12 Minute Meditation

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 through a practice you can use anytime you need support bringing curiosity, courage, and compassion to difficult experiences. Emily Jane is a mindfulness teacher, certified Embodied Processing (EP) practitioner, and recovery coach with a background in social work. She's been in recovery for over eight years, following two decades of active addiction, and her lived experience now fuels her passion for helping others heal. Emily is also the author of Beyond Addiction: A Mindful Guide to Recovery, where she shares her trauma-informed, compassionate approach to healing. Her work integrates mindfulness, coaching, trauma therapy, and somatic tools to help people reconnect with their bodies and find safety, peace, and empowerment on their recovery journey. Connect with Emily Jane online at Holistic Recovery. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online and in our app at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Sign up for our free newsletter mindful.org/signup or download the app for free at mindful.org/app. Show Notes Find more from Emily Jane here. Go Deeper Being able to notice and be in our bodies is one of the core skills of mindfulness. In a world that is designed for distraction and disembodiment, this can be a challenging skill to cultivate. If you want to learn more, start with these resources from Mindful.org: Addiction, Trauma, and the Problem of Being Present What Green Spaces Can Do For Your Body, Your Mind & Your Practice Mindfulness Practices to Get Back in Touch with Your Body How to Befriend Your Body The Science of Embodiment: Connect to Your Body's Wisdom For another take on a meditation for body awareness, try: A 10-Minute Meditation to Cultivate Embodied Awareness And more from Mindful here: More episodes of 12 Minute Meditation Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing yourwords@mindful.org.

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 if you just need a touchpoint during your day. Barry Boyce is Founding Editor of Mindful and Mindful.org. He is a longtime meditation practitioner and teacher, as well as a professional writer and editor. Barry serves on the board of directors of the Foundation for a Mindful Society and the Centre for Mindfulness Studies in Toronto, as well as on the advisory board of Peace in Schools, in Portland, Oregon. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online and in our app at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Sign up for our free newsletter mindful.org/signup or download the app for free at mindful.org/app. Show Notes Find more from Barry Boyce here. Go Deeper Mindful.org has a wealth of articles, research, and guided practices that can help you start or grow your meditation practice. You can start here: Connecting With Why You Meditate Can Fuel Your Motivation Calm and Steady: Simple Ways to Create the Habit of Mindfulness Do I Need to Meditate to Be Mindful? Formal vs. Informal Mindfulness: 2 Ways to Practice For another approach to a beginner's meditation, try: Beginner's Body Scan Meditation And more from Mindful here: More episodes of 12 Minute Meditation Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing yourwords@mindful.org.

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 mind—the pushing, pulling, running in circles— and instead just being for a moment. This is an extended practice, but as a bonus, we're also sharing a micro-practice version of The Art of Stopping that you can take into busy days. And don't miss Shalini's new article on Mindful.org that's all about the power of micro-practices to affect our daily choices. Shalini Bahl, PhD, is the award-winning author of Return to Mindfulness and founder of Sama Life, where she offers daily live micro-practices for real-world engagement. Through her teaching, writing, and TEDx talks, she focuses on building practical mindfulness skills that disrupt default patterns and restore clarity, integrity, and care. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online and in our app at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Sign up for our free newsletter mindful.org/signup or download the app for free at mindful.org/app. Show Notes Find more from Shalini Bahl here. Go Deeper For more resources on the power of the pause, check out these resources on Mindful.org: How Micro-Practices Can Be the Bridge Between Your Meditation and Your Choices W.A.I.T. a Minute: A Practice to Pause Before You Post on Social Media How to Get Good Pause Waking Up to Your World: Using the Pause Practice to Break Habitual Patterns For more practice pausing before making choices by compassionately interrupting patterns, try: A 12-Minute Meditation to Get Curious About Your Cravings And more from Mindful here: More episodes of 12 Minute Meditation Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing yourwords@mindful.org.

