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  • 5 Guided Meditations to Investigate Panic and Anxiety

    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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  • A Guided Meditation to Set Your Intentions for the New Year

    A Guided Meditation to Set Your Intentions for the New Year

    Skip the resolutions this year. Set a different tone by cultivating your intentions for the new year with this mindful practice.

    While many of us take stock at the end of a year, set goals, or make new plans for the upcoming year, that sense of letting go of what we’re caught up in and the habits we’ve been living through are a part of our everyday mindfulness practice. Each time we sit for a few minutes, there’s an opportunity to let go of wherever our minds, attention, and awareness have gotten caught up in, come back, and realign ourselves with our best intentions and efforts. 

    It might be a sense of bringing full awareness and attention to our experience, to the people around us, to a conversation with our children. It might be a sense of letting go of reactivity and coming back to resolve with more patience and clarity. It might also be balancing the tendency most of us have to get caught up in stress and giving more attention to gratefulness, positive moments, and things we enjoy. Or it might be a sense of wanting to bring more kindness and compassion to how we treat ourselves, how we treat others, or even how we treat the people we find difficult in our lives. All of that can be cultivated, sustained, and developed through any amount of time we spend in our mindfulness practice. 

    A Guided Meditation to Set Your Intentions for the New Year

    1. Find a comfortable posture. Dropping your gaze or shutting your eyes, notice the physical movement your body makes with each breath. You might notice your belly, your chest, or perhaps the air moving in and out of your nose and mouth. 
    2. Check in with your effort and intention. What is it you’d like to bring to the practice today? Perhaps it’s an opportunity to settle and gather your attention or a sense of resolve and strength. Of course, you might have the intention to simply show up to this practice without adding any sense of stress or strain. 
    3. Bring that sense of intention and awareness to your practice today. One way to do that can be within each in-breath, developing a sense of open awareness. 
    4. With each out-breath, come up with a word that captures your intentions for yourself. Breathe in with awareness and maybe picture something or feel gratitude toward whatever feels appropriate to you right now. Breathe out with your intentions for this moment. 
    5. You might lose touch with your intentions throughout the practice and in life—you can come back again. If you lose touch with the practice and your mind gets caught up in distraction or reactivity or some sense of discomfort, that’s normal. That’s all part of the practice. Try coming back to the same practice with awareness. 
    6. As the practice ends, pause for a moment with intention, and choose when to move on with your day. 
      Whatever you’re facing in life, all we indirectly influence is how we choose to relate to that. Reactivity and anger so often lead to more reactivity and anger. You can get caught up in self-criticism and in criticism of others. You can develop a more balanced sense of awareness, preciseness, and clarity through mindfulness practice. At any moment, you can catch yourself and realign yourself with your best intentions, recognizing that you may lose touch again and then come back when you do. 
    Why You Need a Self-Care Plan 

    Shelly Tygielski offers a three-step exercise to help you get started with your own self-care plan—no bubble bath required.
    Read More 

    • Shelly Tygielski
    • January 3, 2023



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  • A Guided Meditation to Reset and Let Go

    A Guided Meditation to Reset and Let Go

    In this guided mindfulness practice, we release what no longer serves us and anchor in our inner wisdom, peace, and freedom.

    While the new year often inspires reflection, January isn’t the only time we can release what no longer serves us. Resetting can happen in any moment—simply by connecting to the rhythm of our breath. In this meditation, journey inward to release, reset, and anchor into our inner wisdom, peace, and freedom. “Every inhale is a new moment, a sense of total renewal. And every exhale is an opportunity to arrive in the space, free. Totally free.”

