Last week, in this series on practices that can us get in touch with what our soul is trying to tell us, we looked at meditative and contemplative practices. There we saw that such practices can help by quieting the mind so we can better hear our soul’s quiet voice. Today we’ll be talking about practices that look and sound a lot like these, but which can help us get there, or which can even lead us into imaginary realms: guided meditations.
Guided meditations are a very broad phenomenon. They can be as simple as just being a voice to remind us to pay attention to the breath, prayer, or mantra that is the focus of our meditation. This can be helpful, especially for beginners. But guided meditations can also include affirmations and intentions, or attempt to guide us on a journey of the heart and mind.
Honestly, these are all very hit-or-miss for me. I tend to find it easier to focus on my breath without the voice in my ear telling me to do so. And affirmations can be lovely to hear, but I also find a lot of them silly, or get distracted by things that seem off or out of the realm of expertise of a meditative voice. (Once recently affirmed that nothing bad would happen to me that day. Rather than feeling affirmed, I got distracted wondering how it defined ‘nothing bad’, and how it seems more helpful to have tools to deal with ‘bad things’ than to deny that they might happen!) Having a rather lively imagination, I tend to find guided meditations oriented towards experiencing visual images more reliable in leading me to a places where I feel in touch with my heart. For example, many years ago, I listened to one about ‘entering your sacred temple’. (Yes, it sounds ludicrous outside the context of these practices!) The building my mind or soul imagined was an immense glass dome that on the interior was a light-filled Byzantine-style church filled with lush vegetation. As someone who doesn’t have much love for glass architecture and who kills indoor plants with ease, this was a surprise. But I still remember the immense peace I had in that space, and will return to it on occasion in my mind. Where these practices can go wrong for me is when they get a bit too directive, or when later direction specifies something that was previously left open. For example, just recently I had one first tell me that a door opened into nature. I found myself in a beautiful forest, only to be told two sentences later that I was witnessing a vast open meadow. It was jarring and took me out of the experience.
So, as with any of the practices we’re exploring in this series, mileage will vary, depending on your needs and the beliefs and skill of the ‘guide’, whether in-person, or recorded. But are they useful? I think they can be, especially for those of us with vivid imaginations. I find it fascinating to see what gets created, or themes that might emerge across different experiences. I’m under no illusion that I have a personal sacred temple that’s a glass Byzantine terrarium; but it’s fascinating to me that that’s what my soul imagined as its ultimate safe space. Likewise, I don’t believe in the idea of past lives (since it’s very hard to square that within a Christian theological framework), but I find it fascinating and perhaps meaningful that my mind will regularly place me in historical times and places where books and knowledge are both precious and dangerous. I take these images as similar to dream symbols: things to contemplate and dig deeper into, but not to take too seriously as such. They can point to interesting things about my psyche, my values, or my experiences, but are not messages from God — at least not in and of themselves, outside the bigger context of my faith: the Scriptures, theology, tradition, community, and so on.
Guided meditations are not a major part of my ‘spiritual diet’, but they can definitely add some interesting flavour from time to time. And I’m glad to have them as one tool of many in my toolkit.
Matthew Root 