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How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners
10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation
What is Meditation?
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How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners
10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation
What is Meditation?
Benefits of Mindfulness: Mindful Living Can Change Your Life
Mindfulness 101: A Beginner's Guide
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In this meditation, we'll explore how to be with pain in a new way that doesn't create more tension and suffering.
So let's find a comfortable posture, which could be sitting, lying down or standing. If it's comfortable to do so, you can close your eyes. And we'll start by taking a deep breath together. In through the nose. And slowly out through the mouth.
Inviting the jaw to relax and soften. Letting the shoulders be at ease. As well as the hands and the belly. And as the body starts to settle, let the breath fall back into its natural rhythm. And just spend some time focusing your attention at your breath.
Remember this isn't an imagining of the breath. It's not thinking about the breath. Instead we're feeling it from the inside out. Sometimes it can be helpful to place a hand on the belly to feel it a little more vividly, if you have trouble feeling it otherwise. And enjoy the peace and simplicity of not having to do anything other than just feel your body breathing, the gift and the privilege of that.
So much of our tension and suffering isn't coming from difficult experiences, but rather the thoughts and the emotions that we cake on top of those experiences. In meditation, as we're doing right now, we practice dropping beneath that internal narrative, the judgements and the ideas, and experience something at its most basic simple form. So we'll continue practicing this with the breath as it's a preparation for other things that we might experience in our day. So continue to feel the body breathing. Particularly feeling the belly as it inflates like a balloon on the inhale and deflates on an exhale.
Anchoring your attention at that very simple movement and experience. Regardless of how the breath is for you, if it's long, short, shallow, deep, there's nothing intrinsically right or wrong about it. It just is how it is. But practice viewing the breath in that way. Just with curiosity of, Oh, what is it like to breathe in this moment? As if you were getting to know the breath as a long lost friend.
If ideas, thoughts, judgments arise, just deepen the presence back to the breath. Nothing you need to fix or make better. Dropping beneath the judgmental mind and into the bare experience of breathing. Let's take one more deep breath together. In through the nose.
And out through the mouth. Great job. As you go about your day today, notice when your mind gets caught up in secondary pain, thoughts, emotions, judgments, all the things we cake on top of our experience, especially the difficult experiences. Primary pain, the normal pains of life that's going to be there. But secondary pain, we have some choice around.
And in this meditation, we're practicing dropping beneath the secondary pain and just into the raw experience. Great job. Thank you for your practice. Until then, take care.
Primary vs. Secondary Pain
In this meditation, we'll explore how to be with pain in a new way that doesn't create more tension and suffering.
Duration
Your default time is based on your progress and is changed automatically as you practice.
So let's find a comfortable posture, which could be sitting, lying down or standing. If it's comfortable to do so, you can close your eyes. And we'll start by taking a deep breath together. In through the nose. And slowly out through the mouth.
Inviting the jaw to relax and soften. Letting the shoulders be at ease. As well as the hands and the belly. And as the body starts to settle, let the breath fall back into its natural rhythm. And just spend some time focusing your attention at your breath.
Remember this isn't an imagining of the breath. It's not thinking about the breath. Instead we're feeling it from the inside out. Sometimes it can be helpful to place a hand on the belly to feel it a little more vividly, if you have trouble feeling it otherwise. And enjoy the peace and simplicity of not having to do anything other than just feel your body breathing, the gift and the privilege of that.
So much of our tension and suffering isn't coming from difficult experiences, but rather the thoughts and the emotions that we cake on top of those experiences. In meditation, as we're doing right now, we practice dropping beneath that internal narrative, the judgements and the ideas, and experience something at its most basic simple form. So we'll continue practicing this with the breath as it's a preparation for other things that we might experience in our day. So continue to feel the body breathing. Particularly feeling the belly as it inflates like a balloon on the inhale and deflates on an exhale.
Anchoring your attention at that very simple movement and experience. Regardless of how the breath is for you, if it's long, short, shallow, deep, there's nothing intrinsically right or wrong about it. It just is how it is. But practice viewing the breath in that way. Just with curiosity of, Oh, what is it like to breathe in this moment? As if you were getting to know the breath as a long lost friend.
