12 Minute Meditation
The latest scientific research reveals that 12 minutes of meditation a day yields benefits like increased attention, focus, creativity, calm, resilience and compassion. Start your 12-minute sit with guided meditations from today’s leading mindfulness experts, brought to you by Mindful. With a new mindfulness meditation each week, 12 Minute Meditation invites you to bring the benefits of mindfulness to daily life.
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A Meditation for Working With Our Self-Judging Voice with Diana Winston
11/21/2025
A Meditation for Working With Our Self-Judging Voice with Diana Winston
As today’s teacher notes, self-compassion is different from self-esteem. Relying on building up our self-esteem tends to lead us to need a lot of external validation in order to feel ok. Instead, self-compassion is the idea that even with all of our flaws, we can still care about ourselves and see ourselves as infinitely worthy of love and belonging. In this extended 30-minute practice, mindfulness teacher Diana Winston guides us through a process to get familiar with our self-judging voice and how we relate to our flaws, so that we can nurture compassion and recognize our own worthiness. 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. Note that there is an extended silent pause in the middle of this recording to give extra time to practice. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter: Show Notes Find more from Diana Winston . Go Deeper We all have an interior voice that keeps a running commentary on everything we do. Occasionally that voice is encouraging or kind, but often it isn’t. The thing is, most of us aren’t even consciously aware of this constant internal chatter. We just think it’s reality. Mindfulness gives us the tools to notice, recognize, and work with this mental monologue in ways that improve our ability to learn from mistakes, be accountable, make amends, and grow as people. To learn more about the Inner Critic and how to tame it, check out these resources from the website: And for more ways to work with that pesky internal voice, try this practice: . And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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A Forgiveness Meditation to Let Go of Added Suffering with Mark Bertin
11/14/2025
A Forgiveness Meditation to Let Go of Added Suffering with Mark Bertin
Forgiveness is almost never a one-and-done action. Whether what we’re forgiving is big or small, our own error or someone else’s—most often, there are residual feelings of anger, hurt, or resentment to contend with. In this guided practice, Mark Bertin addresses this tendency to compound our suffering when we hang onto these difficult emotions. He offers a way to gently surrender this extra emotional baggage so that we can fully experience the healing that forgiveness offers. 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 is the author of (Sounds True, 2018). Dr. Bertin resides in Pleasantville, New York. For more, visit . The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter: Show Notes Find more from Dr. Mark Bertin . Go Deeper Forgiveness is one of the most challenging mindful qualities to develop. Understandably, we want to feel seen and heard in our pain, and we don’t want to feel like we’re being walked over or making excuses for harmful behavior. From a mindfulness perspective, forgiveness holds all of these experiences in a kind of loving tension, allowing the complexities to surface. To learn more about what forgiveness is (and isn’t) and how to nurture it in your daily life, check out these resources from the website: If you’re at the very beginning of the process and want help getting started on your forgiveness journey, try this practice: . And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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A Meditation to Meet the Body In Pain
11/07/2025
A Meditation to Meet the Body In Pain
Having chronic pain often feels incredibly lonely. You might not know anybody else who has the same condition. In addition, most people you're close to, even though they might be well-intentioned, might not understand what you're going through. But the fact is that probably thousands and thousands of people all over the world know exactly what you're feeling. In this meditation, Christiane Wolf offers a guided practice to meet your own body in pain and relieve that sense of isolation by internally connecting with others who understand your experience. Christiane Wolf, MD, PhD is a former physician, internationally known mindfulness and Insight (Vipassana) meditation teacher. She is passionate about translating ancient wisdom teachings into accessible and applicable modern-day language. She is the author of Outsmart Your Pain – Mindfulness and Self-Compassion to Help You Leave Chronic Pain Behind and the co-author of the classic training manual for mindfulness teachers, A Clinician's Guide To Teaching Mindfulness. Christiane is the lead-consultant and teacher trainer for the VA’s (US Department of Veteran Affairs) National Mindfulness Facilitator Training and a senior teacher at InsightLA. She is the mom of three amazing humans and can usually be found in the Los Angeles area training for ultramarathons and triathlons. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter: Show Notes Find more from Christiane Wolf . Go Deeper Living with chronic conditions is one of the most difficult challenges to face—the effects are never just physical. While mindfulness is never a cure-all for pain or illness, it can offer relief in sometimes-surprising ways. To learn more about how mindful practices can ease suffering in mind and body, check out these articles from the archive: For more practice using meditation to be with your body, even when it’s in pain, here is a meditation from pain expert Vidyamala Burch: . And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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A 12-Minute Meditation to Get Curious About Your Cravings