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 encouragement that can help you come back to that core of compassionate wisdom. Wendy O'Leary, M.Ed., author and health educator, has three children's books and an adult book on self-compassion in families. She is a certified mindfulness teacher, parent educator, and self-compassion advocate with expertise in teaching emotional resilience to children and adults. Her card deck for children titled "Let's Grow Happiness," created in collaboration with her colleague Helen Maffini, is available for purchase at wendyoleary.com. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online and in our app at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Sign up for our free newsletter mindful.org/signup or download the app for free at mindful.org/app. Show Notes Find more from Wendy O'Leary here. Go Deeper For more resources to support mindful parenting, check out these resources on Mindful.org: Mindful Parenting Toolkit Shifting Habits: Three Mindful Parenting Tips You Can Try Today Mindful Parenting: Meet Your Inner Critic with Self-Compassion Manage Big Parenting Feelings Before They Manage You For more practice with meditations to meet your worry, anxiety, fear, or other difficult emotions, try: 12-Minute Meditation: A Grounding Practice to Create Space in a Storm of Emotions And more from Mindful here: More episodes of 12 Minute Meditation If you'd like to pre-order lifetime access to The Seven Strengths event recording, go to www.mindfulness.com/the-seven-strengths-hub to take advantage of our early bird pricing plus get a free bonus course from Melli O'Brien. Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing yourwords@mindful.org.

Thanks to our autonomic nervous system, life-sustaining processes like our heartbeat, digestion, and breathing all happen without us even having to pay attention. But our environments, stress levels, and other factors can definitely affect the health and efficiency of these processes. For example, sitting hunched at our desks and staring at screens often means that our breathing gets shallow and irregular—which of course affects things like focus, energy, cognition, and attention. This week, Shamash Alidina leads a guided breathing exercise called Light, Slow, and Deep (or LSD), designed to re-set the breath in a way that opens the chest, relaxes tension, and calms the nervous system. Shamash Alidina has been practising mindfulness since 1998 and runs his own successful training organisation. He is the author of Mindfulness For Dummies, The Mindful Way Through Stress, and most recently, Breathing Exercises for Dummies. He frequently pops up in newspapers, magazines and on radio shows. Based in London, he runs online trainings and speaks at conferences all over the world. He's been teaching mindfulness full-time since 2010. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online and in our app at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Sign up for our free newsletter mindful.org/signup or download the app for free at mindful.org/app. Show Notes Find more from Shamash Alidina here. If you are looking for an in-depth resource to help build essential skills to meet a changing and uncertain world with a core of inner strength, join Melli O'Brien and a host of other teachers for The Seven Strengths, a FREE 7-day online course happening this May 13-19. Learn more and register at www.mindfulness.com/the-seven-strengths. Go Deeper Breathing mediations have many mental and physical benefits, and you can find dozens of resources on our site. Start here: The Breath is Your Superpower: 3 Ways to Help Kids Reset Email Apnea Is Real. Here's How to Breathe Better at Work What Science Says About the Power of the Outbreath Helping Black Women Take A Breath How Your Breath Controls Your Mood and Attention For more practice with breathing meditation, try 12-Minute Breathing Practice for Awareness: Sit and Know You're Sitting or A Guided Meditation to Encourage Deep Breathing. And more from Mindful here: More episodes of 12 Minute Meditation Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing yourwords@mindful.org.

