggles, or letting go of old belief systems—it can be tempting to reach for positive self-talk that pushes back against the difficult feelings we might be having.

In today’s guided practice, Caverly Morgan offers something much sturdier, what she calls unconditional reassurances.

In this practice, we’re not just saying the opposite of what we’re feeling, hoping that it will be true. Rather, it’s about anchoring into a deep-down sense of worthiness and compassion that’s always present, regardless of how well things are going for us or how great we feel about ourselves in any given moment. It’s the difference between saying, Don’t feel bad! You’re the best! and saying, Whether you succeed or you don’t, I love you no matter what.

A Meditation for Unconditional Love When You’re Struggling

Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
1. I invite you to begin this meditation with three of the longest and deepest inhalations and exhalations you’ve taken yet today. So often we take the breath for granted. Give yourself permission right now to simply enjoy breathing.
2. Picture a moment in your life in which you are struggling. If the scale is one to ten, ten being the greatest struggle you’ve ever known, pick something in the middle. Think of some time, perhaps in your recent past, when you were resisting what is, or seeking a different experience.
3. Notice what you were saying to yourself as you were struggling. Or to be even more accurate, what “the judge” was asserting, maybe commanding. Maybe for you there wasn’t any negative self-talk present, or perhaps the voice of the inner critic wasn’t alive in that moment. But for most of us, in moments of struggle the judge is somewhere on the scene. For this contemplation, see if you can get a sense of what’s being said.
4. Now see yourself as the one who’s listening to the judge. Really play with this in your imagination. Maybe you even see a young part of you that’s taking this message in. You might even let yourself feel, consciously identifying with this young part of you feeling what they feel.
5. From this space, ask, What do I need to hear? What do I need to know? If it’s not this, what is it?
6. Now in this struggle, take on the feeling as though you’re drowning, flailing your limbs around. See someone sitting on a dock nearby. Someone that really loves you, knows you, sees you. It might not be a real person in your life. It might be a kind stranger that is walking by the lake and doesn’t want to see you drown. See this person? With a bright, shiny, brand new life preserver in their hand, see them tossing it to you as your arms flail. Let yourself grab on to it.
7. If there were messages inscribed on this life preserver, what would the messages be? Perhaps it’s really simple. Like, I’m here. You don’t need to flail around any longer. You can hang on to me. I’ve got you. What phrases light up for you? What sentiments? Touch that unmet need. There’s no right or wrong here.
8. What is important is that the sentiments are unconditional. If they were to come in the form of phrases, they’re phrases that have no opposite. For example, they wouldn’t be something like, You’re a winner! Rather, they would be things like, I love you no matter what.
9. Take a moment now to say these phrases to yourself. Offer this part of you who’s been struggling unconditional Love. It’s not transactional or based on performance. Offer that now. Really see the part of you that needs to hear these things, needs to know these things.
10. If it feels difficult to access unconditional Love in this moment, that is absolutely fine. It’s just not the right moment to touch it. A part of you might be blocking the love. That’s always in the backdrop of our experience, but they can often feel out of reach. See if you can touch this love, this recognition that you are worthy.
11. Next, play with the image of releasing the life preserver. Just breathing and floating in the sea of presence. You don’t need to strive. Floating isn’t the byproduct of your hard work and your effort to do this “right.” It is your nature to float, just as it is your nature to love. If you meditate to be a better person, you’ll always be busy trying to be a better person. If you meditate because you’re in love, resting in your own luminous, infinite being in this sea of love, you’ll always be in love.
12. For one more full minute, let yourself rest in love. I’ll stop talking now. And if you wish to rest in this way for longer than a minute, I invite you to do so. If you need to move into your day, just give yourself one more minute before doing so. Resting in love. Letting yourself float. Thank you.
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March 21, 2025
10 Guided Meditations for Tough Times

These guided meditations can help us ease stress, get rest, and stay present when current events feel like too much to bear.

When the world feels unpredictable and out of our control, our natural response can be to try to shut it out. For example, it’s not uncommon to hear caring, thoughtful people admit that they no longer read or watch the news. It’s just too overwhelming, too dark, and they need to protect their mental health in order to be able to show up for day-to-day life with their families, their friends, and at work. That’s valid. No one can withstand a constant barrage of bad news. It’s essential to take breaks when you need them and to make sure that your life has pockets of joy, calm, and ease.

