Did you know May is the month to celebrate Mindfulness? As a mindful advocate, I wanted to share with you something I have been doing regularly for just over a year - guided meditation. Mindfulness, including guided meditation, are quickly becoming the go-to solution for stress, anxiety and depression. Guided meditation is an amazing way of relaxing and by adding mindfulness to your daily routine can give a huge boost to your wellbeing. So, What is Guided Meditation? To put it simply, guided meditation is any form of meditation where you're lead by an instructor during the meditation. It's not just for beginners either, guided meditation can also help you find more clarity on a particular subject, like gratitude, happiness and self-esteem. There are a number of meditation classes that are available to help you, though these are obviously usually just once a week - meditation should be practised daily to feel the full benefits. Thankfully, with the wonderful online world, there is a whole host of guided meditations available at your fingertips. If you're a regular reader you will know that I'm a fan of the Calm app (I'm not sponsored, just really love the app!), but Spotify also has a few guided meditations available too. Even in my workplace, every Thursday we start off our day with a guided meditation session by our local Reverend and it is becoming more mainstream in a number of workplaces. What are the Benefits? Meditation is a form of mind training, it's not just about clearing the mind. Guided meditation can be used as a form of education and training. Throughout guided meditation, visualisation is used to create a mental imagery to effect positive changes in your life. These sessions allow you to enter a deep state of relaxation and these visualisations can become very vivid, immersing yourself so much so that feel immediate benefits, physically, emotionally and mentally. Of course, different people have different goals and needs so guided meditation can be tailored to suit these. But very often it is used for things such as; Emotional and physical healing Enhancing creativity Profoundly deep relaxation Increasing confidence Healing relationships Curing negativity Improving performance at work or in sports Any many, many more Using my Calm app I have completed guided series in, anxiety, stress, gratitude and I'm now embarking on a self-esteem series. Being positive isn't easy, it is about altering your mindset entirely and with the aid of guided meditation it is completely possible. If you haven't already, definitely go and check out Mrs Meldrum's latest video on positivity, I love her whole mindset and she gives some really good advice to get you kick started on your journey of positivity. Throughout the video, I kept shouting "yes, this!" - Totally love that girl. I would love to know if you've tried guided meditation, did you enjoy it? Find it helpful? Mummy B xoxox