Meditation Guiding

Looking for a meditation guide for an event?

I tailor the session content and type of meditation to best serve your participants, the location and the timing. I have a decade of experience guiding meditations in a wide variety of styles informed by spirituality, Buddhism and a secular approach.

A few examples of meditations: an awareness of the breath or body; physical contact sensations grounding with the surface below; guided visualisation; space for creation or insight; mental rehearsal.

We always journey with kindness, openness, friendship, safety and universal goodwill (Metta).

Kindness: when we notice we are distracted we welcome our focus back to our practice with ‘open arms’ (instead of being annoyed we were thinking about other things).

Openness: participants are invited into each part of the meditation and encouraged to adapt the words or practices being used to suit themselves.

If you are an individual seeking guided meditation sessions please get in touch for availability and bookings.

Why meditate?

In this age we are living with a greater amount of inputs of information than human beings have ever lived with before. Our minds did not evolve to discern what is important and what is not in our thinking. Our minds predominantly evolved to notice danger and make sure that what we focus on in our daily lives fits the pictures we expect to see from our already formed beliefs, values and sense of self. This is why it is important to train ourselves in the way we relate to our heart-mind. Without us consciously deciding how to think, feel and act, it is common for humans to experience chronic stress. We tend to consider daily stress as normal due to the society we live in however there is so much more available to us in our daily experience of being vibrant, relaxed beings with inner calm and creativity. Spending time watching TV relaxes us as we ‘switch off’. In meditation we find space and time to relax while switching on. The evidence base on the health benefits is now substantial. Meditation has been shown to change our gene expression - it has a direct effect on our internal biochemical environment and our peace of mind.

A note on kindness

We work with an attitude curiosity (as opposed to being judgemental) when getting to know our minds better. Judgements and self-criticism are side-tracks away from the real work of getting to know ourselves.

A note on effort

People often ask if it is the right thing to do to make an effort, isn’t this about letting go of trying? In taking the time to sit and develop a meditation practice, we are making an effort. However, this effort or work we are putting in is approached with an attitude of relaxation, kindness and sometimes humour!

‘Quietening the mind’

I don’t guide with focus on quietening the mind (although you may find that thoughts become a little quieter as a side-effect along the way). Quietening the mind is a more advanced practice and the phrase can be misleading to beginners or intermediates. I guide meditation with a philosophy of getting to know the mind and being with our current experience of being human. This supports a space to feel more relaxed, peaceful and energised. It is common when human beings first start to learn to meditate, to become acutely aware of how loud our thoughts actually are. This is good! Your mind is supposed to think, it is a thought-making machine. Having thoughts means you are alive and functioning. As we meditate and develop our practice using our favourite techniques or tools, the thinking mind tends to settle down.

Think of the mind like a child’s snow globe that has been shaken up with the snow as the thoughts. What happens once you put the snow globe down? The snow whirls around and around and then very slowly comes to rest. This is similar to what happens over time with meditation. As we get to know our patterns and recognise our habitual ways of thinking and feeling, with practice thoughts do tend to become slower and quieter, most of the time. Then when they are really not quiet this is information to us that something is not quite right in our lives. At this point we are getting into our wisdom of discernment of thinking: which thoughts are helpful to us and let’s focus our kind attention on those thoughts as we figure out how we want to live our lives. As you develop the tools of a meditator you save a huge amount of energy which you can choose to channel into creating more of what you would like in your life.

Become more familiar with your experience of being human. Get to know your heart-mind. Meditate with Lisa.