Mindfulness meditation involves a willingness to be with ourselves as we are. It offers a way of learning to work with ourselves, and not on ourselves, especially if we are healing from perfectionism. Mindfulness reminds us that not everything has to be "fixed"—and very often, our movement back to wellness starts when we stop trying to change ourselves and simply accept where we are with care and attention. Cheryl Jones is a mindfulness teacher, health and wellness coach, and author of two books, Thriving When Your Cosmic Egg Is Cracked: A Mindful Journey and Mindful Exercise: A Bridge Between Yoga and Exercise. She was the recipient of the Chairman's Leadership Award and the Norman Vincent Peale Award for Positive Thinking for integrating mindfulness into corporate culture at Aetna. You can find her at www.linkedin.com/in/cherylljones/. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online and in our app at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Sign up for our free newsletter mindful.org/signup or download the app for free at mindful.org/app. Show Notes Find more from Cheryl Jones here. If you are looking for an in-depth resource to help build essential skills to meet a changing and uncertain world with a core of inner strength, join Melli O'Brien and a host of other teachers for The Seven Strengths, a FREE 7-day online course happening this May 13-19. Learn more and register at www.mindfulness.com/the-seven-strengths. Go Deeper Healing from perfectionism isn't easy. It takes time and practice. Here are some additional Mindful.org resources to help you build a stronger sense of self-acceptance: Awareness in Action: Rethinking ADHD Through Mindfulness What Swimming Taught Me About Self-Compassion and Letting Go It's Selfish, It's Hokey, and I'll Lose My Edge: 3 Half-Truths About Self-Compassion How Self-Compassion Can Improve Teen Mental Health This Is What Fierce Self-Compassion Looks Like Want to try more practices that foster self-compassion? Start here: A 12-Minute Meditation to Embrace All Your Parts And more from Mindful here: More episodes of 12 Minute Meditation Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing yourwords@mindful.org.

Our culture prizes certainty and tends to regard not-knowing as weakness or failure. But research has shown that uncertainty is a quality that we're meant to engage, not reject. Not only does it spark curiosity and help us learn, but it also strengthens confidence and resilience. This week, Dr. Sará King offers a practice to help us build comfort with our "don't-know mind" so that we can stay courageous and open to the world around us. Dr. Sará King is a mother, a neuroscientist, political and learning scientist, medical anthropologist, social entrepreneur, public speaker, and certified yoga and meditation instructor. Dr. King specializes in researching and teaching about the relationship between mindfulness, community alternative medicine, and social justice with an emphasis on examining the relationship between individual and collective awareness as it relates to well-being. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online and in our app at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Sign up for our free newsletter mindful.org/signup or download the app for free at mindful.org/app. Show Notes Find more from Sará King here. If you are looking for an in-depth resource to help build these essential skills of resilience, join Melli O'Brien and a host of other teachers for The Seven Strengths, a FREE 7-day online course happening this May 13-19. Learn more and register at www.mindfulness.com/the-seven-strengths. Go Deeper Looking for ways to engage your beginner's mind? Check out these resources from Mindful.org: Why Uncertainty Is Good for Us How Embracing Uncertainty Leads To Fulfillment Feeling Like a Fraud in Your Own Mindfulness Practice Don't Be So Sure To get more practice meeting uncertainty, try A Guided Walking Meditation to Meet Uncertainty with Compassion And more from Mindful here: More episodes of 12 Minute Meditation Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing yourwords@mindful.org.Why do women love reading The Pipeline? It's data with perspective. Get free, thoughtful takes on navigating our messy world. Subscribe today.

There are so many reasons why we might be struggling to get to sleep and stay asleep. Work or relationship stress, health concerns, hormonal changes, the state of the world—there's plenty to keep us awake at night. This week, Mark Bertin offers a soothing sleep practice to help settle our restlessness, using the breath as a calming anchor to gently coax our busy minds and tense bodies into rest. Because this is a sleep meditation, there won't be the usual recorded outro, so you can just drift off in silence. Mark Bertin, MD, is a pediatrician, author, professor, and mindfulness teacher specializing in neurodevelopmental behavioral pediatrics. He's a regular contributor to Mindful.org and Psychology Today. He is the author of How Children Thrive: The Practical Science of Raising Independent, Resilient, and Happy Kids (Sounds True, 2018). Dr. Bertin resides in Pleasantville, New York. For more, visit developmentaldoctor.com. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online and in our app at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Sign up for our free newsletter mindful.org/signup or download the app for free at mindful.org/app. Show Notes Find more from Dr. Mark Bertin here. Go Deeper For help understanding how mindfulness can make sleep better and more restorative, check out these resources from Mindful.org: The Ultimate Guide to Mindfulness for Sleep Why We Wake Up At Night and How Mindfulness Helps Us Sleep Again The Science of Deep Sleep 8 Tips for Better Sleep at Night Mindful has a wonderful collection of sleep meditations. If you want to try another version of a body scan, A 12-Minute Body Scan Meditation for Letting Go of Stress and Falling Asleep is a great place to start. And more from Mindful here: More episodes of 12 Minute Meditation Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing yourwords@mindful.org.

