We’re living in unique circumstances. None of us thought that we’d be confined to our homes, unable to travel, commercial spaces closed, and businesses halted.
It’s a wonderful time right now to be able to reflect on what gives our life deeper meaning and assess the things in our life. We often don’t do this enough or as often as we should, because it can be easy to be caught up in everything that’s happening in our life. Sometimes, it’s even difficult to find a few quiet moments to spend on our own.
But then, now that you do have time, spend at least 10 to 15 minutes once or twice a week on self-reflection and meditation. This is a process that can be linked together because there are certain aspects of it which intertwine, such as having to spend a few quiet moments alone just to reconnect with yourself. These two processes give us a chance to reflect on our thoughts and what brings meaning to our lives to understand better what we value most.
How Guided Meditation and Self-Reflection Go Hand in Hand
Meditation, whether guided or not, is a practice that helps you reconnect and focus on the mental side of things, just like self-reflection does. Guided meditation is an introspective tool, and possibly, the only practice out there that can help you tap into the power that lies within your subconscious mind.
Guided meditation helps you to not just develop an awareness of yourself, but it gives you a greater sense of connection with the world around you. It brings a sense of inner peace and balance, two qualities that go a long way toward your self-reflective process, because of the mental clarity you gain from meditation, which will help you understand what may be holding you down.
Guided meditation is such a useful practice for self-reflection in this instance because it teaches you how to focus your thoughts and view the world with a renewed sense of clarity. It helps to calm the quiet chatter in your mind and drown out the “noise,” so you can think clearly in a way that may have been a struggle before. By utilizing the techniques that you learn in a guided meditation session, you can develop a regular connection between your mind and your body, and being mindful of your thoughts is exactly what you need to reflect upon your life successfully.
How Guided Meditation Can Provide Deeper Self-Reflection
When you start to think about your belief system and reflect upon it, it can sometimes prompt you to question yourself. Self-reflection helps you re-evaluate your priorities, thinking about what may need to be changed. It’s a chance for you to see if your life is where you want it to be, or if it has perhaps veered in a direction you didn’t intend it to go.
Guided meditation is a useful tool for self-reflection because:
- It enhances your listening skills and concentration – Following the guided cues that are leading you through your meditation process is going to require that you listen and concentrate. Doing this over time sharpens both these skills, and eventually, it makes it much easier for you to listen to yourself and focus on what matters most when you’re immersed in a reflective process.
- It increases your discipline – The struggle that a lot of people face is not being able to sit quietly enough or long enough to successfully complete a self-reflective process without getting distracted. This is exactly why guided meditation can help because it’s an exercise in discipline. Meditation is something that requires you to sit alone in a quiet space, uninterrupted for an extended period. Once you learn how to block out the noise and focus on your thoughts, you find that self-reflection becomes a much easier process.
- It makes you more mindful – Being aware of yourself is a big part of successfully self-reflecting. Being mindful requires that you become aware of your surroundings, of the things that are happening, and being present at the moment, so you’re tuned into the little details. This can only be done if you can focus clearly when you need to, which is a skill that can be strengthened over time through the techniques you’ll learn in a guided meditation.
- It increases tolerance and patience – It isn’t always easy to sit in the same spot for a prolonged time without doing anything, but if you regularly practice guided meditation, this soon becomes easier and easier each time you do it. When you learn to patiently sit in one spot and do what you’re supposed to be doing, you can learn to be more patient and not be too hard on yourself when you reflect upon your life. Reflecting upon your life can sometimes lead to instances where you can be too harsh on yourself if things aren’t happening the way you think they should be. By learning how to be patient and tolerant through guided meditation, you’ll learn to accept and see situations as they are.
How to Start the Journey Toward Guided Meditation
Everyone (yes, literally everyone) can get started meditating because you don’t have to be an expert to do it. Guided meditations are the best tools out there for beginners because you won’t be doing this alone. There will be aids and cues to follow along, leading you through the entire process from start to finish, telling you what to do every step of the way. That’s why they are such powerful tools. All you need to begin is:
- A comfortable area in your home where you can spend a few minutes alone in quiet without being interrupted.
- Find a position that you feel comfortable sitting. Spread some calming balm, oil, or creams such as zilis ultra cell at places where you feel aches and pains. Doing this can help relieve your muscles and bring more calmness to your body.
- You can also add a diffuser to diffuse essential oil scents that are beneficial for feeling calm and focused, such as lavender, ylang-ylang, tangerine, or chamomile.
- Get a guided meditation aid like an audio or visual guide, an app, written instructions, visualization aids, anything that you prefer to help you get started. Choose a length of time that works for you and begin. Starting with just 5 minutes is actually really good already.
- Learn to relax and immerse yourself at the moment, without thinking about what errands or tasks you need to attend to next and be in a hurry to finish.
A 5-minute guided self-reflection meditation is all you need to create a healthy state of mind, and bring awareness to yourself, your goals, priorities, and meaning of your life.
A professional writer with over a decade of incessant writing skills. Her topics of interest and expertise range from health, nutrition and psychology.