10/31/2025
A 12-Minute Meditation to Get Curious About Your Cravings
We often imagine that our actions are the result of choice and awareness, which means that we can be extra critical of ourselves when we’re struggling with habits that aren’t serving us. But researchers in the science of habit and craving have found that much of our decision-making process is the result of unconscious neuro-chemical loops that reinforce themselves over time. In this meditation, author and researcher Judson Brewer introduces a thoughtful way to bring genuine awareness and choice back into the equation when cravings arise. Judson Brewer, MD, Ph.D. (“Dr. Jud”) is a New York Times best-selling author and thought leader in the field of habit change and the “science of self-mastery,” who blends over 20 years of experience with mindfulness training and a career in scientific research. He is passionate about understanding how our brains work, and how to use that knowledge to help people make deep, permanent change in their lives — with the goal of reducing suffering in the world at large. Dr. Jud is the director of research and innovation at Brown University’s Mindfulness Center, where he also serves as a professor in Behavioral and Social Sciences at the School of Public Health and Psychiatry at the School of Medicine at Brown University. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter: About the Teacher Find more from Judson Brewer . Go Deeper Learning how to witness our mind without over-identifying with everything it comes up with is one of the most challenging parts of mindful practice. But it also yields some of the biggest benefits for our overall well-being. If you want to learn more about this foundational mindful skill, check out these resources from Mindful.org: For more practice on working with thoughts, here’s another meditation you can try: . And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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A 12-Minute Meditation on Our Relationship to Thoughts
10/24/2025
A 12-Minute Meditation on Our Relationship to Thoughts
The nature of the mind is to make thoughts. All day long, mostly without our even noticing, the mind is generating thousands of thoughts. People often misunderstand mindfulness and meditation as ways to control or even stop our mind’s churning—but that isn’t even really possible. With mindful attention, we can learn to notice and be aware of what our minds are up to, and that awareness is what gives us agency and opens new doorways to interior peace. In this meditation, teacher Vinny Ferraro guides us through a practice to see thoughts clearly as they arise, gently note them, and then return to the breath and body. Vinny Ferraro has been a practitioner of insight meditation (vipassanā) since the early 1990s. He is a co-Founder of the Dharma Punx and co-Guiding Teacher of Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society. He is also a nationally recognized leader in designing and implementing interventions for at-risk adolescents and is currently Senior Trainer for Mindful Schools. In 1987, he began leading groups in drug rehabilitation centers, juvenile halls, and halfway houses. In 2001, he began teaching for Challenge Day, a nationally recognized, social & emotional learning program, eventually becoming their Director of Training and leading workshops for over 110,000 youth on four continents. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter: Show Notes Find more from Vinny Ferraro . Go Deeper Learning how to witness our mind without over-identifying with everything it comes up with is one of the most challenging parts of mindful practice. But it also yields some of the biggest benefits for our overall well-being. If you want to learn more about this foundational mindful skill, check out these resources from Mindful.org: For more practice on working with thoughts, here’s another meditation you can try: . And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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A 12-Minute Meditation to Rewire Your Brain for Optimism
10/17/2025
A 12-Minute Meditation to Rewire Your Brain for Optimism
What do you do when you’ve made a plan, you’ve done everything you can to make it work…and things still don’t turn out the way you hoped? In frustration and disappointment, it’s easy to focus on what’s wrong. This exercise—adapted from Start Here: Master the Lifelong Habit of Wellbeing by Eric Langshur and Nate Klemp, and led by mindfulness coach Priti Patel—offers a quick way to realign toward what is working, which can help us settle and give us clarity. Nate Klemp, PhD, is coauthor of . He is a former philosophy professor and a founding partner at Mindful. He is also coauthor of The 80/80 Marriage: A New Model for a Happier, Stronger Relationship and Start Here, a New York Times bestselling guide to mindfulness in the real world. Nate received his BA and MA from Stanford University, and his PhD from Princeton University. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter: Show Notes Find more from Nate Klemp . Go Deeper Gratitude is a game-changer. It’s so much more than just trying to scare up happy feelings—it’s actually a practice that can rewire our brains, shift our neurochemistry, and improve our relationships over time. For more info on this small-but-mighty skill, check out these resources from Mindful.org: For more practice, here’s you can try. And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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Peace Begins With Me: A 12-Minute Meditation
