New Hampshire Holistic Health Associates | Services

Guided Meditation

Guided meditation is simply “meditation with the help of a guide”. It’s one of the easiest ways to enter into a state of deep relaxation and inner stillness, and it’s one of the most powerful ways to eliminate stress and bring about positive personal changes.

The Special Benefits of Guided Meditation

Guided meditations utilize the power of your imagination and the power of visualization to affect positive personal changes. In this regard, guided meditations are even more powerful than traditional, passive meditation techniques.

Visualization, or creative visualization as it is sometimes referred to, is the use of mental imagery to effect positive changes in your life. Visualization techniques are now widely employed in many fields such as the arts, sports, business, alternative medicine, religious practices, psychotherapy, and self-improvement.

Guided meditations help you to vividly imagine positive experiences that represent, either directly or symbolically, whatever changes you wish to express in your life. During a guided meditation you are in such a deep state of relaxation that the imagery you are guided to visualize becomes very vivid indeed. Immersing yourself in a guided meditation while listening to positive suggestions is a blissful experience that results in real and immediate benefits. You’ll feel better; physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

Of course, different people have different goals and needs, and with that in mind, your guided meditations can be tailored to achieve specific outcomes such as:

• Improving Clarity in Life
• Spiritual Development
• Experiencing Elation, Freedom and Expanded Awareness
• Emotional and Physical Healing
• Enhancing Creativity
• Profoundly Deep Relaxation
• Increasing Confidence and Personal Empowerment
• Opening the Heart and Healing Relationships
• Curing Negativity or Self-defeating Behaviors
• Improving Performance in Business or Sports
• Resolving Psychological Difficulties

Through a co-created plan with your facilitator, you will integrate positive suggestions and positive visualizations which will cause you to have an inner experience of the changes you are seeking to realize in your life.

Most Guided Meditations Follow This General Format:

Your meditation guide will ask you to sit comfortably, or in some cases, you may be asked to lie down. You then listen to your guide while they lead you through a series of relaxing visualizations. As you gradually relax and become more and more still, stress fades away, and your mind becomes clearer and clearer.

While you are in this deeply relaxed state of mind, your subconscious is open to positive suggestions, and your guide will use this time to take you on an inner journey that is designed to improve one or more aspects of your life. For example, a guided meditation might be tailored to personal empowerment and positive thinking. Another might focus on emotional healing or spiritual development. You might be taken on a guided journey to unleash your full potential, or you may choose to go on a guided meditation journey simply for the sheer pleasure of experiencing profoundly deep relaxation.

As you can now see, a guided meditation can be an experience that is not only relaxing, but one that enhances your sense of self, that transforms your perspective in positive ways, and that inspires you to live your life to the fullest.

It’s an effortless and very enjoyable experience that results in deep relaxation, elimination of stress and a heightened appreciation of life.

At the conclusion of your guided meditation, your guide will gradually bring you back to a state of normal awareness, leaving you feeling refreshed, rejuvenated and relaxed. A guided meditation might be as short as 5 minutes, or as long as an hour, depending on your personal preference. In most cases, a guided meditation of 15 minutes or longer is recommended if you wish to experience a truly deep state of relaxation and maximize the positive benefits of meditation.

The Best Way to Experience a Guided Meditation

Ideally, your guided meditation will be led by an instructor with a passion for your personal growth. Often it will include tranquil meditation music that will help you to relax even more deeply.

Some guided meditations also include nature sounds that are synchronized with the visualizations that you are guided through during your meditation. For example, if you are guided to visualize yourself standing in a forest, then you may hear the sounds of birds and trees swaying in the breeze. If you approach a waterfall, then the sound of that waterfall may become apparent.

You’ll find that when you listen to guided meditation audio productions that include a vivid tapestry of visualizations, music and environmental sounds, your senses will be immersed in the experience and you’ll be drawn deeper into the meditation.

Most traditional types of meditation require you to take command of your own awareness by concentrating your attention on a single point of focus.

This point of focus might be your breathing, it might be a physical action, or more commonly, it may be on a mantra – a sound, word or phrase that you repeat to yourself mentally so as to stabilize your attention.

While these powerful traditional meditation techniques are wonderful for achieving inner stillness and for enhancing your ability to concentrate, some people find them difficult to master.

One of the main reasons why guided meditations are such a popular alternative to traditional meditation techniques is because they require no previous training or effort to enjoy.

Even if you are someone who finds it extremely difficult to let go of thoughts, even if you are highly stressed or overloaded with mental activity, you will quickly achieve inner stillness and peace of mind when you listen to a great guided meditation.

Because guided meditation is so easy, it is very useful for people who are new to meditation. However, guided meditations can also be of great benefit to people who are very experienced at meditation. Experienced meditators will still use guided meditations in order to experience a deeper or more vivid meditation, to delve deeper into their mind than they are normally able, or to target a specific aspect of personal development that they wish to accomplish.