If ideas, thoughts, judgments arise, just deepen the presence back to the breath. Nothing you need to fix or make better. Dropping beneath the judgmental mind and into the bare experience of breathing. Let's take one more deep breath together. In through the nose.
And out through the mouth. Great job. As you go about your day today, notice when your mind gets caught up in secondary pain, thoughts, emotions, judgments, all the things we cake on top of our experience, especially the difficult experiences. Primary pain, the normal pains of life that's going to be there. But secondary pain, we have some choice around.
And in this meditation, we're practicing dropping beneath the secondary pain and just into the raw experience. Great job. Thank you for your practice. Until then, take care.
Duration
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I have been on a journey of healing and learning self-love. Amidst the work, I have been using the mindfulness app for the gentle reminders, guides to the moment (especially the difficult ones).
Kelly Boys offers a fresh and illuminating take on how to step out of lifelong patterns that keep snagging us.
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Truly life changing. This isn't solely meditation and mindfulness...this is about striving to be the best the versions of ourselves.
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Relaxing and assuring beyond description... thank you, Cory.
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This is the app I turn to when I want to feel calm and loved.
- Abby
Melli has a beautiful way of guiding and reminding us of the stillness within.
- Adrienne James
I have been on a journey of healing and learning self-love. Amidst the work, I have been using the mindfulness app for the gentle reminders, guides to the moment (especially the difficult ones).
Kelly Boys offers a fresh and illuminating take on how to step out of lifelong patterns that keep snagging us.
- Tara Brach, PhD
Truly life changing. This isn't solely meditation and mindfulness...this is about striving to be the best the versions of ourselves.
- Marisa, Plus+ Member
Relaxing and assuring beyond description... thank you, Cory.
- Babs312
This is the app I turn to when I want to feel calm and loved.
- Abby
Melli has a beautiful way of guiding and reminding us of the stillness within.
- Adrienne James
I have been on a journey of healing and learning self-love. Amidst the work, I have been using the mindfulness app for the gentle reminders, guides to the moment (especially the difficult ones).
Kelly Boys offers a fresh and illuminating take on how to step out of lifelong patterns that keep snagging us.
- Tara Brach, PhD
Truly life changing. This isn't solely meditation and mindfulness...this is about striving to be the best the versions of ourselves.
- Marisa, Plus+ Member
Relaxing and assuring beyond description... thank you, Cory.
- Babs312
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I start every day with Cory or Melli for my daily practice. Including this app into my practice helps me continue to build more mental focus and understanding of my thought processes. What a welcome and powerful gift.
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Shamash's guidance is a gift of wisdom to help us in our busy and stressful lives.
- Paul Gilbert, PhD, FBPsS, OBE, Centre for Compassion Research and Training, University of Derby, United Kingdom
Excellent! Cory gently guides you into internal peace.
- Steve Ericson
A necessary tool for those who feel lost.
- Piper
Just want to say a big thankyou to all involved as this has had a positive impact in my daily life 🙏 Valuable teachings that have allowed me to have a better relationship not only with those around me, but with myself. Heal ourselves and we heal the world 💫✨🌍
- Marty
I start every day with Cory or Melli for my daily practice. Including this app into my practice helps me continue to build more mental focus and understanding of my thought processes. What a welcome and powerful gift.
- Oku
Shamash's guidance is a gift of wisdom to help us in our busy and stressful lives.
- Paul Gilbert, PhD, FBPsS, OBE, Centre for Compassion Research and Training, University of Derby, United Kingdom
Excellent! Cory gently guides you into internal peace.
- Steve Ericson
A necessary tool for those who feel lost.
- Piper
Just want to say a big thankyou to all involved as this has had a positive impact in my daily life 🙏 Valuable teachings that have allowed me to have a better relationship not only with those around me, but with myself. Heal ourselves and we heal the world 💫✨🌍
- Marty
I start every day with Cory or Melli for my daily practice. Including this app into my practice helps me continue to build more mental focus and understanding of my thought processes. What a welcome and powerful gift.
- Oku
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