10/10/2025
Peace Begins With Me: A 12-Minute Meditation
When painful emotions are circling all around, our instinct is often to reach for external reassurance. In this practice, law professor and author Rhona Magee offers a gentle reminder that the key to calm starts with a simple pause—and we get to choose that. Rhonda V. Magee is a professor of law at the University of San Francisco. Also trained in sociology and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), she is a highly practiced facilitator of trauma-sensitive, restorative MBSR interventions for lawyers and law students, and for minimizing the effects of social-identity-based bias. Magee has been a visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Law and Society and a visiting professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter: Show Notes Find more from Rhonda Magee . Go Deeper Working with challenging, painful emotions is at the heart of mindfulness practices. It’s counter-intuitive, but the key to alleviating the suffering that often accompanies feelings like fear, rage, grief, or jealousy is not to fix or overcome them, but to move toward them with compassion and curiosity. To learn more about building this mindful skill, check out these articles: For another meditation, here’s you can try. And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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A Mountain Meditation to Help You Shift Out of Panic Mode
10/03/2025
A Mountain Meditation to Help You Shift Out of Panic Mode
If you’ve ever tried to push away anxiety or depression when they show up, you probably already know: Fighting these complex, difficult emotions usually doesn’t work. In fact, our resistance often makes the experience even more challenging. In today’s practice, Ed Halliwell offers a guided visualization based on a foundational mindful question: What if you don’t try to push this experience away, but instead watch it as it plays out? Ed Halliwell is a mindfulness teacher and writer, based in Sussex and London, UK. He is author of three books: , and (as co-author) and teaches courses and retreats to public groups, in organizations and to individuals, face-to-face and online via Skype. He is also an advisor to , which is supporting the Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Group to develop mindfulness-based policies for the UK. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter: Show Notes Find more from Ed Halliwell . Go Deeper Anxiety, panic, and depression can sometimes feel like a vortex we’re sucked into that’s impossible to get out of. It’s important to understand that mindfulness and meditation aren’t cure-alls or instant fixes, and that they’re most effective when used in concert with other healing modalities. There are practices that can help us be with thoughts and feelings in a compassionate, non-judgmental way—and this open-hearted approach can often loosen the grip of difficult moments. If you’d like to explore more about how mindful practices can help improve mental well-being, check out these resources on Mindful.org: For more practice, here are that you can try. And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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A Meditation for Kids: Coming Back to the Positive
09/26/2025
A Meditation for Kids: Coming Back to the Positive
Our brains are hardwired to notice the negative. It’s part of how our ancient ancestors were able to survive in constantly threatening environments. But this negativity bias can also make it difficult for us and our kids—even in our comparatively less threatening environments—to navigate daily stressors, like big tests, arguments, or disappointments. In this shorter practice specifically designed for younger meditators, Dr. Mark Bertin shows kids how to gently guide their attention back to the positive things they might have missed, in order to help soothe the nervous system and bring calm. 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 is the author of (Sounds True, 2018). Dr. Bertin resides in Pleasantville, New York. For more, visit . The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter: Show Notes Find more from Mark Bertin . Go Deeper Kids of all ages can benefit from learning and practicing mindful skills. For more resources to help kids and teens build resilience, navigate tough emotions, calm anxiety, and improve emotional regulation, check out these resources on the Mindful site: For more practice, we’ve got an entire collection of meditations to support growing minds. And more from Mindful here:
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A Teaching and Meditation to Relax and Welcome Deep Rest
09/19/2025
A Teaching and Meditation to Relax and Welcome Deep Rest