    A Meditation to Reset and Let Go

    1. Prepare for this practice by finding a quiet place and a comfortable seat. If you wish, you can also lay down. Whichever you choose, find connection and grounding with the space that you’re in. If you’re seated in a stool or a chair, plant both feet on the ground. If you’re seated on the floor directly or on a meditation cushion, sit with a straight spine. If you’re lying down, lie flat in a way that you feel grounded and connected to the space you’re lying on. 
    2. Close your eyes and start to bring awareness to your breath. Start to notice and be a witness to life flowing through your body, which is your breath. Notice the pace of your breath and tune in to its rhythm. Use each breath as an opportunity to arrive here, to shift your focus away from what might have happened earlier and towards the space you’re in, to this recording, this meditation, this practice that we’re all sharing together. 
    3. Breathe in and out through your nose to start. Notice if anything is still arising from what might have happened before you came into this practice. If so, just acknowledge it and then consciously shift your awareness back to your breath. 
    4. Now breathe in through your nose and exhale out through your mouth. Notice if you feel any release throughout your body with that long, deep exhale. Let’s do that again, breathing in through our nose and out through our mouth. Deep exhale. Again, just notice what arises or what releases in your body. One last time, let’s breathe in through our nose and out through our mouth. 
    5. We can carry weight energetically, physically, mentally. With total awareness and non-judgment, let’s be a witness to what might be coming up. With every exhale, ask, Can we let this go?   
    6. Notice if you feel tension somewhere in your body. Bring awareness to that space and take a deep inhale into that space that feels tense. Then, exhale to try to release that tension that you might feel. Remember, the tension might be a reoccurring thought or situation that’s presenting itself. Keep going through this process of being a witness if something’s coming up for you—physically, mentally, energetically—and then use the power of your breath to slowly bring some relief, some release, with your breath, with your exhale. 
    7. We might not be able to control everything happening on the outside, but we always have the power to be aware and shift what’s happening on the inside. You can use this practice of connecting to your breath to release as a means to create a subtle shift, lessening that tension of everything that’s not serving you in this present moment. You can invite a sense of freedom and liberation, even for one breath cycle. Notice the shift it creates throughout your entire being. At any time, you can use your breath to reclaim your inner power, your inner peace, and your inner wisdom. You don’t need to carry the past with you. 
    8. If you’re having any trouble with really being present, I encourage you to place one hand over your heart, one over your stomach. Use this physical reminder to connect with the rhythm of your breath and the beauty that your breath holds in helping you release and lighten your daily load. Every inhale is a new moment, a sense of total renewal. And every exhale is just an opportunity to arrive in the space free, totally free, of everything that ever was. 
    9. Start to bring awareness again to the space you’re in. Offer gratitude for yourself for showing up today, for embarking on this inward adventure. Honor yourself, your journey, and your willingness to release and let go of what no longer serves you. 
    10. Take a deep inhale in, a big exhale out, and ever so slowly, open your eyes. Stay connected to the space you’re in. How are you feeling? Has anything shifted from the moment we started this practice? Remember that this practice to reset and let go is available to you every day, throughout the day if you need. Your breath is a powerful ally to help you in your journey to release and let go. Thank you so much for joining me, and I look forward to next time practicing with you. 



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  • 12 Minute Meditation: A Guided Practice to Focus the Mind

    12 Minute Meditation: A Guided Practice to Focus the Mind

    Meditation practice often feels like something to get through, something good for us, like medicine. But as we become more familiar with practicing mindfulness, we can begin to enjoy it as an opportunity to simply be—to inhabit our body and focus the mind on being wherever we are, without having to do anything in particular.

    Obviously there’s nothing wrong with “doing” things—we have to do things. Doing things is great, but doing things is also challenging. Having some time when we can just be is refreshing.

    No question that simply being is equally as challenging because some scary thoughts might crop up. But as we become more familiar with the process, we realize we can focus the mind and we don’t have to fully engage those thoughts or get caught up in them.

    If it’s a particularly painful time, the meditation practice will be about being with that pain. We can allow it to be a bit “discontinuous,” that is, we see little gaps in the pain where bits of relaxation, and joy even, can poke through.

    So, in this longer meditation practice, let’s take the time to enjoy being here.

    A Guided Meditation to Focus the Mind

    12 Minute Meditation: A Meditation to Focus the Mind with Barry Boyce

    1. The first place to start is with spending a short period of time, in a relaxed way, on the posture. We begin with our seat. The point about our seat and our legs is just to have a base, to be supported. Nothing special about it.
    • If you’re on a chair: bottoms of the feet are touching the ground.
    • If you’re on a cushion: Legs can be simply crossed in front of you or they could be in a lotus posture or half-lotus posture.
    • The upper body is upright but not stiff.
    • Our hands can rest on our thighs in front of us with our upper arms parallel to our upper body.
    • Our eyes can be open or closed, and our gaze is slightly down. Just a slight feeling of humbleness about that. And with the gaze down we’re slightly focussed inward. Our mouth can be just slightly open or closed.

