I’ve never tried an “unguided” meditation or mindfulness experience. How do I start?

Justine S.
Get comfortable, and start with some deep breaths. In through the nose, out the though the mouth. Do this a few times then close your eyes on an out breath. Focus on your in and out breaths. Every time your mind wanders, come back to the breath.

Annie O.
Meditation can be whatever you want it to be. Unguided meditation means you need to to put down your screens and relax and find your own form of meditation

Wibke E.
I tend to empty the room of anything that makes me anxious. I lean toward classical music as a good background for focus and concentrate on my breathing. Once my breathing is steadied I begin to empty my mind of all problems and focus on myself and the space I take up. I only ever meditate for around 5-10 minutes, but that little time allows me to mentally prepare myself for the day

Alexa G.
I have tried to meditate for a long time but have not been very successful with it. So, after trying to meditate over and over again every so often, I tried the short breathing here on Fantastic and have been successful. I tried concentrating on my breathing at night to fall asleep and met with success. Finally, I tried the 5-minute breathing meditation. Now I can do unguided meditation for 12 minutes and I will try to increase meditating even longer.

Alma Z.
Start with your breath. The object of meditation isn't to clear your mind completely, it's to recognize when thoughts come in and letting them float by without engaging. Focus on your breathing and anytime a thought comes in, acknowledge it, and then let it float by bringing your awareness back to your breath. If you find yourself caught up in a thought… No worries, just when you realize bring your awareness back to your breath. Eventually you will naturally let them float by . (This takes time)

Ella N.
Just stop and feel yourself
And wait what happens your body and mind
Don’t try something
Great
Just stop you
It can be answer

Gauthier Y.
It might be easier to start with a guided meditation before you get into unguided meditation. Headspace is a great app for this but you can use other apps also. To start unguided meditation, what worked for me was easing into it. You want to start with guided then have less and less prompts of instructions and eventually you will be able to do unguided meditation.

Laura W.
Start by paying attention to your breathing. Then pick a specific place where you feel the breath most clearly. This tends to be the nose, chest, or belly. If thoughts come up. Acknowledge them as a thought and return to your focus of sensation. The idea behind this type of meditation is mindfulness. Being aware of sensations and when your mind likes to go off track . Eventually you can choose to focus on any sensation you are aware of, sound, pressure, fatigue, pain, etc. Be kind to yourself. The goal is never perfection. It is simply to be mindful, and the more you practice, the more you will notice you are becoming more aware. This can show itself by you realizing that you have more randomly occuring thoughts than you realized, but this is part of the process. Which can be frustrating, but stick with it. You'll be amazed the effect meditation can have on everyday life. Good luck!

Amy F.
Try the app. I actually have a multitude of different apps that have guided meditation. But the best place to started is right here on the fabulous app.

Marinara E.
You are always guided either through self or others. With that being said it seems to me that unguided meditation is just a fancy way of saying that you practice meditation long term and on your own. You may even be meditating unguided and not even realize it. Anytime you become aware of yourself (where you are right now in space and time) and let go of your ego -whether it is by taking a moment to just feel and realizing what your doing, pausing to count your breath or recognize how your breathing you are meditating in an unguided way. Meditation is not rocket science it’s the act of being aware of yourself in the moment your in. You have no real goal or agenda beside being present.
There are many techniques and practices to meditation so that’s where guided meditation can play a part. It can give you the training to understand and guide yourself in meditation.

Lillie W.
The main goal is, to NOT THINK OF ANYTHING during meditation, that helps you keep your mind at control & give you alot of energy.
But taking baby steps, you must start by just concentrating on breating, that itself is very difficult cause your mind will start to wander. Once you have master concentrating only on your breath, go for not thinking about anything
.

Morris I.
I like to reuse methods that I have learned in previous guided meditation videos. I will focus on my breathing and try not to go into my thoughts and occasionally do a body scan. I hope this is helpful for you!

Joe T.
A timer can help. From there, you can either use your own mantra, just focus on your breathing, or some other personal visualization or focus

Herlinde S.
Go to your meditation spot. Get comfortable begin your meditation series……then clear your mind… if something creeps in tell it to go away and invite peace in.

Cireneu F.
You have to focus only in your breathing. After doing several sessions only focusing on that. You start to focus on each part of you body, to make conscious of every part. That's how I made it

Nelson E.
Find a quite place close your eyes and place your tongue to the roof of you mouth .Full your breath , and it ok for your mind to wonder

Rom O Y.
Not sure if this means you haven't tried guided, but that works for me. I love the Calm app which has a new session for every day which goes for about 12 mins.

Jonathan S.
Pick something to bring your mind gently back to. Be it the feeling of the breath, counting breaths, repeating a word or phrase or affirmation in your head. Then keep GENTLY coming back to it when you discover distraction