Rest isn’t a “reward” for working hard enough. It’s a human need and birthright. This week’s episode is a little different. We’re not only sharing a guided meditation from mindfulness leader and professional coach Jenée Johnson, but also her teaching on some of the brain science behind relaxation—why it’s essential for our well-being, how it works, and how to incorporate intentional relaxation practices into your 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 and practices through the Trauma Informed Systems Initiative. She is on the advisory board of Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute and is certified to teach mindfulness and emotional intelligence based on the latest neuroscience. She is also the founder and curator of , a day-long program for people of African ancestry that teaches practical mindfulness to overcome the diminishing impact of racism and open a portal to a liberatory lifestyle. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter: Show Notes Find more from Jenée Johnson and her work with The Right Within Experience . Go Deeper Mindfulness is a resource that can be used not only for finding more calm, but also as a support for mental, physical, emotional, and communal healing. If you want to learn more about these restorative practices and how they contribute to wider individual and collective healing, check out these articles: For more practice, here’s another deep rest practice you can try: . And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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A Guided Meditation You Can Do Sitting at Your Desk
09/12/2025
A Guided Meditation You Can Do Sitting at Your Desk
Most of us spend most of our waking hours at some kind of job, whether that’s in an office, a classroom, or in our own homes. This week, mindful leadership expert Jancie Marturano leads a practice you can do at your desk—or anywhere—to give yourself a mindful pause during busy days. Janice Marturano is founder and executive director of the , a nonprofit that trains and supports leaders in exploring mindfulness and leadership excellence. She founded the institute after ending her tenure as Vice President of Public Responsibility and Deputy General Counsel for General Mills. She is the author of Finding the Space to Lead: A Practical Guide to Mindful Leadership. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter: Show Notes Find more from Janice Marturano and her commitment to raising mindful leaders . Go Deeper Mindfulness and meditation don’t just have to happen on a cushion. Learn more about creative ways to incorporate mindfulness into your everyday, real life here: For more practice, here’s another meditation to try: And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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A Meditation for Cultivating Daily Gratitude
09/05/2025
A Meditation for Cultivating Daily Gratitude
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 certified meditation teacher and 500 hour yoga teacher. Kim’s superpower is deep listening with full presence. When she isn’t managing operational details, she can be found strumming chords on her guitar. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter: Show Notes Find more from Kin Armstrong . Go Deeper If you want to learn more about how starting or growing a robust, regular gratitude practice can improve markers of physical and emotional well-being, check out these articles: For support in establishing a daily practice, we also have a beautiful , and a deck of flexible, versatile . For more practice, here’s another meditation to try: And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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A Meditation for Finding Safety in the Body
08/29/2025
A Meditation for Finding Safety in the Body
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 eight years, following two decades of active addiction, and her lived experience now fuels her passion for helping others heal. Emily is also the author of , where she shares her trauma-informed, compassionate approach to healing. Her work integrates mindfulness, coaching, trauma therapy, and somatic tools to help people reconnect with their bodies and find safety, peace, and empowerment on their recovery journey. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter: Show Notes Find more from Emily Jane . You can order your copy of Beyond Addiction . Go Deeper If you want to learn more about embodied practice and how mindfulness can aid in addiction recovery, check out these articles: For more practice, here’s another meditation to try: And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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A Meditation to Get Into the Flow of Sensations
08/22/2025
A Meditation to Get Into the Flow of Sensations
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 with the world-renowned teacher Shinzen Young. He is an award-winning designer and founder of the Brightmind Meditation app. Note that this meditation includes longer pauses of complete silence to give you time to spend in contemplation and practice the techniques introduced. If you want more time, feel free to pause the recording as you go. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter: Show Notes Find more from Toby Sola . Go Deeper If you want to learn more about flow state, focus, and facing impermanence, here are more articles to explore: For more practice, here’s another meditation to try: . And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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A Meditation to Create Space in a Storm of Emotions
08/15/2025
A Meditation to Create Space in a Storm of Emotions
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 Initiative. Scott collaborates on neuroscience research into the efficacy of mindfulness training programs in high stress professions and has written numerous articles and authored five books on mindfulness, including The Elements of Mindfulness. He has appeared on television and radio and been interviewed in newspapers and magazines across the world for his creative and accessible methods of sharing mindfulness with people of all ages and walks of life. Scott is principal advisor to Innergy Meditation in Miami, and lives with his family in Miami Beach, Florida. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter: About Our Contributor Find more from Scott Rogers . Go Deeper If you want to learn about how mindfulness can help you make room for and move through all kinds of challenging emotions, check out these articles: For more practice, here’s another meditation to try: . And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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A Body Scan Meditation to Prepare Mind and Body for Sleep