At the same time, tuning out completely isn’t the only answer. Practicing mindfulness and meditation can be a helpful framework to explore and work with our thoughts and emotions when hard things are happening to us and around us. It can also offer opportunities for deep rest and relaxation that give us the bandwidth to stay engaged. As mindfulness teacher Georgina Miranda says, just because there’s chaos around us doesn’t mean that there must be chaos within us. From a place of calm and groundedness, we’re better prepared to meet whatever comes next.

Here are 10 guided meditations from some of today’s leading mindfulness teachers to support you when current events feel like too much to bear.

While these meditations are divided into steps to offer a pathway, your path may look different and that’s OK. Take what you need when you need it.

Take-What-You-Need Meditations for Hard Times

Step 1: Breathe and Get Space

Step 2: Feel and Explore

Step 3: Engage

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March 1, 2025
A Guided Meditation for Coming Home to Yourself
In this guided practice, Georgina Miranda invites you to pause, reflect, and reconnect with your inner strength.
This article is independently researched and written by the Mindful editors. However, we may earn revenue or commission if you purchase via links included.

In a world that constantly pulls us in different directions—from productivity and external validation to endless distractions—coming home to ourselves is one of the most powerful things we can do. True resilience isn’t about pushing through; it’s about creating an inner refuge, a place of strength and safety that stays steady no matter what’s happening around us.

That’s what we’re exploring in Coming Home to Yourself, a meditation guided by Georgina Miranda. This meditation invites you to pause, reflect, and reconnect with your inner strength. Georgina reminds us that while mindfulness can be a refuge in difficult times, its real power comes from regular practice. This meditation is an opportunity to reset, find stability, and ground yourself in the present moment.

A Meditation for Coming Home to Yourself with Georgina Miranda
1. Find a quiet space where you will not be distracted. Take a seat on the floor or on a chair. Keep your spine straight. Place your palms on your lap facing up. Close your eyes or simply lower your gaze. Ease into your seat.
2. Start connecting with your breath. If your mind is busy, you can count your breaths as above to refocus and slow down.
3. Connect with the rhythm of your breath. With each inhale ground yourself a little more into your seat. With each exhale let go of any tension, worries, doubts, or fears that arise.
4. As you inhale next, feel the beauty of the breath moving through your body. Connect with a sense of renewal and ease.
5. As you exhale, release any remaining tension a little bit more, embracing a feeling of lightness come over you.
6. As you inhale, softly mentally affirm, “I am safe, I am home.”
7. As you exhale, softly mentally affirm, “I am well, and at ease.”
8. Continue with these affirmations and cycles of breath until you feel a shift within you. Feel your sense of safety, joy, ease, and peace and with each breath come home more to yourself.
More From Georgina Miranda

Take back your power, ease your suffering, and create space for growth, renewal, and intentional living with Reset and Let Go: The Freedom to Live Fully, a transformative course by Georgina Miranda. Rooted in mindfulness, self-awareness, and practical tools for transformation, this journey will help you release what no longer serves you, reset your mindset, and embrace the life you truly want to live.
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February 23, 2025
A “Just Like Me” Practice to Expand Your Circle of Compassion: 12 Minute Meditation
The invitation with this practice is to put aside ideas and concepts about differences, shame, fear, survival, and the rest, and to simply see if you can begin to develop a felt sense of common humanity. What you are tapping into here is the awareness that all of us wish for happiness and freedom from suffering, that this too is a part of our common humanity.

