Many people equate meditation with guided meditation. In my opinion, guided meditation is not meditation—particularly not the kind of meditation I have described here, where the skill of meditation is paying attention to the present moment. From my perspective, practicing meditation means practicing actively paying attention to the present moment, with the result that the practice increases your brain’s ability to be present. The essence of this skill is actively returning the mind to the present and keeping it there. If you are passively listening to a recording, following instructions and being reminded to focus, you are probably not practicing this active attention, and if you are practicing active attention, you don’t need the recording to do it. So—this is why guided meditation is not meditation! It is not necessary to the essential task of meditation, and it does not compel the essential task of meditation. Real meditation is a challenging task that involves balancing the various currents of the mind to establish presence. Guided meditation is like walking this mental tight-rope with someone else taking care of the balancing part for you. You have to do the balancing part yourself if you are going to learn anything. 

Another reason guided meditation is not meditation is that many guided meditations involve visualizations and other autosuggestive techniques that have nothing to do with paying attention to the present moment or developing concentration—they are just intentional, guided daydreams. While these exercises might be pleasant or beneficial or just what you need, they are not mindfully paying attention to the present—they are not meditation! 

A final reason guided meditation is not a true or valid form of meditation is this: The only people who recommend guided meditation are selling it to you. Guided meditation is an attempt to box meditation for consumption. Whoever is selling you guided meditation wants you to buy the product and keep buying it. This in itself doesn’t disqualify it as a form of meditation, but you will never hear a meditation teacher who is not selling you a product tell you that guided meditation is a great way to practice meditation. Meditation has been around for thousands of years. Before recording technology allowed for the sale of “meditation” through guided meditation, no meditator or meditation teacher had any need for guided meditation beyond initial instruction (if that). Market value is the only reason guided meditation exists. It’s not here to help you meditate—it’s here to sell you a product. And you’re not being sold just any product: You are being sold a deceptive simulation of ancient practices that are otherwise free and accessible to you and every other human being. 

In my opinion, there is only one valid use of guided meditations: learning to meditate. Even with that use, it’s still of pretty limited necessity. After all, the whole practice is not complicated: Pay attention to the breathing in this moment, and when you notice the mind is wandering, pay attention to the breathing. That’s it. You know how to do it. No more guided meditations needed! (And yes, there are other kinds of meditation, but you could learn each one in a single guided meditation just like breath awareness.)

Some people would argue that guided meditation opens some of the benefits of meditation to people who wouldn’t otherwise practice meditation. I agree with this completely—but that doesn’t mean guided meditation is real meditation!

And what about people who can’t focus on their own? Doesn’t guided meditation provide a kind of necessary accomodation for those individuals? While this might be the case for some individuals with special conditions, I think this is rarely true, even for people with severe ADHD. The reality is individuals who struggle with attention are the people who would benefit the most from actively working on developing their attention. Yes, their natural capacity for sustained attention is less, but that doesn’t mean they can’t increase that capacity. They can. I have helped children with severe ADHD meditate. Yes, they aren’t naturals, but they can learn. If you can focus on one inhalation or one exhalation, you have the necessary level of focus to develop presence with meditation. 

All that being said, I have nothing against guided meditation in itself. It’s fine as a thing in itself, just like many other wellness practices that aren’t meditation. It’s just not real meditation and shouldn't be marketed as such. 

The key point is: If you are attached to guided meditation to sustain your practice, you are avoiding developing the hard skills of meditation and mostly just pretending to meditate. If you want meditation to really affect your brain, delete the meditation app and just sit and breathe! 

Please feel to be in touch with any questions or comments at mark@markchrisingercounseling.com.