    That’s a practice in itself: just taking the time, taking the luxury, to establish our posture. If you have various bodily issues you just need to make adjustments for those.

    That’s a practice in itself: just taking the time, taking the luxury, to establish our posture

    2. Now, simply pay attention to your breathing. Now we pay attention to the breath as it comes in and goes out. The nice thing about the breath is that it’s reliable. It’s always going to be there if we’re alive. Sharon Salzberg talks about the importance of faith, and many people talk about trust. It’s a very simple type of faith or trust that something is going to continue to be there. As you find yourself lost in thought and you notice that because you have trust in the breath, you know that it will be there when you bounce off that thought and come back to the breath.

    3. Pay attention to body and breath together. As we come back to and notice our breath, we’re also noticing our body, so it’s a kind of a whole body experience, resting our attention on the breath. We can also feel the temperature in the room and appreciate our ability to sense the world—that we are a sensory mechanism. The world touches us. We have an interplay going on with the world. That’s something we can appreciate. Pleasure and pain come from that sensing of the world.

    4. For a little while, practice returning to the breath when the mind wanders. We’re taking time to simply be present and to develop presence. Presence meaning: able to be present for whatever comes up—up or down, could be very intense thoughts. How did the world begin. Why are we still driving so many cars? Who invented the car anyway? How do cars work? Can be cognitive, random thoughts like that. Or, could be intense emotional thoughts. Emotional thoughts carry with them a lot of “color,” and a lot of energy, and a lot of feeling of movement in the body: “I hate that,” ” love that,”—lots feeling tone to those thoughts. They can be persistent. They keep coming up, no matter how many times we go back to the breath. Or, thoughts could be just about simple sensation it’s an itch in your toe.

    5. Mindfulness is an equal opportunity process: whatever comes up, we just notice it and come back. If it comes up again in another shape or form, you know to sit and come back. There’s a certain amount of simplicity and dullness about that, but over time that dullness becomes natural relaxation. There’s a feeling of strength that comes from being able to be present with whatever arises and not being so inclined to run from it.

    6. Some people like to use the slogan “The present is pleasant,” but that’s not really true, necessarily. The present can contain whatever is present in that moment. If a family member has just died, it’s not going to be particularly pleasant. Taking a moment to meditate and focus the mind will be about being with that, not trying to create a pleasant experience for yourself. Usually, we’re trying to get something out of an experience. In this case, paradoxically, we are just trying to be with, rather than trying to get something out of it.

    7. As we notice thoughts again and again in meditation practice, the thoughts begin to have less solid substance to them. They can feel less like something we have to fight with. We can have an appreciation that they are not facts, they’re just formulations that emerge in the mind and that beneath them is some kind of presence and awareness that continues, whatever thoughts may arise and dwell for a while and then go.



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  • Encourage Deep Breathing With A Guided Meditation

    Encourage Deep Breathing With A Guided Meditation

    Explore this introduction to belly breathing to help you relax and reduce stress.

    What is Belly Breathing?

    Encourage deep breathing with belly breathing, you simply take long, conscious breaths. Ideally you breathe in for a count of three and breathe out for a count of five. Repeating this cycle will trigger the relaxation response—it’s the opposite of the fight-or-flight stress response in that you engage the nervous system to tell your body to relax and your mind to be at ease.

    Two Basic Belly Breathing Tips

    1. Breathe deeply. When you breathe deeply, your diaphragm at the base of your lungs pushes your belly out. This is belly breathing and is a natural way to breathe—you can see babies doing it.

    2. As you exhale, gently press on your belly. As you breathe in, encourage your belly to expand, and as you breathe out, allow your belly to contract. You could even gently push your belly in with your hand when you breathe out to help you to do this, if it doesn’t come naturally to you.

    Check Your Stress Levels with This Belly Breathing Practice

    If the hand on your chest is moving but not your belly, you’re breathing in a shallow way.