A “Just Like Me” Practice to Expand Your Circle of Compassion

This meditation is inspired by the writing and teaching of Thupten Jinpa in his book A Fearless Heart: How the courage to be compassionate can transform our lives.
1. Take some time to settle into your body for a few minutes, allowing your attention to drop inside. Take note of whatever is present in the way of sensation inside your body. You may notice the touch of clothing, the pressure of the supporting surface on certain parts of your body, or just sensations of coolness or warmth, relaxation or tension, ease or discomfort. Take note of where and how you are in this moment. You may notice the movement of breath into and out of the body as well, recognizing that the breath has continued to move on its own since you last attended to it.
2. Imagine someone whom you hold dear, someone who brings a smile to your face when you think of them, someone with whom you have a relatively easy and uncomplicated relationship. This may be a family member like a child, a grandparent, or even a pet. Try to go beyond the idea of this being and see if you can actually feel what it feels like to be in their presence.
3. Notice any pleasant feelings that may arise as you hold this beloved being in your awareness and see how easy it is to acknowledge that they, too, have the same aspiration for genuine happiness that you have.
4. Now call to mind someone else, someone that you recognize but don’t have much meaningful interaction with and don’t feel any particular closeness to. This may be a person whom you see quite often, on the street, behind the counter at your favorite coffee shop, or driving the bus you take regularly. Notice what feelings arise for you as you picture this person and how these feelings may be different from what you felt in regard to the loved one you imagined first.
5. See if you can imagine what it might be like to be this person. Usually, we don’t give much thought to the happiness of people in neutral roles in our lives like this. Imagine their life, their hopes and fears, which are every bit as real, complex, and challenging as yours. You may even recognize a certain similarity between yourself and this other person at the level of your common humanity. “Just like me, she wishes to be happy and to avoid even the slightest suffering.”
6. Next, take some time to see if you can call to mind someone you don’t know at all, and who seems very much unlike you at first glance. Perhaps an image comes to mind from the news or in your imagination or from your previous travels. Maybe consider someone facing hardships far different from your own right now. Perhaps you might call to mind someone who doesn’t look like you . . . or someone who has an entirely different cultural background or life circumstances. You may find yourself thinking just now of people suffering through war or resisting tyranny anywhere on the globe.
7. Take the time to see if you can look past the differences to what you have in common with this person or these people. Imagine looking into their eyes, sitting with them in meditation, feeling just a little of the joy and pain and sorrow and fear that they may experience . . . simply because they are human, just like you.
8. See if you can put yourself in this person’s shoes for a moment, recognizing that they are an object of deep concern to someone, a parent or a spouse, a child or a dear friend of someone. Begin to acknowledge that even this person who seems so different has the same fundamental aspiration for happiness that you have. Allow your attention to stay with this awareness for some period of time (say 20 to 30 seconds). Allow thoughts and feelings to come and go as they will, as you remain present to whatever arises, with no other agenda but to observe and be kind to yourself in that presence.
9. Finally, see if you can bring together these three people in one mental picture in front of you. Take some time to reflect on the fact that they all share a basic yearning to be happy and free from suffering. At this dimension, there is no difference between these three people. In this fundamental aspect, they are exactly the same. Just take the time to relate to these three beings from that perspective, from the point of view that they share the aspiration for happiness and a kind of perfect imperfection.
10. Now include yourself in this circle of awareness, reminding yourself that:
  These people have feelings, thoughts, and emotions, just like me.
  These people, during their lives, have experienced physical and emotional pain and suffering, just like me. These people have been sad, disappointed, angry or worried, just like me.
  These people have felt unworthy or inadequate at times, just like me. These people have longed for connection, purpose, and belonging, just like me.
  These people want to be happy and free from pain and suffering, just like me. These people want to be loved, just like me.
11. With this deep recognition that the desires to be happy and to overcome suffering are common to all, silently repeat this phrase: “Just like me, all others aspire to happiness and want to overcome suffering.”
12. Take some time to sit with whatever wishes or feelings arise from this practice, allowing them to arise and fall away. Your only agenda is to notice and take note of their arising.
Adapted from Self-Compassion for Dummies by Steven Hickman.
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February 7, 2025
A 12-Minute Meditation to Meet Difficult Emotions With Compassion
This guided meditation is a simple practice to help us navigate the ups and downs of everyday life challenges with a kind and open heart.
Often when we’re struggling with challenging situations or emotions, the things that feel the most supportive aren’t complex techniques, but just simple, down-to-earth practices.

