Using Meditation to Change your Mindset

Often when my clients are mentally stuck in a thought pattern that isn’t serving them, I recommend guided meditations specifically targeting their goal. Guided meditations serve the purpose of providing you with language aligned with what you need at that time. It provides you the quiet and private opportunity to reflect on how you’re feeling, experience being more present, expand your awareness, reach a sense of calm, and improve your overall state of being.

Finding the right guided meditation is the first step. A perfect place to start for this is our good friend, YouTube. It literally has it all, including meditations for anything you need.

For example: Are you having trouble forgiving someone (or yourself)? Try searching “meditation for forgiveness.”

Do you feel unsure of how to accept things in your life you don’t like? Search “meditation for acceptance” or “meditation for inner peace.”

Have you been feeling low about yourself, getting stuck in a cycle of self-doubt, or lacking everyday confidence? Search for meditations for self-esteem, self-love, and/or confidence.

Try out a few different videos to see which works best for you. Then keep practicing meditation regularly using that video and see how this feels for you. If it works well, keep it going until you feel released of that struggle or even past that to maintain your progress. If it doesn’t work well, maybe the guided meditation selected wasn’t the best match for you.

Don’t give up though; there are more options!

Try out some phone apps like Calm, which is widely popular, or Liberate, a meditation app for the Black experience. Another option is to create your own meditation experience using the affirmations that resonate most with you from the guided meditations you tried. You can play ocean waves (again, from Youtube), other nature sounds, sound baths, or spa/meditation music, then close your eyes, take some deep breaths, and begin reciting (silently or aloud), the affirming statements you gathered or even others you may have made up along the way.

If this still is not working for you, take a moment to check within to ask yourself whether there’s any resistance to the messages you’re trying to receive. Identify what that resistance is about. Write it down, talk through it to yourself, or work it out with your therapist. Sometimes that resistance is exactly what’s holding us back from experiencing the full benefit of meditation.