We often use the breath and sensations of the body as anchors in meditation, but listening to the sounds around us can also help ground us. In this guided meditation for focus we listen, notice, and let go of tension.

Susan Kaiser Greenland takes you through one of the oldest meditation practices: Sit, and know you’re sitting. This simple meditation helps you to understand what mindful awareness is and relax your mind.

How much good news does it take to balance out a single piece of bad news?

Mindfulness-based strategies that target stress-management, pain-management, and quieting often encourage a light focus on the out-breath because that simple shift in attention can ease both physical and mental discomfort.

You can train your mind to pay attention to even the littlest things. Like sounds.

For six short minutes, pause and listen to what's happening in and around you. In this live recording from a webinar for parents.

In the following visualization, we cool strong emotions by filling an imaginary coconut shell with compassion and pouring it over our heads.

We imagine that everyone has a special star with them all the time and learn how just imagining it can help us feel more relaxed and calm.

Sometimes, the harder we try, the less likely we are to succeed. That’s called the law of reversed effort or the backwards law.

Young children learn how everything changes when they listen to the rain.

A cognitive bias that gets a lot of attention, at least in meditation circles, is the negativity bias. Simply put, having a negative bias means we’re wired to give more weight to lousy news than good news. Let’s change that with this guided practice where we focus on the good.

We play three mindful games in a row to practice paying attention while moving and having fun.

When we get caught in the grip of strong emotions our nervous systems shift to high-alert. Then it’s difficult, if not impossible, for us to be open and flexible, to listen and to learn.  

In this seven-minute guided practice, children and teens get comfortable, relax, and gaze at the sky to explore what’s happening within and around them.

We learn that focusing on a long out-breath can help us feel more relaxed and calm.

We imagine biting into a lemon to help us understand the connection between what’s happening in our minds and what’s happening in our bodies.

We think of things we have in common with someone who seems different than us and silently say, “he or she is just like me.”

In this 10-minute guided practice with Susan Kaiser Greenland, we notice how our minds and bodies feel when we stop, breathe, and be.