In this podcast episode, teacher and leadership trainer Carley Hauck introduces a practice for working with difficult emotions that’s all about noticing the body and visualizing the support, care, and wisdom to stay present to the right-now experience. In a world that feels increasingly complex and uncertain, Carley’s guidance is like a gentle hand on the back, encouraging us to slow down and find calm amidst the chaos. She shows us how to face life’s challenges with a kind and open heart, reminding us that it’s okay to feel overwhelmed sometimes.

A Guided Meditation for Working With Difficult Emotions
1. For this meditation, allow yourself to come into a comfortable sitting position. Feel your feet firmly planted on the floor. Notice your posture as you’re sitting. Allow your shoulders and your upper back to relax.
2. Begin to notice the rhythm of your breath as you breathe in and out. It may even be helpful to place one hand on your lower abdomen. And as you breathe in, you feel the stomach rise. And as you breathe out, you feel the stomach fall.
3. Start to notice the slowing down of your heart rate, of your blood pressure, allowing you to fully be here in this present moment.
4. Bring to mind a situation that occurred recently where you felt sadness or disappointment. It doesn’t need to be the most difficult experience, but just something moderately difficult so that you can practice. It may even be something that hasn’t happened yet, but that you are feeling sad, disappointed, or anxious about.
5. Turn your attention to the physical body. As you’re reflecting on this situation of sadness, what do you feel in the body right now? Is there tightness or tension behind the eyes? Is there a heaviness in the shoulders or your head? What are you aware of right now?
6. With a compassionate curiosity, turn towards your experience. Everything is welcome right now.
7. If you find it difficult to be with what’s arising, that’s okay. Use the breath as a stabilizer, helping you to fully be here to whatever is arising and passing in the mind and the body and the heart. It might also help to name the feelings that are here for you, like sadness, loss, or disappointment.
8. If this feels comfortable for you, allow yourself to imagine a wise and loving figure who is cradling you. They have enveloped you with strong and loving arms. And they’re stroking your head and repeating, “It’s okay. I am here for you.” Let yourself take that in. Receive the support.
9. If there’s anything else that you need to hear to really feel supported right now, allow that to come into your awareness. What words or gestures would feel most comforting and helpful?
10. Notice what’s happening in your physical body as you receive this support. Is there heaviness? Is there peace? Acceptance?
11. When you’re feeling ready, you can thank this loving figure for its support and presence. You are centered, strong, resilient. And you are ready to meet the day.
12. When you feel ready, allow yourself to slowly transition back into your day—slowly open your eyes, feel your feet on the floor, notice your surroundings. Thank you for your practice today.
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January 28, 2025
5 Guided Meditations to Investigate Panic and Anxiety
Explore these five guided meditations for softening feelings of anxiousness and calming panic.
Unprecedented, uncertain—these are terms we’ve heard used in excess over the past few years. But no matter how tiring uncertainty may be, one thing remains true: We’ve all had to adapt to changing circumstances the best we can and as fast as we can. One thing we know is that mindfulness can help. If you’re finding yourself overwhelmed, here are five guided meditations worth following to ease anxiety and calm panic.