08/08/2025
A Body Scan Meditation to Prepare Mind and Body for Sleep
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 drifting off into silence. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter: Show Notes Find more from Diana Winston . Go Deeper Reconnecting with our body and its signals is a key part of being able to drop into full relaxation and rest. Here are two more articles that can help you increase body awareness: For more practice, here’s another meditation to try: And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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A Meditation to Be At Peace with How Things Are
08/01/2025
A Meditation to Be At Peace with How Things Are
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 is the author of (Sounds True, 2018). Dr. Bertin resides in Pleasantville, New York. For more, visit . Together with ADHD Life Coach and Certified ADHD Educator Dana Crews, Dr. Bertin is leading a retreat October 10-12, 2025, to support adults navigating life with ADHD. Hosted at the Menla Retreat Center in the serene Catskill Mountains, is a restorative and educational three-day ADHD retreat that will offer practical, mindfulness-based tools to strengthen emotional regulation, deepen self-awareness, and foster authenticity. You can get more information and reserve your spot . Plus, listeners to this podcast can claim a 15% early bird discount when they enter code “Mindful” at checkout, good through August 15th. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter: More About Our Contributor Find more from Dr. Mark Bertin and his work . Go Deeper Being with reality exactly as it is, without judgment or denial, is one of the core principles of mindful practice. It is also one of the most challenging. If you want to learn more about what this principle looks like in practice, including fostering mindful awareness with neurodivergence, check out these additional articles: And for more practice building calm awareness in meditation, here are other meditations to try: More from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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A Loving-Kindness Meditation to Expand the Warmth of Your Heart
07/25/2025
A Loving-Kindness Meditation to Expand the Warmth of Your Heart
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 Management and is faculty director of the Yale School of Management’s Women’s Leadership Program. A psychologist and research scientist by training, her expertise is the science of happiness, emotional intelligence, and social connection. Her bestselling book The Happiness Track (HarperOne, 2016) has been translated into dozens of languages. Her new book is Sovereign (Hay House, 2024). Seppälä is also the Science Director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter: Show Notes Find more from Dr. Emma Seppälä . Go Deeper If you want to understand more about the practice of loving-kindness, why it matters, and how to build it—even with difficult people or in times when you aren’t feeling very compassionate—here are some articles to get you started: For more practice, here’s another meditation to try: . And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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Transform Shame to Self-Trust
07/18/2025
Transform Shame to Self-Trust
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 Studies, Toronto. Rockman is also an associate professor at the University of Toronto, Department of Family Medicine, cross appointed to Psychiatry. She has extensive experience practicing individual psychotherapy, leading therapy groups, and training healthcare providers in mindfulness-based interventions, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and change management for stress reduction. She is a freelance writer, yoga teacher, and meditation practitioner. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter: Show Notes Find more from Dr. Patricia Rockman . Go Deeper Shame is a universal and challenging human experience. If you’d like to learn more about where it comes from and how mindfulness can help heal the wounds of shame, these three articles can help: For more practice, here is another . And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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SOS Meditation to Unwind Anxiety
07/11/2025
SOS Meditation to Unwind Anxiety
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 Deep Resilience Method, released as her book Deep Resilience in February 2025. Starting July 15th, Melli is hosting , a 30-day online course that will help you build unshakeable inner strength in 15 minutes a day. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter: Show Notes Find more from Melli O’Brien . To learn more about Melli’s upcoming Deep Resilience Experience (and how you can get $350 in bonus gifts when you sign up before July 15th), click . Go Deeper Want to understand more about the connection between practicing mindfulness and easing anxiety? These three articles are a great place to start: For more practice, here are that you can try when you need support. And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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A Meditation for When You Need a Break
