How to Write Your Own Guided Meditation

Meditation is an ancient practice during which a person trains their mind to enter various different modes of consciousness. It can be practiced in many forms and has positive benefits for a person’s health and well-being, as well as being a useful tool to promote relaxation, build energy, and develop compassion, love, forgiveness and understanding.

Although many people think of meditation as a religious practice there are in fact many non-religious forms of meditation that can be used regardless of religious or spiritual beliefs. Meditation can be used to clear and quiet the mind of distracting everyday thoughts and to allow you time to relax. It can be carried out anywhere that you are able to sit or lay comfortably without distraction. Meditation has also been shown to help ease several medical conditions including high blood pressure, depression and anxiety. It is also considered to be a valuable aid in preventing heart attacks, migraine and strokes. Those who practice regular meditation also report that they feel more enjoyment and appreciation of life and that it has helped improve their relationships with others.

Guided meditation is a form of meditation that uses live or recorded vocal tracks and music to guide a person into a meditative state. The person taking part is required to follow verbal instructions that will teach them how to relax themselves and clear their mind of distracting thoughts.

Guided meditation can be a good first step for people starting out with meditation or those who find it hard to relax and clear their thoughts without guidance. They are also incredibly beneficial in themselves so do not feel that you should or need to move onto other forms of meditation at a later point if you enjoy the guided meditations and find them beneficial.

As well as listening at home it may also be possible to attend groups and classes where you can meet and meditate with other like-minded individuals. These groups can be useful for sharing information and recorded meditations or techniques as well as for socialisation and progressing further with your meditation skills.

There is a huge variety of guided meditations available as CD, online content or to be downloaded from site such as Amazon or iTunes. YouTube has many guided meditation tracks that cover a large range of subjects. These range in length from short at only 10-15 minutes to much longer meditations of an hour or more.

It is also possible to find guided meditations covering a variety of subjects. For example meditations may be specifically designed to suit a particular time of year or celebration such as winter, Easter or Yule. There are also many that are designed to help with spiritual or physical health such as chakra cleansing, attracting positive energy or to ease conditions such as anxiety or depression. Guided mediation can be used in past life regression and to meet and connect with spirit guides, animals and totems.

When you have more experience in guided meditation and feel comfortable doing so, you could also begin to write your own meditations. This can be a great way to develop texts or recorded tracks that are personally suited to you. These can be recorded, reading from notes if needed using a computer, Dictaphone or other suitable device and saved as an MP3. These can then be played back using your computer, MP3 player, mobile phone or even tablets. You could also burn your meditations to CD disks. If you wish and are able music and video or picture slideshows can be added to the vocal tracks using software such as Windows Movie Maker.

When writing your own guided meditations first you will need to carefully consider the purpose of the meditation and the potential it has to heal and inspire you. It is important to have a clear intent and firm intentions when writing as this will transfer into the mediation and will add to its success. When thinking about and writing your meditation try to work when you can be alone and free from distractions so that you can focus your mind on the task at hand. It can also be helpful to meditate yourself before writing so that you are relaxed and have a clear mind. This will make it easier to focus on and visualise what you are writing about.

Guided meditations can be written on a computer or using paper and pen, go with whichever feels right or is easiest for you.

There is no right or wrong approach to writing your own guided meditations. Some people like to make notes and then write from those while others prefer to sit down and write the piece from start to finish in one go. Another approach is to think about the type of meditation you want to write over a period of a few days before starting. You could visualise parts of your intended meditation while you are meditating and see what develops in your mind.

Just like with writing, there is no set way that you should set out your meditation. However there are some steps that are generally included and it can be useful to use these or something similar to help build your text or give you a starting point. What you include in your guided meditation text may also vary depending on whether you are writing it purely for yourself or for others to use as well. For beginners your may wish to include more information and suggestions to guide them. When writing purely for yourself you may skip some aspects that you are familiar with or have a set way of doing already.

Get comfortable

When participating in meditation it is important that you are comfortable. This is so that you will not be distracted by issues that may arise from uncomfortable sitting positions or clothing. You could also include suggestions of suitable positions such as lying flat with your arms at your sides or sitting in a chair with your hands in your lap.

General relaxation

It can be useful to include a short time of simple visualisations and breathing exercises in order to relax the body. This will make it much easier to follow the meditation. Countdown techniques such as becoming a little more relaxed with every step down a staircase are commonly used and can be very helpful.

The Journey

In this portion of the meditation the aim is to take the listener on a journey through an environment or experience. Describe what can be seen, heard, touched or smelt to involve the senses and create a strong connection to what is being heard. The stronger this connection is, the more it is possible to become immersed in what is being said. That said; do take care not to spend a great amount of time describing detailed specifics. This can cause the visualising of these to become overly complicated and feel laborious to the listener. You can also invite the listener to create their own visuals as part of the journey for example: with suggestions such as ‘when you open the box the enclosed crystal is your favourite colour’.

The journey of your meditation can be anything you chose – a walk on a beach or through a forest perhaps? Or it could include interaction with animals or meeting a person, spirit or guide. If you wish to add sound effects or music to your finished meditation piece these can be selected to suit whatever you have chosen to portray. The sound of waves or of seagulls would be particularly suitable for a beach walk for example.

As well as literal meaning you may wish to use symbolic meaning and representations within a guided meditation. If you chose to do this it is important that you understand the meaning of these symbols and take care in using them. An example of using symbolic meanings is to incorporate colour correspondences into the meditation. You could use white to symbolise purity or healing, red for passion or strength and green for courage, prosperity and balance.

Returning

This final step will return the listener from the meditative state and should be gentle and gradual. Many guided meditations bring the listener back to the point where they started out on the journey before using a reverse countdown to end. The mediation should slowly increase awareness of the physical body and surroundings and could include an instruction to lay still for a short period for example.

Some things may not work as well when listened to as they do on paper. Think carefully about how the words will sound out loud. You may wish to have someone proofread your meditation for you.

Keep sentences fairly short. This makes it much easier for a listener to follow the imagery. Talking for too long or including too many details can make visualization more difficult and listeners may lose their focus.

Use short pauses regularly to give listeners a break in which to digest information and build visualizations.

Music can enhance a guided meditation if chosen well. A poor quality or overly loud baking track can be distracting or even annoying.