12 Minute Meditation

Our guest this week is Thaddaeus Washington, Mindful's featured Teacher of the Month for October.  He brings a new experience to our meditation lineup: a music-based meditation entitled "Vapour," where sound is the anchor for our attention. In this guided practice, you're invited to simply rest, bring your whole self, and allow the music to unwind the worries of the day.  Thaddaeus Washington is a...

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...

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 uncon...

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 pr...

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...

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...

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 app...

Our guest this week is J eneé 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, Raci...

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...

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 mindful...

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...

By definition, to feel vulnerable is to feel exposed and undefended. It's natural, in moments of emotional risk or tenderness, to feel the urge to pull back from vulnerability, to deny it or dismiss it as weak or needy. But decades of research have also revealed that we can't really form strong bonds with others if we're unwilling to take the risk of being our true selves.  This week, Dr. Stacee R...

This week, Ed Halliwell guides us through a practice to be with the inevitable moment-to-moment uncertainty of life. We can't control what's happening around us, but we can practice letting go of the stories we create about uncertainty that add unnecessary stress and pain.  Ed Halliwell is a mindfulness teacher and writer, based in Sussex and London, UK. He is author of three books: Into The Heart...

There are times when we're so busy thinking, planning, worrying, stressing that it's really hard to focus on the breath or the body, or whatever particular meditation object we're using. This practice with Mark Coleman offers an alternative that's helpful when we feel like we're going a million miles an hour. It uses soft, focused attention: relaxed eyes, soft gaze, and just being aware of the vis...

Beyond just feeling good, laughter releases dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins , and also works on our heart, our lungs, our muscles, our thoughts, our behaviors. In short: laughter actually is good medicine. And here's a funny thing: whether we laugh in response to something, or we create a situation that gets laughter going, the body will still release the same endorphins. Try this qu...

Joy aids us in waking up to our lives, and savoring is a practice that allows us to slow down, immerse ourselves in experience, and deeply appreciate the moment we're inhabiting. These two together are a powerful antidote to the gravitational pull of negativity, doomscrolling, and despair.  Jessica Morey is a meditation teacher and coach. She has been practicing meditation for almost 3 decades. Sh...

When we talk about attention, we often use active and extractive verbs: pay, give, court, leverage . In mindfulness, attention isn't a commodity to be used; it's a gift to be nurtured. What might it feel like to rest our attention?  This week, teacher Sharon Salzberg offers a guided meditation that's down-to-earth and deeply restorative as we practice holding our awareness with the lightest touch...

One of the core principles of mindfulness practice that can be a challenge for people is the notion that it actually makes more sense to accept our emotions rather than resist them. Especially when it comes to painful, confusing, or frightening emotions, this move towards ourselves in compassion can feel incredibly counterintuitive.  This week, author and recovery coach Emily Jane guides us throug...

Our bodies come in all varieties, and we all have different interests, skills, and abilities. As today's teacher Cara Bradley observes, movement of any kind—from the slightest stretch to the most intense exercise—can be mindful.  This simple meditation helps you celebrate your physicality with practices to connect with your breath and your body, expand your awareness, and appreciate the gift of be...

This week, Mindful founding editor Barry Boyce reminds us of the basic why behind mindfulness meditation: We get off-kilter at various times throughout the day, and we need a way to pause and reconnect—with reality, with our senses, with our steady center. That's what meditation helps us do.  This practice is called "Taking Your Seat," and it's perfect if you're getting started with meditation, or...

Learning to live with pain and illness is challenging, arduous work. Often, people can go for months or even years without sufficient answers. Life gets turned completely upside down. The body you thought you had suddenly becomes something you don't recognize or know how to work with.  This week, meditation teacher and hypnotherapist Juliana Sloane offers an imaginative meditation that invites sof...

We often think of mindfulness and meditation as sustained states—when in reality, it's just a collection of micro-moments of stopping, breathing, really noticing our own bodies and our own lives, getting distracted, and then coming back again. Over and over.   As this week's teacher Shalini Bahl puts it, today's guided practice is about the art of stopping: letting go of our regular habits of the...

You can find the extended 20-minute version of this meditation here .  Want to explore how micro-practices can help shift your patterns in your real everyday life when you're off the meditation mat? Check out Shalini's article, How Micro-Practices Can Be the Bridge Between Your Meditation and Your Choices . 

In our concern for our children, sometimes we respond from a place of fear and worry. From time to time, we can even lose touch with the love that lies beneath that concern.  Reconnecting with the ground of our love and the wish for our children to be happy and well, especially in moments of difficulty, can be incredibly beneficial. This practice from Wendy O'Leary offers a pause of support and en...

Our bodies are so overworked and often ignored. This guided awareness practice offers space to feel a sense of gratitude for our body, in all of its beauty and mystery. Rashid Hughes (he/him) is a writer, meditation teacher, yoga instructor and a restorative justice facilitator. He is the co-founder of the Heart Refuge Mindfulness Community , a mindfulness community in Washington, DC that is dedic...