water droplets on green leaf

mindfulness printed paper near windowMeditation as a practice can provide a range of benefits for all people. Starting and establishing a consistent meditation practice can help to ease stress, increase peacefulness, and lead to greater overall happiness. Learning how to meditate is easy enough, but beyond the temporary, it can become a lifelong practice.

A commitment to consistent practice will carry you through many different phases of life. The purpose of meditation is to create a space within your mind where thoughts cease and you can experience relaxation, a sense of oneness, and deep breathing.

During meditation, your thoughts may come back and your mind may wander – and that’s okay. Some days and moments, the mind is more active than others. Sometimes sensations will arise in your body or there can be distractions from events occurring around you that are outside of your control. You might have a thought pop in or get lost in a daydream or other the faint strains of a song you hear in the distance.

This is normal for a healthy, active mind and our thoughts come and go just like our breath does. Thankfully, we do have control and choice over both if we choose to make it so. Meditation is a practice of conditioning the mind to recognize thoughts and slow them down or eliminate them. When we accomplish this, we come to a place of peace where we can have a clearer mind and move forward from there.

When a thought comes in to distract us during meditation, we can take notice of it, pause briefly, and then return to focusing on our breathing, the present moment, and not be taken on a ride to distraction.

Mindfulness Guided Meditations

green grass and trees during daytimeMeditation is a practice that can be done by anyone at any time – one of the most beautiful aspects of the practice. Yet sometimes we’re going to be feeling distracted and have trouble quieting our minds. When we are highly stressed or overwhelmed it can be difficult to bring ourselves back into balance and to be able to sit still and silently.

Sometimes it can feel like our minds are moving too fast to even get a handle on, and the outside world is distracting and overwhelming. If and when this happens, we can look to guided meditations to help set us on the path to empowerment with meditation. While meditation is often done sitting silently, there are also other meaningful ways to adapt the practice to our busy, multi-faceted lives.

Guided meditations can be very helpful when you are first beginning a meditation practice. When you listen to a guided meditation you’re led by a professional and experienced teacher who reminds you to come back to your breath and to be gentle with yourself throughout the process.

Guided meditations are great practice for people who are self-critical, less confident, or for anyone who needs accountability. It can be difficult to sit in silence for 20 minutes but listening to a 20-minute guided meditation can be relaxing and feel more directed and engaging. Guided meditations help us to direct our energies in a particular direction or toward a chosen area of focus.

Guided Meditation Topics

pink flowers on brown wooden vaseThere is an infinite range of possibilities for guided meditations. DivaStyle Ministry is developing a series of guided meditations around many topics, including abundance, health, relationships, self-confidence, manifestation, and more.

Listening to a guided meditation focused on a particular niche allows us to bring awareness to a certain aspect of our lives that we wish to heal and prosper in.

When we are feeling stuck around a particular issue, we can find a guided meditation on the topic, sit, or lie down, and bring our attention to the meditation while allowing our mind to relax. We do not need to actively monitor our thoughts but instead can allow images and inspiration to come forth based on the guided imagery of the teacher or leader.

Using guided meditation is a great way to create a sustainable meditation practice that will support you throughout your lifetime.

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About the Author Dianne Daniels

Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and currently residing in Norwich, Connecticut, Dianne M. Daniels' mission is to empower women 50+ to Amplify their Self-Confidence, Deepen their Self-Knowledge, Inspire Creativity, and Glide into the next phase of their lives with the Power of Journaling, Affirmations, and Assessments.

You can learn how to use these time-tested, proven practices to create and manifest the life you want (and deserve) to live.

Dianne is an ordained Unitarian Universalist Minister with a Master of Divinity degree from Starr King School for the Ministry. She's an avid reader, a lover of old houses (she renovated an 1850s vintage Greek Revival home with her family) and has been journaling since the age of 9.

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