A Meditation for Cultivating Daily Gratitude
12 Minute Meditation
We often think about gratitude as happening in response to “good” things—but what about moments that aren’t grand or overtly happy, but are small and emotionally neutral? This week, Kim Armstrong leads a guided visualization practice to help you notice, take in, and consciously appreciate even the basic things we do every single day. Kimberly Armstrong is a cofounder and facilitator at Space Between. She practices mindfulness in order to know, see, and feel what is really important in life. Kim has a masters in Child and Adolescent Psychology from the University of Washington and is a...
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A Meditation for Finding Safety in the Body
12 Minute Meditation
When we are experiencing a lot of stress or recovering from trauma or addiction, we can find ourselves living in a fight-flight-freeze state, where we feel either disconnected from or unsafe in our bodies. This practice is designed to gently cultivate a sense of safety and then create a kinesthetic anchor (rooted in awareness of how our body is moving) to start building a felt sense of security that your body can remember. Emily Jane is a mindfulness teacher, certified Embodied Processing (EP) practitioner, and recovery coach with a background in social work. She’s been in recovery for over...
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A Meditation to Get Into the Flow of Sensations
12 Minute Meditation
You may have heard of "impermanence" as an important theme in meditation. In this guided practice, Toby Sola introduces us to the ease of flow state with two simple but profound techniques: exploring impermanence directly by noticing changes in our body sensations, and using labels to hone concentration. Toby Sola is dedicated to helping you create a feedback loop between your meditation practice and your ability to make the world a better place. Toby has been teaching meditation for two decades and has refined his craft through years of monastic training and close collaboration...
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A Meditation to Create Space in a Storm of Emotions
12 Minute Meditation
When difficult or painful emotions feel like they’re swirling all around you, it can be challenging to find a steady place to catch your breath. In this guided meditation, mindfulness teacher Scott Rogers uses the metaphor of a hurricane to help us recognize the qualities and the impermanence of even our stormiest emotions. Scott Rogers is founder and director of the University of Miami School of Law’s Mindfulness in Law Program where he integrates mindfulness into the law school curriculum, and he is co-founder of the UMindfulness, the University’s Mindfulness Research and Practice...
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A Body Scan Meditation to Prepare Mind and Body for Sleep
12 Minute Meditation
If you’ve been having trouble falling asleep lately, this body scan meditation with Diana Winston offers a gentle, soothing way to be with the tension in our minds and our bodies. Take a deep breath, let go, and ease into rest. Diana Winston is the Director of Mindfulness Education at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center and author of several books including The Little Book of Being: Practices and Guidance for Uncovering your Natural Awareness. A quick note: Since this is a sleep meditation, you won’t be hearing a closing bell or statement like usual, but instead just a...
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A Meditation to Be At Peace with How Things Are
12 Minute Meditation
In this week’s meditation, Dr. Mark Bertin walks us through a practice that is both concrete and compassionate. It guides us to take note of our tendency to either deny or try and “fix” what’s going on in our lives, and then find a third way—one where we aim to see things as clearly as possible, so that our decisions are filled with awareness, skill, and care for everyone involved. Mark Bertin, MD, is a pediatrician, author, professor, and mindfulness teacher specializing in neurodevelopmental behavioral pediatrics. He’s a regular contributor to Mindful.org and Psychology Today. He...
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A Loving-Kindness Meditation to Expand the Warmth of Your Heart
12 Minute Meditation
Loving-kindness meditation, also called metta, springs from a basic understanding of human nature: On one hand, we might truly believe that compassion makes the world better—and on the other, we might struggle to offer it to ourselves and to others for various reasons. Metta practices, like the one Dr. Emma Seppälä leads this week, offer a simple, structured way to help us gently expand our capacity to both give and receive love. As a bestselling author, Yale lecturer, and international keynote speaker, Emma Seppälä teaches executives at the Yale School of...
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Transform Shame to Self-Trust
12 Minute Meditation
Shame is one of the most complex and difficult human emotions to experience and process. This week, we’re refreshing a meditation from Dr. Patricia Rockman, who offers a practice to meet shame with courage, tenderness, and curiosity. The more we can sit with these difficult emotions, the more we build resilience, self-knowledge, and self-trust—which are the most powerful natural antidotes to shame. Patricia Rockman, MD, CCFP, FCFP is a family physician with a focused practice in mental health. She is the senior director of Education and Clinical Services at the Centre for Mindfulness...
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SOS Meditation to Unwind Anxiety
12 Minute Meditation
In this week’s guided meditation, teacher and author Melli O’Brien offers a practice that uses gentle, steady awareness to help you find your calm center again when you’re feeling wound up with stress or anxiety. Melli is a mindfulness educator and mental health coach with over two decades of experience. She is also cofounder of Mindfulness.com and the Mindfulness Summit—the world’s largest mindfulness conference. Melli has distilled and synthesized her knowledge on resilience, stress management, peak performance psychology, positive neuroplasticity training, and mindfulness into The...
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A Meditation for When You Need a Break
12 Minute Meditation
Sometimes the best gift we can give ourselves is just a moment set aside for quiet, breath, and reminding ourselves of who we really are. In this gentle guided practice, Kimberly Brown uses simple repeated phrases to ground attention and offer a place to rest and reset. Note that this practice includes longer pauses of complete silence for reflection and presence. If you want more time, feel free to pause the recording as you go. Kimberly Brown is a meditation teacher and author. She leads classes and retreats that emphasize the power of compassion and...
info_outlineWhen we are experiencing difficult emotions or situations, our first impulse is often to look for a way out—usually through distracting, numbing, running, or denying.
But what if the key to getting to the other side of difficulty is to simply be with it, offering the discomfort our courageous awareness and presence?
In this week’s practice, author and meditation teacher Ed Halliwell guides us through a meditation we can lean on when things get tough.
Note that this practice includes longer pauses of complete silence for reflection and presence. If you want more time, feel free to pause the recording as you go.
If you’d like the transcription of this guided meditation, it will be online on Mindful.org next week.
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Show Notes
Find more from Ed Halliwell here.
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