    1. Begin by finding a quiet place to sit or lie down. If practicing for the first time, lying down may make it easier for you to understand what barely breathing actually feels like. Remember that belly breathing is a natural way of breathing. If you look at a baby or young child, you’ll see that their belly seems to naturally expand and contract slowly and smoothly as they breathe in and out.
    2. Once you’re settled and comfortable, place one palm gently around the area of your navel and the other palm on your chest. Continue to breathe normally, and just watch the movements of your hands. Does the hand on your belly move as you breathe in and out? And what about the hand on your chest? Which one moves the most, the hand on your belly or the hand on your chest?
    3. If the hand on your chest is moving but not your belly, you’re breathing in a shallow way. By learning belly breathing, you’re likely to feel more relaxed and have more energy, and your body will be fed with more fresh oxygen
    4. Keeping your hands on your belly and chest, begin by imagining there’s a balloon in your belly. When you breathe in, you’re inflating that balloon and when you breathe out, that balloon deflates. Now breathe in so that you fill the imaginary balloon in your belly as much as possible.
    5. Hold your breath for about two seconds. And then breathe out slowly and smoothly as you can, using your mouth as if you’re blowing through a straw. Now let your breath be normal and natural again.
    6. Notice how you feel. That was one belly breath. It was more exaggerated than an actual belly breath, but this technique helps to engage your relaxation response, making you counteract your feelings of stress. Just one breath in this way can help me to find some relaxation when you’re feeling tense, and you can do it at any time, wherever you are.
    7. Now you can experiment with counting as you do belly breath. If you want, on your next breath, breathe deeply and smoothly, expanding your belly as you slowly count to four. One, two, three, four. Hold for a count to one, two.
    8. And now slowly exhale to count six. One, two, three, four, five, six. And now breathe as you normally do. Notice how you feel this time, by extending the amount of time you breathe out compared to breathing in.
    9. Encourage your body to relax and your mind to calm. Your breath has a direct link to the systems in your body that make you feel relaxed. By doing belly breaths you send signals to your body that it is safe for you to feel relaxed and at ease. Your blood pressure goes down, your muscles relax and you can think in a more creative and holistic way. You can enhance the experience by bringing the attitudes of kindfulness into the experience, by really feeling the sensations of your breathing.
    10. Let the warmth of your hand against your belly represent a friendly, caring support. Allow yourself permission to be kind to yourself and not force anything too much.
    11. Now when you’re ready, try counting four belly breaths in a row. One, two, three, four hold one, two.
    12. And breathe out. Two, three, four, five, six, rest one, two. Belly breath in. One, two, three, four, hold one, two and breathe out again. Two, three, four, five, six.
    13. Do the last two belly breaths on your own, using a pace that feels right for you. Notice how you feel now, consider how relaxed you feel. Are you more or less relaxed than when you started? If you’re less relaxed, don’t worry about it too much. You’re just starting to learn this new technique.

    Use a few belly breaths any time you feel excessively stressed, to make you feel more calm and relaxed. You can even practice some belly breaths before you begin the meditation, to give you a nice relaxing start. 

    This article was adapted from Shamash Alidina. View the original article.



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  • Connect with Your Senses With A Guided Walking Meditation

    Connect with Your Senses With A Guided Walking Meditation

    We can connect to our senses and nourish our relationship to the peace, pleasure, and technicolor qualities of the present moment, as we walk. Starting your day with an intentional morning walking meditation can be the key to bringing calm awareness, as you very simply pay attention to what the body is experiencing, as you bring your awareness to the physical sensations of feeling your feet as you walk. This walking exercise can be done on the way to your car, in a park, or even as you’re walking down a hallway. All it takes is being awake to what you notice while you’re walking.

    Connect With Your Sense in Walking Meditation

    1. Choose a foot to start with. Pick it up, move it through space, and gently place it on the ground, feeling the sensations of each part of this process from heel to toe. So, picking the foot up, making a choice, picking a foot up, lifting it, moving it through space, feeling it touching down from heel to toe, connecting with your senses.

    2. Walk with intention. We’re so used to walking in what we call automatic pilot, basically being tuned out and just letting the body go. You may notice that this feels a little strange to be so intentional about walking. That’s okay. This intention that you’re bringing is a way for you to reconnect with the present moment and what you’re feeling right now. This intention is what makes this a walking meditation.

