Gain Calm and Clarity With This Guided Sky Mind Meditation

Learning to let your thoughts come and go, as if they were clouds or birds in a vast sky is a core mind meditation and mindfulness exercise you can use to bring calm and balance to your everyday life.

Practice this sky mind meditation and gain more perspective on the impermanence of thoughts.

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Establish Your Setting for Your Meditation

Find a comfortable spot where you know you won’t be disturbed for the next few minutes. Turn off or mute your devices.

You can do this mind meditation sitting on a meditation cushion, a yoga bolster or a chair.

However you choose to sit, please make sure your spine is upright and alert yet not tense. You can sit in Easy Pose or in Hero Pose on the cushion or bolster, depending on what works best for you. If you are sitting on a chair, please have both of your feet flat on the floor.

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Begin Your Mind Meditation by Noticing and Releasing Any Tension

Begin by bringing awareness to your body just as it is right now. Can you feel where your body is touching a surface?

Perhaps get a sense of the way your feet are pressing on the floor, how your sitz bones are connecting with the cushion or chair. You might notice the backs of your thighs, the press of your buttocks. Feel the solidity and presence of your body.

Now do a mental scan of your entire body. Do you note any areas of tension or tightness?

If so, you can use your breath to release your tension (potential link back to the article on breath exercises?) Make your exhale a little longer than your inhale. Exhale any tension with a soft, gentle exhale for a few rounds of breath.

Return to a quiet, natural breath.
 

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This short and sweet breath awareness practice will help you explore the dynamics of belly and chest breathing and create a deeper connection between the two in order to find a full, more expansive breathing pattern.
 
 

Now You’re Ready for the Sky Mind Guided Meditation:

Read through these instructions and then follow the guidance with your eyes closed or a softened gaze. If you like, you can set a timer for seven to ten minutes.

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Bring your attention to your head. Feel the head resting on the shoulders. Note any sensations as you continue to focus on the head. You might notice a pulsing at the temples, maybe a buzzing feeling all throughout the scalp.

Allow sensations to arise and note them with an open, friendly curiosity. Do not get caught up in any particular sensation.

And now, imagine you are sitting outside on a cloudy day. The clouds are gray and thick. You are sitting beneath a cloud-covered sky.

Visualize yourself rising up into the clouds. Think back to that moment when an airplane begins to ascend through the clouds. At first, there is mist everywhere. It’s a little mysterious. You cannot see more than a few feet past your eyes.
 

 
 
Suddenly, you break through the clouds and the sky is vast, blue and bright. You are in another realm. Imagine yourself emerging through clouds into this beautiful blue sky.

Rest in this big, blue sky.

Notice how the experience of this blueness, this endless, open horizon brings a sense of peace. You might notice how your body feels as you rest in this vast blue sky. Is your breath slower? Is your heart soft?
 

Practice this sky mind meditation and gain more perspective on the impermanence of thoughts.

 
Imagine the clouds as thoughts. They come and go. The great sky just allows them and contains them but does not care. The vast sky just is.

Breathe. Rest in your Big Sky Mind. You can play around with images here. Perhaps you see a bird fly across your Sky Mind. Notice how the sky remains unperturbed, open. Allow a cloud to drift across the sky.

Let it move and change as clouds (and thoughts!) will. Rest and breathe. Stay for this visualization for several minutes.

When you are ready, slowly open your eyes. You have completed the Sky Mind Meditation but you can return to its lessons throughout your day.
 
 

What We Can Learn From Practicing the Sky Mind Meditation

So often, we get caught up in our thoughts, we let them carry us down all sorts of compelling and “urgent” paths.

Having a mind meditation practice like the Sky Mind Meditation strengthens your ability to allow thoughts to come and go – to understand that thoughts (especially painful, unproductive thoughts) are impermanent and not forever.

Note throughout your day how thoughts arise and pass away and remember you can access the spaciousness and freedom of Sky Mind Meditation whenever you need to.

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What did you experience in the Big Sky Mind meditation? What other mind meditation and mindfulness exercises do you practice? Please share with us in the comments below – we love hearing from you!