12 Minute Meditation

Our guest this week is Jeneé 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, Racial Healing, Emotional Intelligence Educator, and HeartMath facilitator. Jenée initiated and led the unique effort to bring mindfulness into San Francisco's public health programs and practices through the Trauma Informed Systems Initiative. She is on the advisory board of Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (SIYLI) and is certified to teach mindfulness and emotional intelligence based on the latest neuroscience. She is also the founder and curator of The Right Within Experience, a day-long program for people of African ancestry that teaches practical mindfulness to overcome the diminishing impact of racism and open a portal to a liberatory lifestyle. 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 Jeneé Johnson here. Go Deeper For more information on how mindfulness practice can help you train your focus and attention, check out these resources from Mindful.org: Attention! How Mindfulness Training Is Helping People Reclaim Their Ability to Focus Paying Attention to the Space In Between Finding a Way to Measure and Study Our Internal Attention The Brain Science of Attention with Amishi Jha Find Your Focus: Own Your Attention in 12 Minutes a Day For another approach to attention-strengthening meditation, try: A Breathing Meditation to Gently Bring Your Attention Back with 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 [email protected].

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 mindfulness trainer, coach, author, and speaker, specializing in teaching the NSDR (non sleep deep rest) practice of yoga nidra. She is the author of The Blind Spot Effect and as a trainer has created mindfulness programs for UN humanitarians and veterans with PTSD. Just a quick note: Since this is a sleep meditation, you won't be hearing a closing bell or the usual outro, so that you can drift off in silence. 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 Kelly Boys here. Go Deeper It's not really possible to "get rid" of stress. In fact, the more we try to fight it, the worse it gets. What does work to ease stress is to meet it with compassion, and that can take on various forms: sensory awareness, body scans, deep breathing, mindful movement, journaling, and many other types of mindfulness practice. Here are just a few ways that you can learn to meet, process, and release stress: Make It Personal: How Mindfulness Can Support Highly Stressed People A Steady Heart: A Cardiologist's Advice for Lowering Stress A Simple Inquiry Practice to Unwind from Stress Mindfulness May be a Useful Tool for Dealing with Stress Associated with Autism The Power of Meeting Stress with Softness For another guided meditation to help you get to sleep, try: Healthy Sleep Can't Be Forced. Try this Sleep Meditation Instead 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 [email protected].

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 Reicherzer guides us through a practice that can help us soften to this oh-so-human experience so that we can truly know healing, connection, and vitality. Dr. Stacee L. Reicherzer, PhD, LPC-S is the Chicago-based transgender author of The Healing Otherness Handbook: Overcome the Trauma of Identity-Based Bullying and Find Power in Your Difference. The San Antonio, TX native serves as clinical faculty of counseling at Southern New Hampshire University, where she received the distinguished faculty award in 2018. 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 Stacee Reicherzer here. As with any difficult emotion, learning to be with vulnerability is a skill that we can nurture. Here are more resources on this essential skill and how mindfulness can help you build and expand your capacity to be yourself in the world. Go Deeper Gentle Men: The Healing Power of Vulnerability The Power of Vulnerability Why Vulnerability is Your Superpower Feeling Like a Fraud in Your Own Mindfulness Practice 4 Questions to Foster Your Authentic Self For more practice leaning into genuine connection, try A 12-Minute Meditation for Cultivating Connection to Yourself and Beyond. 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 [email protected].

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 visual stimuli—like color, light, form, shape—to settle our focus. Mark Coleman is a Dharma teacher at Spirit Rock and has taught Insight Meditation retreats since 1997 worldwide. Mark is passionate about integrating meditation and nature and leads wilderness retreats through his organization Awake in the Wild and runs annual Nature Meditation teacher trainings. Cofounder of the Mindfulness Training Institute, Mark coeads year-long mindfulness teacher trainings in Europe and the US. He is author of Awake in the Wild: Mindfulness in Nature as a Path of Self-Discovery and Make Peace With Your Mind and his recent book From Suffering to Peace. He lives in Sausalito, Marin and likes nothing more than hiking, biking, and kayaking in the outdoors. Find out more at markcoleman.org 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 Mark Coleman here. Go Deeper For a variety of reasons, not every brain is well-suited to "traditional" meditation techniques. Here are ways to explore other alternative practices: Awareness in Action: Rethinking ADHD Through Mindfulness Guided Meditations for Working with ADHD and Anxiety Trusting Your Senses Mindfulness and Autism: Learning to Celebrate Neurodiversity Addiction, Trauma, and the Problem of Being Present If you've even had the feeling that traditional meditation isn't for you because of how you're wired, try this neurodivergent-friendly approach: Dual Anchor: A Neurodiversity-Informed Meditation for Wandering Attention 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 [email protected].

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. 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 Understanding our built-in negativity bias is the first step to balancing it with practices that hone our attention and strengthen our genuine appreciation for the good things in life. You can learn more from these resources on Mindful.org: Seven Strengths for an Uncertain World Halting the Spiral: Navigating Repetitive Thought Patterns 3 Mindful Ways to Transform Negative Thoughts Turn Negative Emotions into Your Greatest Source of Strength How Happy Brains Respond to Negative Things For another approach to unhooking from negativity, try: Peace Begins With Me: A Meditation for When You Feel Overwhelmed By Negative Thoughts 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 [email protected].

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 [email protected].

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 [email protected].

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 [email protected].

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 [email protected].

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 [email protected].

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 [email protected].

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 [email protected] 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 [email protected].