The Power of Guided Meditation: Simple Practices to Promote Wellbeing (3)

The Power of Guided Meditation provides an accessible and easy entry point into starting a meditation practice, offering a range of practices and benefits so you can decide how to choose and integrate a program to suit your specific needs.

First, explore meditation from the perspective of mindfulness. Why Mindfulness? Mindfulness is the practice of bringing the attention back to the present moment. Mindfulness is not only meditation and meditation is not only mindfulness. Mindfulness in its most complete sense, is a way of living, thinking, and being that is self-aware and deliberate. Most practices as we know them in the West are rooted in mindfulness. Discover mindfulness through:

• Body 
• Breath
• Thoughts 
• Sounds 
• Walking 
• Eating
• Listening/Communication 
• Compassion/Kindness

Another focus of meditation is to relieve stress. Why stress relief? Particular meditation techniques induce a calm, serene state very quickly by activating the parasympathetic nervous system. These practices have the power to lower the heart rate, reduce inflammation in the body, settle the emotions, deepen the qualities of our sleep, boost the immune system, and much more. Relieve stress with:

• Yoga nidra
• Breathing exercises—calm breathing, diaphragmatic breath, square breathing
• Progressive muscle relaxation
• Sleep
• Affirmation

Or, use visualization techniques to anchor a practice. Why Visualization? Visualization lets our mind remain somewhat active as it takes instruction to create images internally. The mind-body connection is powerful and we’re learning more about it everyday. Visualization techniques have been successfully used in the fields of medicine, sports, music, and psychology for many years. Practice visualization through:

• Haven visualization
• Oasis journey
• Wake up
• Color therapy
• Renewal
• Accessing your inner genius

There is also a useful and complete directory to reference if you have a specific issue you’d like to address or a desired meditative effect—like more energy, clarity, pain relief—that you’d like to achieve. Depending on your goal, it will direct you to a guided meditation in the book, or it will give you a new exercise for your particular focus. You can search through some common physical conditions that are often helped with meditation, or you can choose an activity from the “Quick Re-sets.”

Begin a customized meditation practice right away with this versatile beginner's guide.

Jessica Crow is a yoga and meditation instructor and wellness practitioner based in NYC. She uses her 20 years of experience working in the healing arts as well as her personal and professional studies in science and philosophy to construct unique and effective healing protocols that focus on shaping and redefining the whole being. She is the creator of a meditation and goal-shaping technique called MINDSCAPING® that fuses together powerful healing exercises from the ancient science of yoga and meditation, modern-day Western medicine and evidence-based psychology and neuroscience. These complementary techniques assist in the pursuit of personal health, empowerment, and transformation. Jessica also holds a degree in human biology with a focus in behavioral neuroscience from the State University of New York, and is a graduate of the Swedish Institute in NYC and The Americana School of Thai Massage in Los Angeles. She is the author of an e-book called The Art of Self Care and the author and instructor of three professional continuing education courses for licensed massage therapists that are taught around the country, and she is the creator of a spa therapist training program that gives massage therapists around the world the skills to give a truly top-of-the-line treatment every time.