07/04/2025
A Meditation for When You Need a Break
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 kindness meditation to reconnect us to ourselves and others. She studies in both the Tibetan and Insight schools of Buddhism and is a certified mindfulness instructor. Her book Happy Relationships: 25 Buddhist Practices to Transform Your Connection with Your Partner, Family, and Friends, is published with Prometheus Books. You can learn more about Kimberly on her website, www.meditationwithheart.com. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter: Show Notes Find more from Kimberly Brown and read her recent (and timely) on Mindful.org. Go Deeper Want to learn more about how taking intentional breaks can make your days better? These two articles are a great place to start: For more practice, try this that you can turn to when you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed and need a break. And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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Use Distraction to Hone Your Focus
06/27/2025
Use Distraction to Hone Your Focus
It might seem counterintuitive, but intentionally tuning into what’s distracting you can actually help strengthen your ability to focus. In today’s guided practice, meditation teacher Toby Sola introduces what he calls a “concentration algorithm.” This practice will help you identify which type of sensory experience you are naturally drawn to, and then give you a structure for how to focus on it, so that you can quickly attain deep 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 with the world-renowned teacher Shinzen Young. He is an award-winning designer and founder of the Brightmind Meditation app. Note that this practice includes long pauses of complete silence to give you time to spend in contemplation. If you want more time, feel free to pause the recording as you go. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter: Show Notes Find more from Toby Sola and his company Brightmind . Go Deeper Want to learn more about training your attention? Here are two articles we think you’ll love: For more practice, try this you can use to strengthen your focus when you feel distracted. And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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A 10-Minute Full Body Scan Meditation
06/20/2025
A 10-Minute Full Body Scan Meditation
When we are stressed or overwhelmed, or when our mind feels like it’s spinning out of control—it’s easy to forget that simply dropping into the body can be a powerful way to interrupt thEse thought loops. In this week’s refresh, meditation teacher Tara Healey guides us through a practice to calm the mind, notice sensations in the body, and bring awareness to the present moment. If you’d like the transcription of this guided meditation, it will be online on Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter, where we share compelling insights and actionable ideas to enrich your everyday life. Connect with us at . Show Notes Learn more about Tara Healy . And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing . Today, meditation teacher and bestselling author Jon Kabat-Zinn guides us through a silent walking meditation—a great addition to your mindfulness toolkit and a way to enter more deeply into the vitality & sensory richness of what is happening in & around you right now. [link]
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A Walking Meditation to Savor the Day
06/13/2025
A Walking Meditation to Savor the Day
We mostly think of walking as an activity that is supposed to accomplish something: getting from point A to point B, exercising, reaching our daily step goals. And of course, those are all great reasons to go for a walk. In today’s practice, meditation teacher and bestselling author Jon Kabat-Zinn offers up another way that you can experience a walk—simply as a way to enter more deeply into the vitality and sensory richness of what is happening in and around you right now. A walking meditation isn’t about getting anywhere or accomplishing anything. It’s just about being with each step, fully here, where you actually are. There is no arriving, other than continually arriving in the present moment. If you’d like the transcription of this guided meditation, it will be online on Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter, where we share compelling insights and actionable ideas to enrich your everyday life. Connect with us at . Show Notes Learn more about the work and research of Jon Kabat-Zinn . And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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A Meditation to Breathe Out Love
06/06/2025
A Meditation to Breathe Out Love
Tonglen, sometimes called loving-kindness meditation, is a Tibetan practice of giving and receiving. In Tonglen, we open ourselves to our entire experience, including what is painful and difficult. We acknowledge our suffering, including the suffering we share with others. Then, we release intentions for peace, healing, and love out into the world. In today’s meditation, teacher Kimberly Brown guides us through a gentle practice based on Tonglen. This meditation is a space for us to simply experience our struggle, to breathe in any tension or tightness, and to breathe out love, both as a sense of openness and ease, and also as a way of being at peace with ourselves and others. 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. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter, where we share compelling insights and actionable ideas to enrich your everyday life. Connect with us at . Show Notes Find more from Kimberly Brown and read her recent (and timely) on Mindful.org. And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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A Practice for Turning Toward Difficulty
