Guided Meditation can be used for a multitude of intentions and goals. Here is a list including the top 7 reasons why people practice Guided Meditation

1.      Lose weight

2.      Grow spiritually

3.      Financial abundance

4.      Pain management

5.      Reduce stress

6.      Sleep better

7.      Stop smoking

Have you ever practiced Guided Meditation? What did you use it for?

Guided Breath Meditation for Beginners

 

Here is a very simple guided meditation for beginners. It is a guided breathing meditation that requires you to focus your thoughts on your breathing.  When you meditate, you can basically use anything as your focus but the breath is the most common thing to focus on.

There are two ways you can focus on your breath for this guided meditation. You can either sense the air as it travels in and out of your nostrils and passes by the top of your lips. The second option is to pay attention to your chest and stomach as you breathe in and out. You can use either of these two spots to focus on. It is your preference and you should do what feel most comfortable to you.

As you sit and breathe, you now begin to count the breaths you take.  You do this from the first time you breathe to the tenth time. Then you do it again.

So it goes like this:

-          Inhale, focus on the air moving into and out of your nostrils and passing by the top of your lips or your stomach and chest as they expand while you inhale

-          Exhale, feel as the air comes out of your nostrils, hits the tops of your lips or as your chest and stomach contract to let out the air.

-          Count one.

-          Inhale, focus on the air coming in and out of your nose, passing by the top of your lips or your stomach and chest expanding,

-          Exhale. Feel the air blowing out of your nostrils, hitting the top of your lips or your chest and stomach contracting to let out the air.

-          Count two.

-          Continue this pattern as you breathe ten times and then start again.

You should be able to do this guided meditation for at least 10 minutes. If you can do it for 15 minutes even better. Don’t worry about the time duration because it is quality of meditation over quantity. If you can focus your attention on your breath for 15 minutes, fine. If not, even 5 minutes that you do is a fantastic start!

How do you feel? How long were you able to do it for? Did you make 10 minutes? 15 minutes? What obstacles/distractions got in the way?

Learning Meditation: 10 Easy Tips for Quieting the Mind

Meditation is the exercise of focusing your complete attention in one area of your body or a mantra.  

There is much talk about all of the benefits of meditation such as increase in concentration, decrease in anxiety and depression, and just an achievement of happiness.

Meditation is filled with tons of benefits. Yet, many people start to meditate and quickly stop their practice after a few days. They stop meditating because they are not able to overcome the most common obstacles that happen when you start to practice meditation. 

Just like any other form of exercise, meditation gets easier the more you do it.  You’ll even reach a point where you actually crave meditating and make it part of your daily routine.

If you follow these 10 easy tips, you’ll be able to start a meditation practice and stick with it.  Remember, it takes 21 consistent days of doing the practice to make the exercise a habit.  This means that you should meditate for about 10 minutes for 21 days (3 weeks) straight to make it into a habit.  Make three weeks your goal.

Now, follow these recommendations to make your meditation practice easy and effective… and long-lasting!

Meditation Practice Tips

1)      Make it a part of your day.  Because starting a meditation practice is just like any other type of exercise, you need to clear a time during your day, schedule it in your calendar, and do it in a consistent, daily fashion.

2)      Have a purpose for your meditation. Before you start meditating, remind yourself why you are doing it, what you want to achieve and gain from it, and how it will make you a better and more spiritual person. This will remind you that it is worth the time you are putting into it.

3)      Notice and accept you will get frustrated. As you begin meditating, you’ll realize just how much chatter goes on in your mind. You will see all of the thoughts that enter and move through your mind. Do not get frustrated at yourself. Do not fight those thoughts. Just sit there and breathe and watch the thoughts move in and out of your mind.

4)      Try out different meditation positions. There is no right way to sit, stand, or lay down. What matters is that you be comfortable while you are meditating. What’s it worth to sit in a full lotus position because you see someone else do it in a video if the whole time you are meditating, you are feeling cramps all over your legs?!

5)      Read about meditation. You should have at least a basic understanding about meditation before you begin. This way you will have an idea of what to expect.