5 Guided Meditations for Panic and Anxiety

1. A Meditation for Investigating Panic Attacks
1. First, congratulate yourself that you are dedicating some precious time for meditation.
2. Become aware of your body and mind and whatever you are carrying within you. Perhaps there are feelings from the day’s events or whatever has been going on recently.
3. May you simply allow and acknowledge whatever is within you and let it be, without any form of analysis.
4. Gradually, shift the focus of awareness to the breath, breathing normally and naturally. As you breathe in, be aware of breathing in, and as you breathe out, be aware of breathing out.
5. Awareness can be focused at either the tip of the nose or the abdomen, depending on your preference. If focusing at the tip of the nose, feel the touch of the air as you breathe in and out… If focusing on the abdomen, feel the belly expanding on an inhalation and contracting on an exhalation.
6. Breathing in, breathing out, experiencing each breath appearing and disappearing. Just breathing. And now gently withdraw awareness from the breath and shift to mindful inquiry.
7. Mindful inquiry is an investigation into emotions, thoughts, and physical sensations that are driving your panic, anxieties, and fears, often beneath the surface of your awareness. There is a special and unique way of doing this practice that can foster the potential for deep understanding and insight.
8. When you practice mindful inquiry, gently direct your attention into the bodily feeling of panic or fear itself. Allow yourself to bring nonjudgmental awareness into the experience of it, acknowledging whatever it feels like in the body and mind and letting it be.
9. To begin this exploration you need to first check in with yourself and determine whether it feels safe or not. If you don’t feel safe, perhaps it is better to wait and try another time, and just stay with your breathing for now.
10. If you are feeling safe, then bring awareness into the body and mind and allow yourself to acknowledge any physical sensations, emotions, or thoughts. Then, just let them be…without trying to analyze or figure them out.
11. You may discover that within these feelings there’s a multitude of thoughts, emotions, or old memories that are fueling your fears. When you begin to acknowledge what has not been acknowledged, the pathway of insight and understanding may arise. As you turn toward your emotions, they may show you what you are panicked, worried, mad, sad, or bewildered about.
12. You may learn that the very resistance to unacknowledged emotions often causes more panic or fear and that learning to go with it, rather than fighting it, often diminishes them. When we say “go with it,” we mean that you allow and acknowledge whatever is within the mind and body. Just letting the waves of emotions, thoughts, and physical sensations go wherever they need to go just like the sky makes room for any weather.
13. Now gently return to the breath, being mindful of breathing in and out…riding the waves of the breath.
14. As you come to the end of this meditation, take a moment to congratulate yourself and take a moment to appreciate the safety and ease you may be feeling right now that you can bring into your day. By acknowledging your fears, you may open the possibility for deeper understanding, compassion, and peace. Before you get up, gently wiggle your fingers and toes and gradually open your eyes, being fully aware here and now.
15. Send some loving-kindness your way. May I dwell in peace. May all beings dwell in peace.
2. A Meditation to Create Space Between You and Your Anxiety
1. When you’re ready, come into a comfortable seated position. Let’s take some breaths here. Find your ground by feeling your feet on the floor beneath you. Feel your body touching the chair or cushion you’re on. Really allow yourself to settle into this: Feel gravity, and release your weight toward gravity. Let’s take a few deeper breaths now. If you are already feeling anxious, it can be helpful to really extend the exhale. Take a nice, long inhale, then very much emphasize the exhale.
2. Explore how you’re feeling right now. If you’re feeling anxious right now, it’s a great opportunity to practice. But if not, bring to mind a time recently when you felt some kind of fear, anxiety, worry, or agitation. Recall the situation or conversation. Just remember that event, and as you do, you might start to notice anxious thoughts emerging in your mind. You might also start to notice some related sensations in your body.
3. Open your attention wide. Before we turn toward the anxiety more fully, let’s first open our attention wide. Here’s where we can use A.W.E. (And What Else?) Just notice. You may be feeling anxiety right now, but let’s direct our attention away from that and actively explore our senses.
4. Open your eyes and look around. If your eyes are closed, I invite you to open them to look around the space you’re in. Simply orient yourself. And now notice three things that you see in the space around you. They can be very neutral or even pleasant things—flowers, an image. Simply describe them to yourself in your mind: the colours, shapes, forms.
5. Turn your attention to the sounds around you. Once you’ve noticed three things visually and described them to yourself, turn your attention to hearing. Allow your attention to settle on the sounds around you. Listen for three different sounds; they can be near or far. Emphasize pleasant or neutral sounds. And, again, describe them to yourself: notice the vibration, the tone, how they arise and then pass.
6. Now, let’s turn our attention to taste. This might be a little more challenging, but just notice: Can you detect any flavour in your mouth? Maybe something you ate before starting this practice? Toothpaste? Just notice what it’s like to taste.
7. Now, turn your attention to your sense of smell. You might take in a deeper breath here. Just notice: Can you detect any scent in the space around you? Notice how they can shift and change with each breath.
8. And finally, let’s move to the sense of touch. Beginning on the outer surface of our skin, feel the contact with the chair or the ground. If your hands are touching or resting against your body, just feel that sensation. It’s very simple: What do you notice when you turn your attention toward your hands touching? Feel the contact of your clothes with your body. Feel the temperature of the air on your skin. What can you notice?
