Do you use guided meditations or prefer practicing on your own?

Personally, I started out with guided meditations. My mind was all over the place and I needed the extra guidance, and distraction – something to focus on. Once I felt I mastered that, I started once a day doing the “focus on my breath” mediation and set a timer for one minute. I told myself, “Come on. It’s only one minute of silence.” I’m now up to twelve. I actually still do both types twice a day. Morning and evenings.

I live and work in a remote area where there are no groups. I sometimes do on my own, but more often do guided ones I find on YouTube.

As I am new to meditation, I need the guides to keep me focused and stop my mind from wondering.

I use both depending on my mood. If I feel like I need some guidance because I can't think of anything I use fabulous. Or if it has to do with something I'm facing or thinking about. Like the brick wall guided meditation. I use it when I'm stuck at work.

Guided meditating! The voices tend to help me center myself instead of drifting off into unwanted thoughts and distractions.

As a newbie to meditation, I prefer guided. I find it helps me stay focused. I enjoy doing visualization meditation most.

I started using Sam Harris' Waking Up app for guided meditation and have enjoyed it a lot. I've done practice on my own but got into a rut and needed some guidance. At some point, I may start to alternate between guided and self practice though.

At this point I use guided. The daily yoga app has a lot of good ones, if you pay for the subscription but it's worth it. I'd love to get confident enough in my meditation I don't have to use a guid but at this point I need one to stay focused.

Personally I practice meditation on my own just sitting in a comfortable corner where I’m alone with my own thoughts and to reflect on my day really helps me to calm down and ease myself from the stress of my daily life.

Sometimes I use the guided ones on the app, just to see how effective they are. However, I am established in my own practice (Vipassana) so I prefer to use that as I feel more benefits.

I began meditating in 2016 with the headspace app. So guided. Since then I have meditated on and off. Guided meditation was very helpful to introduce me to the techniques and to help me learn to introduce stillness into my life. I never did more then 20 minutes though and usually in bed last thing. This month I went on a Vipassana retreat (weekend) where we had to sit for up to 2 hours, this illustrated to me that I could sit for prolonged sittings. (I thought it impossible!) also the meditation of one sitting of one hour seemed to be more powerful than 10 sittings of 10 minutes in terms of insight and familiarity with thinking patterns and training to observe the mind.

I use both guided meditations and transcendental meditation. They’re both great. If I’m more distracted by things in life I use a guided meditation. They’re great for improving visualization skills too. If I’m more at peace I like transcendental and I usually follow that with saying the sutras in my mind. Transcendental meditation is much easier if you have a mantra or seed word. You can also focus on the air going in and out of your nostrils or counting breaths. 🙂

I find both guided and unguided meditation to be useful.
I find guided to be quite helpful when first starting, since they generally provide some direction in the meditation process itself. I also find some of the mental insights from some of the themed meditations useful.
If you are a little scattered, sometimes just a voice telling you to sit down and breathe can be helpful.
Unguided meditation is really where you can just "focus on the breath". I still find having an intermittent bell useful to bring me back if my mind is wandering.
To summarize, guided is great for beginners or specific themes of interest, or if you cant pull your mind in on that day.
Unguided is where you really get to practice. If it helps, set an intermittent bell to bring you back to the breath.
Most importantly, continue to practice!

Guided. I feel. It's best to start with guided until you understand how to notice when your mind wanders and how to get your focus back

Personally, I'm not really experienced in meditating. That's why I prefer by far to be guided. However, one day I plan to meditate on my own, as I find it more relaxing.

I used guided meditation in the beginning in addition to a book called Creative Visualization

I prefer to use guided meditations, often found on YouTube where you can search for what kind of meditation you'd like and chose the length that suits you. I find guided meditations easier to follow as it gives you a focal point whereas when self guiding it is too easy to become distracted.

I like both because some days I need someone to help get me back in to focus and guide me. While other times I experience a need of freedom and do not want to be guided. Sometimes I enjoy just breathing and putting my mind to rest and taking a few moments to be present without any guidance.