Cheryl Jones: A Meditation to Meet Yourself Where You Are—No Matter What
Release Date: 04/17/2026
Jörg Sprave: A Guided Forest Bathing Meditation
12 Minute Meditation
Our guest this week is teacher Jörg Sprave. He leads a guided meditation called “I Am Nature.” Designed to be done outdoors, this meditation is based on the Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku, also known as “forest bathing.” In this session, you’ll: Learn a bit about the ancient practice forest bathing Consider your intimate connection to the natural world Experience the deep calm, rest, and awe of meditating in nature Jörg Sprave is the founder of and lead instructor at , an international forest therapy education organization based in Zurich. He believes...
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Caverly Morgan: A Meditation for Unconditional Love When You’re Struggling
12 Minute Meditation
Our guest this week is teacher Caverly Morgan. She offers a sturdy, grounded place to come home to when we’re struggling with feelings of failure, inadequacy, or insecurity. This meditation: Offers a steadier alternative to bypassing difficult emotions with positive mantras Gives us a more expansive perspective on our value Allows us to be with what’s painful, and still return to a place of unconditional love Caverly Morgan is a meditation teacher, author, and visionary who founded Peace in Schools, a nonprofit that created the nation’s first for-credit mindfulness class in...
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Shamash Alidina: “Beginner's Mind” Walking Meditation
12 Minute Meditation
Our guest this week is teacher Shamash Alidina. He shares a simple technique for opening and strengthening your awareness and curiosity about everyday things. This walking meditation is designed to help you: Practice seeing the world with a “beginner’s mind” Get outside, move, breathe, and give your churning mind a break Notice things in a new way through your senses Shamash Alidina has been practising mindfulness since 1998 and runs his own successful training organisation. He is the author of Mindfulness For Dummies and the forthcoming Breathing Exercises for...
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Vinny Ferraro: Directing Compassion Toward Ourselves
12 Minute Meditation
Our guest this week is teacher Vinny Ferraro. He shares a beginner’s metta or loving-kindness meditation that offers practice for the most common first step of metta: giving compassion to ourselves. This meditation is designed to help you: Meet yourself with care, whatever you’re experiencing Practice being with your own imperfection without slipping into shame or harsh self-criticism Notice where there is room to learn and develop wisdom Vinny Ferraro has been a practitioner of insight meditation (vipassanā) since the early 1990s. He is a co-Founder of...
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Mark Bertin: A Guided Walking Meditation to Meet Uncertainty with Compassion
12 Minute Meditation
Our guest this week is also September’s Teacher of the Month, Dr. Mark Bertin. He offers a unique practice that uses sensory awareness and gentle movement to help meet moments of uncertainty. This meditation is designed to help you: Practice meeting yourself with patience and attentive care Connect with your body as both a way to calm yourself and as a way to get clarifying information about the situation you’re facing Engage skillfully with the discomfort of uncertainty, rather than defaulting to reactivity, anger, or fear Mark Bertin, MD., is a pediatrician,...
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Janice Martellucci: Meditation for Transitions
12 Minute Meditation
Our guest this week is Janice Martellucci, Executive Director of Peace in Schools. As millions of students get ready to head back to school in the Northern Hemisphere, she brings us a meditation to meet transitions and new places with courage and curiosity. Regardless of the type of transition you might be facing, this meditation is designed to help you: Notice the emotions that arise as you approach this change Stay present to what you’re experiencing with care, especially if you’re feeling fear or resistance Offer support to yourself and others Janice...
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Jeneé Johnson: Build Resilience by Staying in the Moment
12 Minute Meditation
Our guest this week is Jeneé Johnson. She brings us a meditation based on what she calls “staying on the spot.” This meditation is designed to help you: Notice when your thoughts wander Come back to the moment without judgment or anxiety Practice training your attention in meditation so you can carry that skill over into daily life Jenée Johnson is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach, Racial Healing, Emotional Intelligence Educator, and HeartMath facilitator. Jenée initiated and led the unique effort to bring mindfulness into San Francisco’s public health programs...
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Jon Kabat-Zinn: A Breathscape Practice for Cultivating Mindfulness
12 Minute Meditation
It is natural as finite human beings to want to feel certain. To our brains, certainty equals safety. It’s normal to wish we could control the future, because uncertainty can be unsettling and scary. But as today’s teacher observes, as difficult as it is, the only real leverage we have to positively influence the future is to learn to inhabit the present moment fully, without trying to fix it or manage it. This is the most challenging aspect of mindfulness, and its core principle. This 20-minute guided meditation with Jon Kabat-Zinn is practice for simply being awake and aware...
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Kelly Boys: A 12-Minute Body Scan Meditation for Letting Go of Stress and Falling Asleep
12 Minute Meditation
Stress and tension can easily build up in our bodies during busy days or weeks, and often we don’t even realize how much that is affecting our ability to let go and fall asleep at night. In this guided practice, teacher Kelly Boys offers a simple body scan meditation that uses sensory awareness and intentional breathing to invite a sense of lovely heaviness and relaxation. Kelly Boys is a mindfulness trainer, coach, author, and speaker, specializing in teaching the NSDR (non sleep deep rest) practice of yoga nidra. She is the author of The Blind Spot Effect and as a trainer has created...
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Rich Fernandez: A Meditation to Help Build Your Capacity to Navigate Difficulty
12 Minute Meditation
When we’re facing disappointment or challenge, it’s easy to default to negative narratives about who we are inherently: I’m a failure. What’s wrong with me? I never do anything right. This week, teacher Rich Fernandez invites a different perspective: When we shift from naming an existential trait (like, I must be a loser) to naming a temporary experiential state (like, I’m experiencing a setback that’s discouraging), then we can actually return awareness and agency to ourselves and navigate a way through the challenge. Rich Fernandez has dedicated his career to building...
info_outlineMindfulness meditation involves a willingness to be with ourselves as we are. It offers a way of learning to work with ourselves, and not on ourselves, especially if we are healing from perfectionism.
Mindfulness reminds us that not everything has to be "fixed"—and very often, our movement back to wellness starts when we stop trying to change ourselves and simply accept where we are with care and attention.
Cheryl Jones is a mindfulness teacher, health and wellness coach, and author of two books, Thriving When Your Cosmic Egg Is Cracked: A Mindful Journey and Mindful Exercise: A Bridge Between Yoga and Exercise. She was the recipient of the Chairman’s Leadership Award and the Norman Vincent Peale Award for Positive Thinking for integrating mindfulness into corporate culture at Aetna. You can find her at www.linkedin.com/in/cherylljones/.
The transcription of this guided meditation will be online and in our app at Mindful.org next week.
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Show Notes
Find more from Cheryl Jones here.
If you are looking for an in-depth resource to help build essential skills to meet a changing and uncertain world with a core of inner strength, join Melli O’Brien and a host of other teachers for The Seven Strengths, a FREE 7-day online course happening this May 13-19. Learn more and register at www.mindfulness.com/the-seven-strengths.
Go Deeper
Healing from perfectionism isn’t easy. It takes time and practice. Here are some additional Mindful.org resources to help you build a stronger sense of self-acceptance:
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What Swimming Taught Me About Self-Compassion and Letting Go
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It’s Selfish, It’s Hokey, and I’ll Lose My Edge: 3 Half-Truths About Self-Compassion
Want to try more practices that foster self-compassion? Start here: A 12-Minute Meditation to Embrace All Your Parts
And more from Mindful here:
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