9. If you have the energy and some space now, turn your attention toward the felt sense of anxiety. If you feel the need for more space at any time, simply keep turning your attention outward: the sounds, the sights—wherever it feels calming and grounding for you to attend in your senses. When you do feel ready to explore, turn your attention to the felt sense: How do you notice anxiety? Where do you feel it in your body? Take a breath and notice where you feel it. Maybe it’s in your belly? See if you can notice the details, too: Is it throbbing or tingling? What’s the energy like? Within the sensation of anxiety, does it feel like there’s a lot of movement? Does it shift and change as you pay attention to it?
10. Can you gently relax around the feeling of anxiety or fear? Think of the rest of your body holding this feeling with a lot of care. Pay close attention, explore, be curious: How does anxiety show up? How is it shifting? If at any point it becomes overwhelming or you get lost in thinking and find you’re unable to stay with the sensations, simply go to And What Else: Notice the sights around you. Notice the sounds. Feel the ground.
11. If you are able to pay attention to this sense of anxiety, simply noticing it, let’s drop in a question. Staying with the felt sense of this fear, anxiety, worry, or agitation, just ask: What do you need? What do you want me to know? What are you trying to offer me? Just see what answers, images, words arise here. We’re asking ourselves here: What do I need?
12. As we close out the meditation, see if you can commit to doing something to address that need you’ve identified. Alternatively, simply remember the information that has arisen for you during this practice. And now, if you’re ready, take a few deeper breaths. Soften your body slightly. Feel the seat under you, the ground under you.
3. A Meditation for Working with Anxiety
1. To begin, sit in a way that is relaxed, and take a moment to adjust your posture on your seat to one that’s more comfortable. Feel your body in contact with the surface beneath you.
2. Allow yourself to experience whatever is present right now. Whatever bodily feelings, mood, emotions, mind states, and thoughts are present. You might take a few deeper breaths to invite the body and the mind to relax and settle. Take a nice full deep in-breath, relaxing, releasing, and letting go on the out-breath. Breathe in, and fill the chest and the lungs with the in-breath. Release and let go on the out-breath.
3. As you breathe in, you might invite in a quality of calm. You could repeat the word calm silently to yourself as you breathe in, and then again as you breathe out. Breathe in, calm the body, breathe out, calm the mind.
4. When you’re ready, let the breath settle into its natural rhythm, allowing it to be just as it is. Breathe in, breathe out.
5. You might invite a smile to the corners of your eyes and the corners of your mouth; a smile sends a message to our brain and to our nervous system that we’re safe and don’t have to be hyper-vigilant. Smiling invites us to relax, and be at ease.
6. While sitting in a way that is relaxed and alert, you might bring to your mind a situation that is a source of anxiety or stress for you. It might be a work situation, family, health, finances, or it might be a combination of factors. Allow yourself to take in all the feelings, sensations, and emotions, and the overall sense of this situation, in the body and in the mind. Choose not to follow scenarios in your mind about what might happen or things that might go badly, and simply observe your thoughts and let them go. Be open to whatever bodily sensations are present with kindness and acceptance. There might be contraction, heat, tightness, tingling, or pulsing. Whatever is present, say yes to what you’re feeling. Be open to these feelings and let them come and go. Bring a kind awareness to whatever emotions are present, and allow yourself to feel them fully; they might be fear, worry, anxiety, or sadness, to name a few. Let these feelings be as big as they want to be, and say yes to all that you’re feeling. Let your awareness and kind attention hold whatever is present, whatever is arising for you in the body, heart, and mind. Bring interest to the changing flow of experience, letting everything stay for a period of time, and then pass on their own time. Meet it all with kindness, acceptance, and interest.
7. If anxious thoughts arise like, “This will never go away” or, “I’ll never be able to do everything I have to do,” meet these thoughts with kindness and care. Without identifying with them or treating them as true, let the thoughts come and go. Continue to open to your experience in this way, meeting your experience with kindness and care. If it’s challenging, acknowledge that it is difficult. You could put a hand on your heart and wish yourself well, if this is helpful.
8. Think to yourself, “May I be happy, and may I live with ease.” Take a nice deep full in-breath, letting go on the out-breath. Hold your experience with kindness and with care.
9. Bring awareness to any emotion that may be present, perhaps underneath the feelings. Maybe there’s fear that the sadness, grief, or worry will continue. See if you can say yes to the emotion. Meet your emotions with kindness and care, and notice how they too shift and change if you can open to them.
10. If a sensation or an emotion gives rise to an urge or an impulse to do something negative, like eat something unhealthy, take a drink, or take a drug, see if you can stay with that energy. See that this too comes and stays for a while, and then passes. If it’s helpful you could imagine it as like a wave coming along. Maybe there’s a strong energy, and the wave crests. But if you stay with it with awareness and with kindness, perhaps those feelings pass for a while, and then there’s calm. Be open to the thoughts or narratives that come up in your mind; they might be “This is too much,” or “I need to do something to deal with this pain or difficult feeling,” and invite yourself to stay with the direct experience.
11. If the pain, discomfort, difficult emotion, or difficult feeling seems like it’s too intense, see if you can bring your awareness to another part of your experience. Perhaps an area of your body that feels more neutral, such as your hands, or your feet, or your seat, or something in your life that you’re happy about or grateful for. Let your awareness rest on a more pleasant or neutral experience for a time. When you feel ready, let your attention move back to the bodily feelings, and be open again to your experience, riding whatever waves arise.
12. Stay as close to your direct experience as you can, and bring a kind awareness to the thoughts and stories that surround the pain, stress, or difficult emotion. Choose not to identify with the thoughts but just acknowledge them as thoughts. Let them come and go in their own time with kindness.
