Today: Getting Started

The following slides provide you with five guided meditations that will cover up to four weeks of mindfulness practice.  You can complete these meditations whenever is convenient; all you need is a comfortable space to sit or lie down.  The duration of each meditation has been measured for you, so when you make it to the end of a recording, you can wrap your session for the day.

You’re welcome to jump into whichever meditations interest you, and to meditate for as long as you’d like, but we recommend the progression outlined in this section, and an introductory routine of one meditation per day, three days per week.

Today your only task is to listen.

The meditation below is the most advanced of the series, but should make clear where this path will be taking you.  The goal of mindfulness in performance settings is to stabilize your mind by finding a reliable “anchor,” and to train your brain to return to this anchor, over and over again, during times of distraction or duress.  Doing so routinely will manage your physiology, minimize mistakes or undesirable reactions, and make us more aware of ourselves and our present-moment surroundings.

Knowing your target, or where the road is leading you, will help as you begin the progression to follow, and practice skills that may be new to you.