6)      Use tools. You should listen to guided meditation CDs or meditation instructions when you first get started. This will make your practice flow easily.

7)      Pick out a room. Pick an area in your house or yard where it is quiet and you feel calm. This should be where you meditate.

8)      Don’t analyze. Meditation is a long-term practice. You don’t see results when you are looking for them. The less you demand and expect, the more you will receive.

9)      Use a mandala poster or a candle.  Sometimes, closing the eyes is a difficult thing because you get distracted with all the thought running through your mind. If this is the case, you can meditate by looking at a candle and focusing on the flame.

10)  Meditate with others. Try to meditate with your spouse, friend, or loved one. This will make the practice into a routine faster, you will have support, and will be able to speak to one another about your experiences.

If you are new to meditation, make sure to get your Free 5 Day Meditation Course to get started meditating today!

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Video Tour of My Meditation Garden

So, we all know that technology makes things a lot easier..

Because we get so much information on the internet and have so little time to read it, things can get overwhelming. This is why Ive created a video tour of my main blog My Meditation Garden.

You can watch the video tour of the site here.  

I appreciate all your comments and feedback. Im still a perfectionist… meditating hasn’t gotten it out of me!

Meditation 101

There are so many people in the US that have at least heard of meditation and they’ve been curious to start meditating. They don’t move forward and act on their interest however because they don’t know where to begin. There are so many sites on the net discussing meditation that its hard to even choose a meditation technique. The best thing to do is just sit and start.  Don’t overthink it because if you do, you won’t try it. 

This issue so is common that I’ve written a Guided Meditation for Beginners

Advice

As a beginner, you will likely face all kinds of distractions when you first begin to meditate.  This is normal and acceptable. Do not be hard on yourself for noticing every single noise or thought that enters your mind when you begin your meditation practice.  Just accept them and continue.  As you continue to meditate on a regular basis, you will see how the distractions and the excuses become less and less frequent.  Because you will notice the difference that meditating does in you, you will eventually make it a habit and will actually crave and look forward to meditating.

Recommended Meditation

It is recommended that beginners to meditation start out with a focus oriented type of meditation like the breathing meditation. This type of meditation is very easy to do and can be done just about anywhere. It can also be done for a short period of time and progressively made longer as you feel more comfortable and are able to sit quietly for longer periods of time.

Instructions

Sit in a quiet place where there are no harsh lights.  breathe normally and begin to take deep breaths. As you take the deep breaths, focus all of your attention on your breathing. As thoughts enter and leave your mind, accept them. Do not obssess over your thoughts or try to push them out. Just accept that they entered and in the sam way, they will leave on their own.  Simply follow your breath in and out for five minutes to start.  This is the best way to start.

As you continue to meditate on a regular basis, increase the time to 10, 15, 30 minutes or as long as you wish.

Surprising Meditation Experiences

Meditation is a very powerful practice that can bring many, many benefits into your daily life. The benefits range from menta, physical, and spiritual and can be felt as quickly as after having meditated for just a few days.  However, a lot of people don’t really know much about meditation experiences they may encounter. This either drives them away from starting a meditation practice (because they expect immediate results) or scares them away mid-practice.  It’s very good to be informed and know of others’ experiences so that you may have an idea of what to expect during your meditation practice.

What you Did Not Know About Meditation

By Simona Rich

Meditation serves as a foundation for changes. It prepares the mind for new experiences, because it removes negative thinking and other impurities.

Meditation has many benefits but there are some meditation experiences that are not widely known. Some of them are unusual, some exciting, some even scary. I think it is fair for you to know a different side of meditation which is not often discussed.

I can straight away say that despite strange meditation experiences it is worth practising meditation. Benefits outweigh the temporary discomfort to a high degree.

Different meditation experiences

When you start meditating you see only benefits. You notice that you become much more peaceful only after a couple of meditation practices. You become less reactive to negative incidents and your positivity rises to a high degree.

This is the stage that is exciting but most people fail to pass to the next stage because they fall back to their old habits and start taking shortcuts in meditation - they shorten meditation time, do not concentrate on their breathing or mantra and fail to allocate less noisy times for meditation.

