How to Use Guided Meditations
Guided meditations refer to focusing on a thought or an object during the meditating session. When you learn the techniques, you will be able to harness the power of your mind to help you solve many of your everyday problems, focus on healing your body and bring about positive changes in your life.
There are many CD’s you can purchase that will guide you through the meditation making it easy for you to learn the technique. The purpose of such meditative techniques is to create a feeling of calm and peace within your mind. When your mind is at peace, it is free from stress that can cause problems in other parts of the body.
To get started with guided meditations, you should find a place where you will be uninterrupted for a period of time and will be free from distractions such as sounds of phones ringing or people talking. Many find it helpful to meditate early in the morning when the rest of the members of the household are still sleeping.
You may start off with a period of about 10 minutes and as you become more familiar with meditating, you will be able to extend this into a longer period of time. To gain the most benefit from meditation, you need to do it on a daily basis and block a time for you to engage in this activity. Those who practice this on a daily basis typically have a daily session of about 25 or 30 minutes.
Guided meditations involve choosing one of the sitting positions in which you can be comfortable for a period of time. This may be seated on a cushion or on a chair. Whichever position you choose, it is important to keep your spine straight for the duration of the session.
You should not bend backward or forward. When you first start meditating, you may feel as if one or both of your legs have gone asleep, due to the circulation cut off when you have your legs crossed. It will take practice to be able to maintain the same position for longer and longer times in each session without this occurring.
Once you are comfortable, you have to relax your body to prepare for guided meditations. This involves focusing on your breathing. Some people count their breaths as they inhale and exhale deeply, bringing the oxygen to the deepest parts of the lungs. In doing so you also give your diaphragm a workout that it does get through normal breathing exercises. After five deep breaths let your breathing return to normal.
Now that your body and mind are relaxed you can start your guided meditation as you focus on one thought or object. To illustrate how this works, you can pretend that you are in a different place where you will find this object.
This could be in a park, where you pick up a beautiful flower and hold it in your hand. Feel the light weight of the flower and imagine the scent it emits. Visualize the flower in your mind and focus on your five senses as you experience all aspects of its beauty.
Through guided meditations you can visualize changes that you would like to bring about in your life. You can imagine yourself after these changes and see the effect that they will have on your mind, body, and health and wellness.
This is more than just imagination, because although you have an image of it in your mind’s eye, you also have to visualize yourself in this changed position. Through this you will have a deeper sense of how your whole life and being will benefit from change.
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