It's not always an instinctual go-to for us, but self-compassion is one of the most powerful forms of healing and restoration for our mental and physical well-being. In this meditation, mindfulness teacher Shamash Alidina offers three ways to show compassion for yourself when you're stressed and need a reset. Shamash Alidina has been practising mindfulness since 1998 and runs his own successful training organisation. He is the author of Mindfulness For Dummies and most recently, The Mindful Way Through Stress. He frequently pops up in newspapers, magazines and on radio shows. Based in London, he runs online trainings and speaks at conferences all over the world. He's been teaching mindfulness full-time since 2010. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online and in our app at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Sign up for our free newsletter mindful.org/signup or download the app for free at mindful.org/app. Show Notes Find more from Shamash Alidina here. Go Deeper For more resources to help meet stress, balance your nervous system, and tap into resilience, check out these resources from Mindful.org: Deep Resilience: The Wisdom of Making Friends with Your Mind Swimming, Walking, Running—Why Mindful Movement Can Boost Resilience Why Your Outbreath is Connected to Your Well-Being You Don't Have to Shut Down or Burn Out When You Care This Much. Do This Instead. For more practice tending to your nervous system with self-compassion, try A 12-Minute Body Scan Meditation for Self-Compassion and Presence. And more from Mindful here: More episodes of 12 Minute Meditation Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing yourwords@mindful.org.

Everything is impermanent. It's always changing, coming together and falling apart. This, of course, includes small daily things and massive, disruptive, and life-shattering things. It's frustrating to not be able to control these movements and outcomes. But paradoxically, when we can accept that everything is not up to us, and we stop trying to control what we can't change or trying to predict what we can't predict, then we can feel a lot more at ease and more open to the moment-to-moment unfolding of our lives. This week, Kimberly Brown shares a practice to loosen our grip and be at peace, even when the change isn't one we'd choose. Kimberly Brown is a meditation teacher and author. She leads classes and retreats that emphasize the power of compassion and kindness meditation to reconnect us to ourselves and others. She studies in both the Tibetan and Insight schools of Buddhism and is a certified mindfulness instructor. Her latest book, Happy Relationships: 25 Buddhist Practices to Transform Your Connection with Your Partner, Family, and Friends, was recently released by Prometheus Books. You can learn more about Kimberly on her website, www.meditationwithheart.com. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online and in our app at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Sign up for our free newsletter mindful.org/signup or download the app for free at mindful.org/app. Show Notes Find more from Kimberly Brown here. Go Deeper For more resources on navigating the unsteady waters of change, check out these resources from Mindful.org: New Life, Who's This? Rediscovering Who You Are When Everything Has Changed Embracing Change: What Nanalan' Teaches Us About Saying Goodbye Navigating Menopause: A Mindful Approach to Managing Symptoms and Embracing Change The Only Constant Is Change To try another meditation about accepting life on life's terms, try A 12-Minute Meditation to Create Inner Balance in the Face of Change. And more from Mindful here: More episodes of 12 Minute Meditation Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing yourwords@mindful.org.