13. Sit quietly for a couple of minutes, and be open to the changing flow of experience, recognizing how mindfulness can help us open up to and untangle ourselves from painful thoughts, stress, worry, anxiety, and the patterns of behavior that tend to go with those feelings, emotions, and mental states.
4. A Meditation to Sit With Difficult Emotions
1. Come into a comfortable sitting position. Imagine something difficult that you are going through. It doesn’t have to be the most difficult, but something moderately difficult. We want to practice with moderation before we move into the most difficult. Now, recognize your desire to push away the difficulty, to reach toward something that would soothe the difficulty in the moment (reaching out to someone, chocolate, distracting with technology, etc.), or denying that this difficulty is actually happening.
2. Now turn toward it. Breathe deeply in through your nose and out through your mouth a few times. Now invite into your awareness a large figure of compassion and strength who envelops you in a blanket of love, acceptance, and security. It can be a big cloud of compassion, a large grandmotherly figure, anything that feels loving and kind. Now, imagine this figure is holding you.
3. Turn fully toward your difficulty. Face it, head on. There is no need to be scared. Feel this wise being enveloping you and speaking kindly to you: “It will be okay, you are okay, you are lovable, you are enough, you are not alone, and we will get through this together.” Let yourself offer and receive loving and kind statements as many times as you need until your mind and body can soothe and slow down.
4. Each time, you notice yourself reaching for the old familiar way of turning away from discomfort, try gently turning toward it. The more you train the mind to acknowledge and name whatever difficulty is here, it won’t feel so challenging. In addition, your limbic system and specifically your amygdala will send a signal to your sympathetic nervous system that you can physiologically relax.
5. A Meditation to Explore Anxious Feelings
1. Begin with a brief mindful check-in, taking a few minutes to acknowledge how you’re currently feeling in your body and mind…being mindful of whatever is in your awareness and letting it all be. There’s nothing that needs to be fixed, analyzed, or solved. Just allow your experience and let it be. Being present.
2. Now gently shift your attention to the breath, becoming mindful of breathing in and out. Bring awareness to wherever you feel the breath most prominently and distinctly, perhaps at your nose, in your chest, or in your belly, or perhaps somewhere else. There’s no other place you need to go…nothing else you need to do…just being mindful of your breath flowing in and out. If your mind wanders away from the breath, just acknowledge wherever it went, then return to being mindful of breathing in and out.
3. Reflect on a specific experience of anxiety, perhaps something recent so you can remember it more clearly. It doesn’t have to be an extreme experience of anxiety, perhaps something that you’d rate at 5 or 6 on a scale of 1 to 10. Recall the experience in detail, as vividly as you can, invoking some of that anxiety now, in the present moment.
4. As you imagine the experience and sense into it, be mindful of how the anxiety feels in your body and stay present with the sensations. Your only job right now is to feel and acknowledge whatever physical sensations you’re experiencing in your body and let them be. There’s no need to change them. Let the sensations run their course, just like a ripple on a lake is gradually assimilated into the entirety of the body of water.
5. Now feel into any emotions that emerge…anxiety, fear, sadness, anger, confusion…whatever you may feel. As with physical sensations, just acknowledge how these emotions feel and let them be. There’s no need to analyze them or figure them out
6. If strong emotions don’t arise, this doesn’t mean you aren’t doing this meditation correctly. The practice is simply to acknowledge whatever is in your direct experience and let it be. Whatever comes up in the practice is the practice.
7. Bringing awareness to your anxiety may sometimes amplify your anxious feelings. This is normal, and the intensity will subside as you open to and acknowledge what you’re experiencing and give it space to simply be.
8. Continue feeling into the anxiety, just allowing any feelings in the body and mind and letting them be, cultivating balance and the fortitude to be with things as they are. The very fact that you’re acknowledging anxiety rather than turning away from it is healing.
9. As you continue to acknowledge your physical sensations and emotions, they may begin to reveal a host of memories, thoughts, feelings, and physical experiences that may have created limiting definitions of who you think you are. You may begin to see more clearly into how these old patterns of conditioning have driven your anxiety. This understanding can set you free—freer than you ever felt possible.
10. Now gradually transition back to the breath, breathing mindfully in and out… Next, slowly shift your awareness from your breath to sensing into your heart. Take some time to open into your heart with self-compassion, acknowledging your courage in engaging with your anxiety. In this way, your anxiety can become your teacher, helping you open your heart to greater wisdom, compassion, and ease within your being.
11. As you’re ready to end this meditation, congratulate yourself for taking this time to meditate and heal yourself. Then gradually open your eyes and return to being present in the environment around you. May we all find the gateways into our hearts and be free.
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January 26, 2025
Find Stability Amid Change With A 12-Minute Meditation
In this meditation on impermanence, Aden Van Noppen reminds us that when the outside world feels overwhelming, we can often find inner calm by coming back to the breath.
We live in a world of constant change and this week, Aden Van Noppen invites us to find what roots us. Aden is the founder and executive director of Mobius, a collaboration between leading neuroscientists, meditation teachers, and technologists to work toward the creation of digital technology that enhances our individual and collective well-being. Aden is also one of the 10 powerful women of the mindfulness movement 2022, and here she guides a meditation on impermanence.

