Sunday Inspiration: Guided Meditation

I’ve seen a lot of posts talking about meditation and how difficult it is, and when I read those my thoughts are usually that I agree it’s difficult but not for the reasons most list. Most recently I saw a post on Pillow Fort entitled “Meditation and Self Care: Where to begin”

The only issue is, how on earth do you start meditating?! I tried repeatedly before concluding that it was simply impossible. Switching off the chattering buzz in the back of my mind and slipping into a peaceful quiet felt about as natural as wearing some trousers that are two sizes too small! I was about as far away from the hippy-calm I envisaged in my mind as it’s possible to be.

Yup, I get it. But, I also have an answer, the answer for me has been Guided Meditation. There is no way for me to just sit down and turn off my mind and focus on a spot on the wall. We have a Wii fit and there’s a game on there for meditation, it shows you a flickering candle and you are supposed to sit as still as possible and focus on this candle as long as you can. As soon as you move the slightest the game ends. I never last very long.

Guided meditation is different. Instead of just focusing on something on your own, you close your eyes and listen as someone speaks and literally guides you into a meditative state. I’ve found several great apps for this that provide some really good meditations for different things. Unfortunately, the one I used to use I can’t find anymore, and it had a meditation for everything. I’ve also used a couple of guided meditations created by Mike Robbins as part of his book Nothing Changes Until You Do: A Guide to Self-Compassion and Getting Out of Your Own Way. His meditations are focused on (as the book title describes) self-compassion.

I find guided meditation difficult only because I’m lazy and don’t get into a good habit of doing it. It’s like exercise, the more you do it the easier it gets and the more it becomes a habit. But, if you don’t do it regularly you forget about it and it just sits there. I’ll think yeah that’s a really good thing I should do that more, but then I tend to not pull it out unless I can’t sleep or I’m really anxious, when really I should just do it daily and make it a habit.

There are guided meditations for pretty much everything.

I’ve used many of the different apps that are available and I find that what makes the biggest difference to me is the voice of the person doing the guiding. Some voices are just hard to relax to, while others are calm and soothing. Lately, I’ve been using the Insight app as it seems to have the largest variety available for free.

I suggest that you check out the apps available to you and try a few and see if you can find one that works for you. When you do please be sure to report back here and let me know which app you found (or if you found a great guided meditation somewhere else let us know that too!)