Those that continue meditation (after two weeks or so) get to the next stage. They enter deeper meditation and start experiencing fourth dimension. This happens because they finally establish deeper connection with the source and the source shows itself through the person.

You start getting meaningful dreams that show you how you are doing on your path and what changes you need to make. Dreams can also show the glimpse of the future and different warnings.

You become much better at manifesting if your regularly meditate. Because your negative emotions, thinking and beliefs are gradually disappearing, your manifestations reach you faster and you get more synchronicities along the way.

Your eating habits change. You are likely to become vegetarian, then vegan, then go raw, if you continue meditating. Meat is out of the question for serious meditators because you start perceiving the meat of animals to be the same as the meat of humans.

You understand life better, you understand what pain animals feel and you certainly would not want to hurt some animal. It just feels so cruel when I see someone eating meat. By eating meat people are polluting their bodies with negative energy that comes from the animal that was slaughtered.

When you keep meditating, a specific energy starts concentrating in your root chakra (at the base of the spine). This energy is called Kundalini. The energy starts moving up until it reaches the crown chakra. This happens over a very long time. When it goes through your crown chakra (your head) you may become enlightened. Something to look forward to!

However, if Kundalini energy starts moving up too fast, you may experience very extreme discomfort that even lead some people to insanity. So it’s important not to mix meditation with other psychic experiments or anything of that nature. I will explain what to do if you awaken this energy too fast at the bottom of this article.

When you get into the deep meditation, it is easy to reach non-physical beings. If you want to communicate with your spirit guides (tried), your angels (did not try) or enlightened human beings that once lived on earth, you can do that. Of course, that comes with practice and willingness to establish such connection.

You get involuntary body movements. When your nervous system is being cleansed, you will get various contractions and spasms in different parts of your body.

That is all normal and do not get scared if that happens. I have experienced very slight movements of my fingers mostly, but I know some people experience severe movements of the whole body. It just depends how much junk you need to get out of your body.

Most people start meditation without knowing what their actual experiences will be like. They usually start meditating because they know that they can become more peaceful and less negative. But they often do not research meditation experiences fully, therefore they get scared when something unusual happens to them.

If you only meditate for the peace of mind and positivity, you cannot go far in meditation. Of course, elimination of negativity is taking place all the time during meditation, but the more you meditate, the deeper into meditation you get.

You cannot avoid experiencing fourth dimension and other meditation experiences if you keep meditating. It would be the same as driving to another city and expecting to see the views of your old city. It does not work this way.

However, if you feel that you move faster than you should, you can cut on meditation time and do spinal breathing before meditation as long as you feel that you are not ready to experience more. You can also do some grounding activities like watching movies, going for a walk or eating heavy food. Such activities will not let you progress faster than you can handle.

Do you meditate regularly? Have you felt any of these experiences?

What has happened to you? Have you felt your body move involuntarily as energy was going through it? I’d love to hear about your experience. Please feel free and comfortable to share…

If you found this interesting, here are some related posts you may also benefit from:

1. 8 Basic and 5 Lesser Known Benefits of Meditation There is a multitude of benefits brought about from regular meditation. Learn the top 8 benefits and 5 lesser known benefits….
2. 20 Meditation Tips for Beginners Read 20 tips to get you started with meditation. These tips are meant for people who are curious about starting to meditate or have meditated a few times and have not quite made a habit…

When you first start out meditating, the most important thing to determine is whether you will want to follow a guided meditation technique or an unguided meditation. There is a large difference between the two. Your decision will depend on your level of concentration and your goals in your meditation practice.

Guided vs Unguided Meditation

By Chris Le Roy

The challenge new meditators have when learning meditation is whether to use guided mediation or to use unguided meditation. Our objective in this article is to look at both meditation types so that you can choose which meditation style will suit your requirements.

Guided Meditation involves somebody guiding you through the meditation process. That is they literally talk you through the whole meditation process. There are some advantages and disadvantages to this technique. One of the reasons you may consider guided meditation is to help expand your understanding of the various meditation techniques.

The Guided Meditation technique…