We often treat experiences like restlessness, uncertainty, or the overwhelm of difficult emotions as a problem to be solved. And of course, it's normal to want relief. Today, teacher Cherl Vigder Brause leads a guided practice that's centered around meeting ourselves exactly where we are. In that pause, where we encounter ourselves without trying to fix anything, even if just for a moment, we actually create a space where we can get clarity on how to respond to ourselves, others, and the world. Cheryl Vigder Brause is a nationally recognized mindfulness and meditation teacher, writer and speaker, specializing in leading corporate clients, schools, and individuals across the country in programs and meditations on stress management, boosting happiness, and living their best lives. She is the Co-Founder of Pause to be Present, a mindfulness and meditation studio. To learn more about Pause to be Present's programs, visit www.pausetobepresent.com. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online and in our app at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Sign up for our free newsletter mindful.org/signup or download the app for free at mindful.org/app. Show Notes Find more from Cheryl Vigder Brause here. Go Deeper For more resources on tapping into the power of the pause, check out these articles on Mindful.org: How to Get Good Pause The Three-Second Pause In the Classroom Waking Up to Your World: Using the Pause Practice to Break Habitual Patterns How to Feel Present, and Stay Present To try another version of a pause practice, join Rhonda Magee for The S.T.O.P. Practice: Creating Space Around Automatic Reactions And more from Mindful here: More episodes of 12 Minute Meditation Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing yourwords@mindful.org. The DONUT brings you free daily news without the extra noise—stay informed in under 5 mins, and feel good doing it. Subscribe here.

As today's teacher Jessica Morey says, "Anger's fundamental role is to protect us and protect what we care about in the world. It lets us know when a limit of ours, or a boundary, has been crossed." But because of its power and volatility, anger can be a troubling emotion to be with and a difficult one to work with. Today's practice is aimed at gaining insight into our anger so that we can respond skillfully in any given situation. Jessica Morey is a meditation teacher and coach. She has been practicing meditation for almost three decades. She is also the co-founder and former executive director of Inward Bound Mindfulness Education, a nonprofit organization bringing in-depth mindfulness and compassion training to youth. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online and in our app at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Sign up for our free newsletter mindful.org/signup or download the app for free at mindful.org/app. Show Notes Find more from Jessica Morey here. Go Deeper For more resources on meeting and working with anger, check out these articles on Mindful.org: The Real Danger of Suppressing Your Emotions Why Women Should Embrace Their Anger Finding Radical Kindness in the Face of Chaos and Danger Cooling the Raging Fires of Anger Using the Energy of Anger And to get more practice understanding powerful emotions like anger, try Guided Meditation: Notice How Sadness, Loneliness, and Anger Show Up in Your Body. And more from Mindful here: More episodes of 12 Minute Meditation Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing yourwords@mindful.org. The DONUT brings you free daily news without the extra noise—stay informed in under 5 mins, and feel good doing it. Subscribe here.

Our brains learn through a process that has three components: trigger, behavior, reward. Together these behaviors form what is known as a habit loop. In today's meditation, Dr. Brewer walks us through a practice to notice triggers—when they're happening and how they make us feel. When we pay attention to these triggers, we can respond to ourselves with more compassion and make choices with a lot more clarity. Jud Brewer, MD, Ph.D. ("Dr. Jud") is a New York Times best-selling author and thought leader in the field of habit change and the "science of self-mastery," who blends over 20 years of experience with mindfulness training and a career in scientific research. He is passionate about understanding how our brains work, and how to use that knowledge to help people make deep, permanent change in their lives — with the goal of reducing suffering in the world at large. Dr. Jud is the director of research and innovation at Brown University's Mindfulness Center, where he also serves as a professor in Behavioral and Social Sciences at the School of Public Health and Psychiatry at the School of Medicine at Brown University. Previously, Dr. Jud held research and teaching positions at Yale University, and the University of Massachusetts' Center for Mindfulness and was a research affiliate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online and in our app at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Sign up for our free newsletter mindful.org/signup or download the app for free at mindful.org/app. Show Notes Find more from Judson Brewer here. Go Deeper Being with cravings with the intention of shifting our response, is one of the most challenging parts of mindful living. For more support with understanding craving, addiction, and presence, check out these articles on Mindful.org: How to Be Mindful With Your Cravings Rethink Your Food Cravings with the Art of Savoring When Avoidance Rules Your Life: Understanding Compulsions vs. Addictions How Mindfulness Can Help Teens With Tech Addiction Trauma, Addiction, and the Problem of Being Present And to experience another meditation from Dr. Brewer that guides you through how to be with cravings to facilitate habit change, try A 12-Minute Meditation to Get Curious About Your Cravings. And more from Mindful here: More episodes of 12 Minute Meditation Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing yourwords@mindful.org.