Guided Meditation
Just Noticing That You’re Here
A gentle meditation for when you feel numb, frozen, or as though you’re going through the motions of your life without quite being part of it.
Perhaps you know you’re feeling something and you can’t quite reach it. Perhaps there’s very little there at all. Either way, you don’t need to make yourself feel differently during this meditation.
We’re not going to look for happiness. We’re not going to search for what’s wrong. We’re going to spend a little time noticing that you’re here, which is a smaller thing and often a more possible one.
When we’ve been carrying too much for too long, we go quiet inside. We withdraw. Rather than forcing yourself out of that, this is about meeting yourself there.
Around 13 minutes, with longer pauses between the words than you may be used to. They’re deliberate. They give you room to notice what’s actually there rather than simply following my voice. Settle somewhere your body can be supported, and press play when you’re ready.
Listen to the meditation
One gentle note: meditation works best as a regular practice, not a one-off. A few minutes most days will do far more than an occasional longer session, so if it helps, let this become a small part of your daily rhythm.
If you’d like a next step
Building the habit is the hard part. The 21-Day Meditation Course gives you a short guided practice for each day of three weeks, so sitting down to it stops being a decision you have to make every morning.
What You’ll Experience
Nothing to reach for. Just noticing.
Most meditations ask you to arrive somewhere: calmer, lighter, more present. If you’re numb, that’s one more thing to fail at. This one asks for nothing. You notice your breath without changing it, you find one place where your body meets the surface beneath you, and you stay there. That’s the whole practice.
Nothing to Achieve
You don’t need to feel peaceful, or feel anything in particular.
Start With the Body
Contact, warmth, the touch of fabric. Something to notice when feeling is hard to find.
Room to Listen
Longer pauses than usual, so there’s space to hear yourself as well as me.
Meet Yourself There
No forcing your way out of the quiet. Company inside it instead.
Gentle Reflection
After listening, you might like to sit with these questions.
No need to answer them all. Pick the one that lands, and be gentle with whatever comes up.
1. What am I aware of right now? Not searching for an answer, just listening.
2. What would feel kind to me today?
3. What have I been carrying that made going quiet the sensible thing to do?
When this meditation may help
Come back whenever you need to. Not to force anything.
You don’t need to suddenly feel better afterwards. Some days it will be enough to have spent a few quiet minutes with yourself, and that is a reasonable thing for a meditation to be for.
Looking for something different today?
Every meditation in the library meets a different season of life, whether you need calm, better sleep, emotional healing, self-worth or simply a few quiet minutes to breathe.
Browse the Meditation LibraryContinue the Reflection
Sometimes a meditation isn’t the end of the conversation.
From The Library
Meditation Didn’t Take My Pain Away. It Changed My Relationship With It.
What meditation genuinely does for healing, and what it doesn’t.
Sometimes it’s the start of one. If today’s meditation has left you feeling more open or curious, you might enjoy Book Quote Therapy, my literary companion site where books, poems, quotations and Literary Prescriptions are gathered for different seasons of life.
For this meditation, I’d point you towards these Literary Prescriptions:
Exhaustion : for when there has been too much for too long.
Numbness : for the words other people found for feeling nothing.
Comfort : for company rather than answers.
Company for the early weeks, from people who have written it down before you.
New here? You can also download the free Literary First Aid Kit, a gentle collection of books, poems and quotations organised by feeling.
Download the free Literary First Aid Kit →