It’s often asked on mindfulness courses: what’s better? Guided or self guided meditations. Perhaps the most skilful answer is to say your end aim might be to guide yourself through the many meditations one learns on a mindfulness course. But this doesn’t have to happen over night. Many people prefer to use the guided meditations given out on CDs for months or even years after a course elapses. If that keeps someone meditating everyday then it really does not matter. Some prefer the guided meditations as someone else’s chatter can keep the chatter of the mind at bay. It’s true when making the transition from guided to self guided your mind chatter shoots up to the point where you wonder what was actually learnt.  But then this is all part of the learning. I hadn’t listened to a guided meditation for ages, not since my last silent retreat last year, but last week I wondered how it would feel to again be guided rather than guiding. It felt a bit like a mini retreat only cheaper. It’s now half term and my mini retreat has been put on hold while the kids have a week off school. Back to squeezing it in when I can.  On my to do list is to keep sharing some of the meditations with my kids while we are all off the hamster wheel of school runs and life’s general busyness. Today’s total practice time: 40mins