    3. Let yourself notice.  Notice as much as you can about the feel of picking your foot up, moving through space, and gently placing it down. I get most of us are so used to walking, when we first bring our attention to it, we might even feel a little wobbly. It’s okay: this is normal, and part of what it feels like to wake up and actively connect with the senses and notice the details of what we are doing.

    We’re so used to walking in what we call automatic pilot, basically being tuned out and just letting the body go. You may notice that this feels a little strange to be so intentional about walking. That’s okay.

    4. Focus your attention. Focus on the feeling of your feet making contact with the ground right now. Can you notice a difference between thinking about your feet and feeling them making contact with the floor or the earth? Can you let yourself experience what it’s like to be grounded and connected as you make a conscious choice to be present for this walking meditation?

    5. Feel your surroundings. If you’ve chosen to walk outside, allow yourself to feel the impact of the air on your skin. What do you notice? Is it warm or cool? Is the air damp or dry? Allow yourself to feel it.

    6. Notice when thoughts take over. You may notice how quickly your attention is drawn to your thoughts, whether it’s thoughts of your day, list making, maybe you’re running an old conversation or story over and over in your mind. Once you notice your thoughts trying to hijack your walk, you may also notice that being lost in thought makes it more difficult to connect with your senses. You probably will notice that you find it harder to hear what’s going on in your environment, harder to smell anything, or taste anything. Thoughts are that powerful. So, when you know the thoughts are pulling you away, just notice that this is what’s happening, smile, and then you can gently and kindly choose to redirect your attention back to connecting with your senses and even more particularly, back to the feeling of your feet walking. Come back to this experience of the senses and the feet over and over throughout your walking meditation.

    Connect with the Present Moment

    7. Let yourself experience your surroundings. What do you notice about the weather? Do you have an opinion about it? What happens if you just experience that weather is here, noticing the qualities of the weather, and how you’re experiencing it on the skin or in the body? What happens when you let yourself notice the sounds around you? What do you notice about the smells around you? Can you experience these sensory qualities as the symphony of the world?

    The smell of the world: noticing pungent, acrid, sweet, sour, fresh, earthy. Maybe you can notice sounds as high-pitched, low hums, loud, or soft. How much can you allow yourself to take in the world in the minutest detail as your senses experience what’s here, without adding the layer of judgment on it about how you feel about it? Just for now, see what you’re able to do as you take in the raw data of the world around you—experience it in this morning walking meditation.

    8. Pause now and then. Another way you might heighten the sensory experience of this walking meditation is, every once in a while, stop right in your tracks if you’re able and it’s appropriate, and notice in a very specific way what it feels like to be grounded as you feel your feet making contact with the earth or the floor. Maybe take a moment to choose a particular thing to experience through the eyes, focusing on color, shape, texture.

    Another way you might heighten the sensory experience of this walk is, every once in a while, stop right in your tracks if you’re able and it’s appropriate, and notice in a very specific way what it feels like to be grounded as you feel your feet making contact with the earth or the floor.

    Let your nose have a big sniff in and intentionally smell the air. Redirect your attention to your ears and hear the world right now. Can you hold everything you’re noticing lightly, and just let it be part of your environment while you experience it? You don’t have to judge it, or change it, or do anything about it. Just be here for you right now and then when you’re ready, make a choice to select which foot you’ll begin with and start your walking meditation again.

    9. Find your pace. Walking, noticing which foot is moving as you pick it up, move it through space, gently place it down feeling the foot making contact with the earth. Although it might help to begin by practicing going slowly, once you have learned to be present to walking in this new way, there’s no reason you can’t move more quickly. Find whatever pace allows you to stay present while you’re experiencing.

    Be Curious and Let Yourself Wander

    10. Try aimless wandering. You might want to use this morning wake-up walk to take you to work, or any particular destination. But if it feels safe to do so, it can also be wonderful to allow yourself to do an aimless walk. Maybe setting a timer, perhaps 15 minutes, and allowing your feet to take you wherever they want to go, staying present to your ever-changing environment without having a goal as your destination, just walking freely. Noticing what it feels like to reconnect to inner instincts that show up as everything starts to quiet a bit, as you heighten your senses with this morning walking meditation. Noticing over and over as the attention is drawn to other things, particularly thinking.