A 12-Minute Meditation to Find Stability Amid Change
1. Let’s begin with a little grounding. Gently move your attention to the place where you are most rooted to the Earth. Whether that’s the bottom of your feet or where your body rests on a chair or a cushion, take a moment to just rest your attention there. Feeling the rootedness. Feeling the ground, the floor, the chair, the cushion holding you, holding your weight, grounding you.
2. Gently move your attention toward your breath. Take a relaxed breath, feeling the in- and out-breath like a wave. A wave of breath in and the wave as it moves out with your breath out. And just like the quality of a wave, it’s washing over you and through you. You don’t have to control it. In and out, without controlling it.
3. And just like a wave, no two breaths are the same. And just like every moment, no two moments are the same. Let this breath be a reminder of impermanence. As you breathe in, you can gently say to yourself, “This breath.” Each moment, each breath is a chance to begin again. “This breath.” Just like a wave.
4. As you take in your next breath, imagine the feeling of soaking up the nutrients of that breath, the life force of that breath, and with your out-breath, letting go. In—”Soaking up.” Out—”Letting go.” “Soaking up. Letting go.” Just as we do over and over in our lives. “Soaking up. Letting go. “ And combining them: “This breath. Letting go.”
5. As we transition to close this meditation, gently move your attention away from the wave of your breath and back to the rootedness of your seat, of your feet, wherever your weight is held most by the ground.
6. Even with the constant change, the moving in, the moving out, we always have this rootedness. It is always available to us, to remind us that we are held amid the change in our lives moment to moment.
7. When you’re ready, you can bring your attention back into the room and gently open your eyes. Thank you for sitting with me.
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