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Meditations for Ageing with Mindfulness
Training the Mind for Resilience and Wellbeing
The aim is to train our mind, as we age, to reduce stress, ease struggles, and manage difficult emotions, as well as to increase resilience, well-being, peace and happiness
The following mindfulness and self-compassion meditation practices have been known to facilitate sleep, reduce anxiety, depression, pain and other health issues as well as promote better relationships with ourselves and others.
The meditations are inspired by the work of Kristin Neff, Chris Germer, Paul Gilber, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Sharon Salzberg and others.
We invite you to listen to the following free mindfulness and self-compassion guided meditations.
You are free to listen and enjoy them for your own personal use only.
Disclaimer: These meditations are psycho-educational and are not intended to replace therapy. Always seek the advice of a doctor or psychologist for any questions you may have regarding your own specific medical or mental health condition. If emotional difficulties arise while listening to these meditations, please stop listening to the meditations and consult urgently a psychologist or other qualified health care professionals.
Warning: please do not listen to the following audio while you are driving or operating machinery.
Ageing with Mindfulness and Self-Compassion Meditations
All of the following meditations are presented by Marie Bloomfield.
1. Mindfulness of Sounds (14 min)
This is a meditation practice that involves noticing and accepting the sounds around in the present moment to relax and clear our mind. It is a way to observe our surroundings in an accepting and non-judgmental way.
2. Progressive Muscular Relaxation
(16 min)
This is a powerful relaxation exercise to reduce overall muscular tension and stress levels. It can be used when feeling stressed or before bedtime as a way to promote a more relaxed sleep.
3. Body scan meditation (19 min)
In this body scan meditation, you are inviting to notice with kindness and curiosity different parts of your body to increase mind-body awareness, which can help to ease stress, pain, anxiety, and promote sleep.
4. Calming belly breathing meditation (short) (9min)
In this short calming belly breathing practice we are Presenting the abdominal/diaphragm breathing to reduce the stress response to promote calm.
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5. Complete calming breathing (17min)
This meditation introduces the abdominal/diaphragm breathing (expand the belly in the inhale). It has been found to relax the nervous system, lower blood pressure and increase oxygen levels.
6. Breath awareness with gratitude (10min)
This meditation focus on the awareness of the breath to calm the mind but also to cultivate positive feelings of comfort and appreciation.
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7. Breath Awareness (12 min)
The breath awareness meditation invites you to simply pay attention to your breath as it is, to increase your ability to focus, clear your mind and reduce stress.
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8. Mindful walking (14 min)
In this guided mindful walking meditation, we use the movement of walking to be present and aware to promote body awareness to improve our focus, to clear and calm our mind.
9. Loving-Kindness for others & ourselves 20 min)
This guided meditation invites you to cultivate positive intentions by expressing good wishes for yourselves and other people in your life, such as a loved one, a neutral person, a difficult person and everyone else.
10. Befriending ourselves and others (22 min)
In this guided meditation, you are invited to cultivate a friendship towards yourself and others to promote harmony in the heart and mind. Your most important relationship is with yourself!
11. Mindful STOP (11min)
In the STOP mindfulness practice is presented in 3 ways: first to step out of auto-pilot to gain perspective, second to explore in hindsight skilful ways of responding and thirdly as a way to take in the good and be grateful.
12. Compassionate friend (20 min)
In this visualisation, you are invited to imagine a wise and compassionate presence that can bring you comfort and ease in difficult moments.
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13. Labelling thoughts, emotions and sensations (12 min)
The labelling mindfulness meditation enables you to observe your thoughts, emotions and physical sensations as a way to step back from them, to create a space as the observer, to gain detachment and perspectives.
14. Self-Compassion Break
(12 min)
The Self-Compassion break is a way of attending to ourselves when we are struggling, in a comforting and soothing way, to ease stress and promote resilience.
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15. Sympathetic Joy Meditation (21min)
Sympathetic joy is to delight in the happiness of others. This meditation is a powerful way to connect with our moments of joy as well as others. We increase our capacity for joy and well-being, by focussing on our good moments as well as other people’s happiness.
16. Compassionate couch in the media room (19 min)
In this visualisation, we invite you to explore a compassionate perspective as you recall a difficulty that you project onto a screen as you sit on a compassionate couch.
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17. Soften-Soothe-Allow -20 min
In this meditation, we are presenting four strategies (noting/labelling, mindfulness of body, self-compassion and acceptance) to assist in easing difficult emotions and promote better sleep.
18. Mindful Walking with Labelling-13 min
In this guided mindfulness exercise, we combine mindful walking with labelling. Here, we label the activity of our body and mind. Our wandering mind is welcome and is used to promote more mindfulness.
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