    Bringing your attention back to your feet over and over can be the greatest help to reconnecting with the present moment as you let your felt senses and the feeling of your feet touching the ground bring you back, right here, right now, coming back over and over and over. At the end of your walk, notice how you feel, check in with each one of your senses. What are you aware of right now, having spent this time bringing attention to the sensory experiences? What do you notice now about your mood? Notice what it feels like to inhabit your body and be awake to your precious life.

    While many of us lean on mindfulness to help us through times of inner and outer chaos, we can cultivate the greatest resilience through consistency in our practice, even when it doesn’t feel urgent. Read More 

    • Georgina Miranda
    • July 23, 2024

    While moving through nature, we have the opportunity to enter a state of being, be present with all of our sensations, and awaken gratitude for the Earth that is also part of us. Read More 

    • Georgina Miranda
    • July 16, 2024

    Ruth King guides us in a practice to explore the truth of our interconnectedness. Read More 



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  • The Top 10 Guided Meditations of 2024

    The Top 10 Guided Meditations of 2024

    At Mindful we aim to deliver practical resources so you can build your mindfulness practice at your own pace. Our top guided meditations are comprehensive and walk you through the practice step by step, so you can benefit from mindfulness regardless of your level of experience. 

    The Top 10 Guided Meditations

    1) A 12-Minute Meditation for Grief and Loss

    Our hearts break, but our hearts also heal. The thread that pulls us from heartbreak to healing is love, says Judy Lief in this practice for working with grief. We don’t want to let go of anything, but through grief, we learn to love and appreciate what we’ve had and lost—friends, family, a way of life, a job, our youth, we grieve it all. Grief is heavy, painful, difficult, and powerful. We need to touch into it at all levels, really acknowledge it, before we can release it.

    Our hearts break, but our hearts also heal. The thread that pulls us from heartbreak to healing is love, says Judy Lief in this practice for working with grief. Read More 

    • Judy Lief
    • January 25, 2022

    2) Tune In to What You Need with the H.A.L.T Practice 

    This is a short self-regulation practice known as H.A.L.T from Chris Willard. This is a practice that’s been floating around self-help circles for many years, Willard says. What we want to do is simply check in with a few of our basic needs and our emotional state. 

    In a nutshell, H guides us to ask ourselves: Am I hungry right now? A means checking in to see: Am I angry or anxious, or otherwise dysregulated and activated? L stands for lonely: Am I feeling lonely in this moment? And T stands for: Am I tired? 

    Sometimes we need to drop into our body to discern what we need in this moment. The four questions in this practice allow us to self-regulate by attending to what our difficult emotions or physical sensations may be telling us. Read More 

    • Christopher Willard
    • December 15, 2022

    3) A 4-7-8 Breathing Meditation

    This easy breathing practice from Ni-Cheng Liang helps us to release stagnant air in the lungs and find calm. The 4-7-8 breath was introduced originally by Dr. Andrew Weil, a pulmonologist and current fellow of the University of Arizona Integrative Medicine Fellowship who is also considered the grandfather of integrative medicine. The 4-7-8 breath can be used for situations when you’re feeling particularly anxious, stressed, and even if you have some difficulty falling asleep.

    This easy breathing practice helps to release stagnant air in the lungs and find calm. Read More 

    • Ni-Cheng Liang
    • August 23, 2022

    4) Notice How Sadness, Loneliness, and Anger Show Up in Your Body

    When we’re caught in the throes of an emotion like sadness, loneliness, or anger, shifting our awareness into our body allows us to experience the ever-changing nature of these strong and often unpleasant emotions. This practice from Sharon Salzberg will help you get used to the feeling of paying attention to difficult emotions in the body with curiosity and without judgment.

    Instead of trying to make difficult emotions change or go away, you can simply tune in to how they show up in your body, and see how they’re always changing on their own. Read More 

    • Sharon Salzberg
    • October 14, 2022

    5) Savor the Moment by Tapping Into Your Senses

    One morning in early October, Elaine Smookler glanced at her cell phone and noticed the weather app ominously predicting many days of snow and icy temperatures ahead. As we’ve all experienced at some point, life’s challenges were seemingly everywhere. And yet…Smookler was smiling. Cheerful. Grateful. Difficulties were still present, but awareness of her gratitude shifted her view, letting her see that everything was not dark and cold—in fact, many sights and sounds were quite lovely. Cultivate gratitude for life’s small delights as you’re guided through the senses by Smookler. 