05/30/2025
A Practice for Turning Toward Difficulty
When 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. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter, where we share compelling insights and actionable ideas to enrich your everyday life. Connect with us at . Show Notes Find more from Ed Halliwell . And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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A Meditation to Help You Make Any Decision—Big or Small
05/23/2025
A Meditation to Help You Make Any Decision—Big or Small
You might not think of mindfulness as being a resource to help with decision-making, but moments of intentional silence can sharpen our mental clarity and help us discern which choices feel most aligned. In this guided practice, meditation teacher Toby Sola offers a simple technique you can use, whether you’re facing a life-changing choice or are just feeling overwhelmed by all the small decisions that often crowd our busy lives. Note that this practice includes pauses of complete silence that might be longer than our listeners are accustomed to. This is to give you time to spend in contemplation. 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. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter, where we share compelling insights and actionable ideas to enrich your everyday life. Connect with us at . Show Notes Find more from Toby Sola and his company Brightmind . And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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A Meditation to Ease Into Sleep
05/16/2025
A Meditation to Ease Into Sleep
If you’ve ever been awake at three a.m., tossing and turning and wishing you could snap your fingers and get back to sleep, then you know: the more you try to fall asleep, the less likely you are to drift off. In this week’s guided practice, we’re revisiting a meditation with Mark Bertin that can release the striving, let go of tension, and make it easier for body and mind to settle into rest. 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 drifting off into silence. If you’d like the transcription of this guided meditation, it will be online on Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter, where we share compelling insights and actionable ideas to enrich your everyday life. Connect with us at . Show Notes Find more from Dr. Mark Bertin . And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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Explore 3 Techniques in This Meditation Buffet
05/09/2025
Explore 3 Techniques in This Meditation Buffet
Have you ever wondered why there are so many varieties of meditation practices, and why some of them seem to contradict each other in approach, style, or even objective? In today’s guided practice, meditation teacher Toby Sola walks us through three common types of meditation. Plus, he explains why the word “meditation” is very much like the word “sport”—and how all these different practices actually share the same overarching purpose. If you’re new to meditation or curious about trying new approaches, you’ll love this week’s practice. Note that there are intentional pauses included in today's recording. If you'd like more time to practice the techniques outlined here, please feel free to pause the recording as you go along. If you’d like the transcription of this guided meditation, it will be online on Mindful.org next week. There’s still time to get in on some of our best ! Claim up to 50% off—ends May 12th. Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter, where we share compelling insights and actionable ideas to enrich your everyday life. Connect with us at . Show Notes Find more from Toby Sola and his company Brightmind . And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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A Meditation on Connecting Lands and Stories
05/01/2025
A Meditation on Connecting Lands and Stories
Many modern Western cultures don’t have a deep understanding of land as a source of collective identity, story, or purpose. There is a sense that, yes, land can be lovely—but it is mainly seen as a source of recreation or extraction, not necessarily as an integral part of what shapes us and future generations. In this guided practice, Indigenous scholar and teacher Yuria Celidwen introduces a fresh way to consider our connection to the natural spaces around us. This is a practice that invites reverence, gratitude, and belonging, where our experience of the earth moves from being strictly transactional to being interconnected and relational. This meditation is part of our Powerful Women of the Mindfulness Movement series, where we're sharing guided practices from the women featured in our 2025 special edition of Mindful magazine. If you’d like the transcription of this guided meditation, it will be online on Mindful.org next week. Curious about the many benefits of being a member? Learn about our subscription tiers and join Mindful . Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter, where we share compelling insights and actionable ideas to enrich your everyday life. Connect with us at . Show Notes Find more from Yuria Celidwen . You can learn more about Yuria’s story and how her work is fostering an “ethics of belonging” on , where we interviewed her for our 2025 Powerful Women of the Mindfulness Movement feature. And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .
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