There are a multitude of options out there for guided meditation. Some we use are Calm, Headspace and Insight Timer. Most usually have both free and membership options so you can try it out before buying.
Multiple people have replied to my meditation offerings saying something about listening along. I had planned to use this as a platform to write about meditation with pointers, knowing there are so many guided oral traditions out there. If you are interested in hearing me lead meditations focused on topics like those I’ve been sharing would you please let me know?
It can be hard to speak for people who have needs different from our own. My husband and kids really enjoy recorded guided meditations. I have used them at various times, most memorably in the early days of my pregnancies. My current daily practice is so personalized each time I engage in it, I think I’m attempting to communicate the possibility of personalizing your own practice through what I share. Of course, two people doing the same guided meditations will still have completely different experiences, thus it becomes personalized.
Through sharing all this information I hope to be of help to people in finding ways to meditate in every situation. The apps may not always be there; your breath will be. The perfect position may not always be there; your ability to ground and connect with a higher power will be. On the flip side, the ability to listen to someone lead you into a deeper place and the flexibility to follow where they take you in meditation can open amazing new doorways. This is definitely a place I could learn a bit more – at times my personalized path may not stretch my horizons quite as far as a shared experience could take them. Guided meditation may be the exact thing you need all the time. That is beautiful! No matter how you go about this, you will still be developing a practice that will serve every minute of every day for the rest of your life.
At this time when all of our decisions must be based on the common good, perhaps there is space in meditation to consider shared and personalized experiences. In some ways, we are all having more shared experience than ever before – we are all reinventing how to work, educate, shop, live and engage with one another at a distance. Yet the social distancing makes everything so personalized in the extreme.
For meditation today:
- Consider downloading the app “Insight Timer” to a device. Scroll down to the image of the map and notice how many people are currently meditating all over the world. You are about to engage in a deeply personal experience at the same time as thousands of other people and on the same day as hundreds of thousands more. If you click on the map you will see the many different ways people are meditating around the world at this moment. If you find that some meditation there speaks to you, please follow your heart! If you would like to continue with some of the work I am presenting, set aside your mobile device when you are ready. You may wish to choose the “timer” option and set a specific period of time when bells will lead you in and out of your meditation.
- Find your position. The positions used yesterday are especially conducive to learning to breathe.
- Connect with your breath. The deep inhales and exhales taught yesterday are a great option if you do not have another breathing practice.
- Become deeply aware of your own personalized experience for the next few minutes. Feel the edges of your body against the edges of things touching it, the emotions and thoughts that are exclusively yours and the feeling of your pulse and breath moving through you.
- Begin the grounding exercise previously taught. Envision each exhale taking those things you are letting go down your grounding cord into the center of the Earth. As your breath pauses before the inhale, notice the Earth transforming that energy into something someone else needs in their meditation right now. Envision each inhale bringing in some energy you need through the crown of your head, filling that space which was previously emptied.
- End your practice sending some prayer, wish or good vibes out to the other people engaged in meditation at this moment.