A guided meditation is a meditation where you as the practitioner are led through the meditation process by a teacher who uses their experience to assist you with either learning a particular technique or help you enter into and deepen your actual meditation.

In addition, this type of meditation session can use music or other external sounds such as chanting, listening to a mantra, or the use of a chime or singing bowl. These and other items are used to assist you with your meditation needs and music has been shown to heighten the meditation experience and its clinical benefits.

What can you expect?

Your meditation environment
Your meditation teacher will help you set the right environment, which includes sitting comfortably, the lighting of candles, burning of incense, slow rhythmic music, and a dimly lit room.
One or all of the above can be used depending on your preferences.

The guided meditation
This will usually begin with a gentle breathing technique to slow the breath down and quieten the mind. In turn, the body relaxes but thoughts may still be intruding and distracting you. The voice of your teacher will help you to stay focused on the breath.

As you begin to notice your body relax and release tension, you will then be guided to release attachment to your thoughts and feelings.
This process is not rushed. It can take several minutes to enter into meditation when you first practice.
To release attachment to emotional thoughts, visualization is often used to keep the mind focused. This is a pleasant experience where you see yourself in a tranquil place or even imagine that you are in a celestial realm.
Once you are in your tranquil place, you are guided deeper into your meditation until the breath is slow and deep

At this point, the teacher is usually silent to enable you to meditate. This means that you remain focused on a single object such as the breath, a beautiful image in your mind's eye, repeating a mantra, or listening to a mantra that is playing on a CD.
You may open your eyes to end your meditation when you feel that you are complete, or may have decided with your teacher that s/he will guide you when the session is over.

Self-guided meditation
Once you have followed a guided meditation session a number of times, you will find it easy to remember the meditation process and then try it for yourself. You may find that you want to linger longer on the breath or in your nature spot before you transition fully into meditation.
Do what feels right for you. It will vary from day to day depending on your particular needs that day.

Group meditations
If you belong to a yoga class or attend a meditation center, you will learn your meditations in a group session. You will discover that you are able to disassociate yourself from other people in the room until you feel completely at ease with your Self.
A special sound like a chime or bell is used to bring the meditation session to an end.
After the class is over, you may find it interesting to find out what other people's experience was like. You were all listening to the same guided meditation, yet the results are different as the meditation meets everyone's needs.

Where to meditate
You can listen to a guided meditation

while walking
sitting by the ocean or a lake
in natural surroundings
listening to the sounds of nature (real or by CD)

You may find other places that you prefer; enjoy exploring.

After your meditation
Your teacher can give you some tips or images to try at home.
Guided meditation helps you to learn how to achieve the state of mind you are trying to achieve, and encourage you to keep practicing.

Learning to meditate is an important life skill and not only improves your quality of life but helps you cope with whatever life throws at you.

I plan to have some actual guided meditations posted that you can listen to. So keep following the blog for updates.
Meditation is for life.