    Cultivate gratitude for life’s small delights as you move through the senses. Read More 

    • Elaine Smookler
    • December 20, 2022

    6) A Trauma-Informed Meditation to Uncover the Potential for Healing

    Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction teacher John Taylor offers a five-step meditation for finding a greater sense of peace and freedom after trauma. When we’re under stress, it’s often more difficult to take deep, calming breaths, but here we practice simply doing what we can in this moment. This practice helps us recognize that the potential for healing, for positive change, for a greater sense of inner peace and even freedom, lies within each of us.

    MBSR teacher John Taylor offers a five-step meditation for finding a greater sense of peace and freedom after trauma. Read More 

    7) A 12-Minute Meditation to Remind Yourself That You Are Enough

    In this practice from Jenée Johnson, we hold our attention on five affirmations that can help us be more compassionate toward ourselves. Try doing this in moments when you feel overwhelmed—breathing in, “I do my best,” breathing out, “I let go of the rest.” You can do it right before you go to sleep at night. You did your best, you let go of the rest. Tomorrow is a new day.

    In this guided meditation, Jenée Johnson offers affirmations to help you remember your inherent worth and reconnect with compassion. Read More 

    • Jenée Johnson
    • June 21, 2022

    8) A 12-Minute Meditation for Healing Through Hope

    Embrace change and hope with this guided mindfulness practice from Rose Felix Cratsley. Felix Cratsley offers affirmations for cultivating self-compassion, embracing growth, and healing through hope. She says, “I think mindfulness is an essential and fundamental human right. We come into the world open and curious, but oftentimes self-judgment, criticism, fear, and anxiety come about.” 

    Embrace change, self-compassion, and hope with this guided mindfulness practice from Rose Felix Cratsley. Read More 

    • Rose Felix Cratsley
    • December 27, 2022

    9) A Breathing Meditation to Cultivate Attention

    The simple act of paying attention is the kindest thing you can do for yourself. When our mind is scattered it creates pain and disconnection, and that pain and disconnection gets picked up by others. It’s contagious. You’ve likely experienced what it feels like to take on that pain and disconnection from other people. The fact is, we’re sending it and sharing it all the time. That’s really what this last practice is about—a little bit of the basic breath-awareness practice, followed by a generosity practice.

    A basic mindfulness practice for creating more harmonious circumstances for ourselves, and for others, raising our awareness and stirring our curiosity. Read More 

    • Barry Boyce
    • August 2, 2022

    10) A Guided Meditation for Navigating Difficult Emotions

    Sometimes when a painful emotion comes up, we layer shame and blame on what’s already difficult. For example, we may think to ourselves, “I should be able to do my job better.” We also tend to project into the future and worry about what the pain may feel like tonight, next week, or next year.

    When we do this, we’re not only facing the pain of present difficulty, but the anticipation of pain, which is actually in our imagination. The first thing we can do to cultivate our resources for managing difficult emotions is to allow ourselves to feel the emotion, shift our attention to noticing the sensations present in our body, and forgive ourselves for what we feel.

    From self-blame to fear, it’s easy to get tangled up with sticky emotions. Sharon Salzberg helps us create space around our emotions by tuning in to our breath. Read More 

    • Sharon Salzberg
    • April 26, 2022

    Guided meditations to nourish compassion, resilience, and calm. Read More 

    • Mindful Staff
    • June 28, 2021

    When we meditate, we inject far-reaching and long-lasting benefits into our lives: We lower our stress levels, we get to know our pain, we connect better, we improve our focus, and we’re kinder to ourselves. Let us walk you through the basics in our new mindful guide on how to meditate. Read More 

    • Mindful Staff
    • November 14, 2022

    Mindfulness apps are trending in a big way. Here are five we’re happy we downloaded. Read More 

    • Kira M. Newman and Janet Ho
    • November 15, 2023



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