I led a long guided meditation this past week as part of a workplace wellbeing workshop. I had a great conversation after from a woman who found that for the first 10 minutes she couldn’t stop thinking about random things, like her shopping list, weekend plans or work meeting. She was curious if there was away to keep that from happening.
This is normal. In fact, in a way, this is the point of meditation. Meditation allows you time and mental space to let all those random thoughts percolate up. The difference in meditation (and in mindfulness) is that you just observe or be aware of those thoughts and then let them go. There’s no judgement, no action.
Hopefully as you stay with the meditation, thoughts will lessen and might all together go quiet and maybe you’ll find that moment of being free of thought.
Guided meditation can often be an easier way to explore meditation as a practice. In this form, another person talks or guides you through the process. There many different types of guided meditation. So it’s worth exploring those types and even different voices to find what works for you.
Here’s an audio recording of one of my longer guided meditations that explores a range of different types of meditation, or just click play on the video below.
You can also try some of my briefer meditations. Or check out this list of free guided meditations ranging from 2 minutes to 40 minutes, collated by the University of Auckland.
