GUIDED IMAGERY EXERCISES

Anchoring

Anchoring is a hypnotic technique that helps you connect to times in your past when you felt truly calm and confident. You can use it right now to give yourself a feeling of strength when facing sad days and difficult challenges.

The Forest

Let yourself be guided on a peaceful walk through a beautiful, lush forest near a trickling stream.

Nourishment from the Past

This Five-Finger exercise was developed by Dr. David Cheek as a way to achieve deep relaxation and peace, while simultaneously affirming your human worth. All you have to do is imagine four scenes from your past—using visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (touch) images. It’s simple, it’s pleasurable, and it works.

Special Place

This exercise guides you to create a safe and peaceful place in your imagination, a place you can go any time you need to relax. You should go there often, whenever tension starts to build. Merely close your eyes and focus on the image of your special place.

Grounding

This exercise guides you to create your personal shield, a shied that protects, nurtures and calms you. You can use it right now to give yourself a feeling of peace and calm.

DEEP BREATHING & GUIDED RELAXATION EXERCISES

Guided Relaxation

This exercise incorporates elements of guided imagery, meditation, progressive muscle relaxation. A nice exercise to try "a little of everything."

Calming Your Body

This exercise is a gentle introduction to becoming more in tune with your body. Particular attention is paid to breath work while inducing the relaxation response.

Short Relaxation

This exercise is an introduction to deep, slow breathing. The listener is guided to discover feelings of peace and calm in one's body and mind.

MINDFULNESS MEDITATION EXERCISES

Just This Breath

Much of the emotional distress people experience is the result of thinking about upsetting things that have already happened or anticipating negative events that have yet to occur. Distressing emotions such as anger, anxiety, guilt, and sadness are much easier to bear if you only focus on the present - on each moment one at a time. These are exercises to increase your mindfulness of the present moment so that you can clear away thoughts about past and future events.

Outside-In

Allow yourself to be guided into a meditative state, focusing on sounds you hear around you, your body and your breath.

Guided Meditation Amongst Tree Frogs

This listening track is meant to help you calm down and feel at peace in the present moment.

PROGRESSIVE MUSCLE RELAXATION

Learn to recognize when and where you hold tension in your body and how to effectively release it, allowing yourself to fully relax.

Meditation!

Meditation is like giving a hug to ourselves, getting in touch with that awesome reality in us. While meditating we feel a deep sense of intimacy with God, a love that is inexplicable.

- Paramahansa Yogananda

an Indian yogi and guru who introduced millions of Indians and westerners to the teachings of meditation

Meditation!

Meditation is another dimension of natural beauty. People talk about appreciating natural beauty—climbing mountains, seeing giraffes and tigers in Africa, and all sorts of things. But nobody seems to appreciate this kind of natural beauty of ourselves. This is actually far more beautiful than flora and fauna, far more fantastic, far more painful and colorful and delightful.

- Chogyam Trungpa

a Buddhist meditation master

Become more and more you

The things that trouble our spirits are within us already. In meditation, we must face them, accept them, and set them aside one by one.

- Christopher L. Bennett

an American science fiction author