Why write your own meditation script
People sometimes ask whether I script my recorded meditations or make them up as I go. The short answer is I do both. If I'm recording something, I'll often write it out first. If I'm guiding live, I might look over a script beforehand and keep a few bullet points in my head of things I want to make sure I cover.
There's another reason to write your own. For a long time the body scan was my least favorite practice. I dreaded it. It seemed so formulaic, so dry, like you could tell what the teacher was going to say next. Then I started playing around with it on my own, and it became my favorite practice. I still prefer the randomness.
The shape of a guided meditation script
When I guide a practice it usually starts with grounding: sensing into the body on the seat, on the ground. Then I open it up to more aspects of experience, maybe emotions, thoughts, the five senses, or whether things feel pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Then some kind of heart practice. Can we tend to this experience with a little care or gentleness, so we're not relating to it purely from the head? And then I conclude with some sort of intention, like may we continue to bring mindfulness to the rest of our day, a few deep breaths, and reorienting back to the room.
So that's the shape: grounding, opening up, a little care, a wish, and coming back to the room. A songwriting phrase I like, and I don't know who started it, is that all you need to write a good song is three chords and the truth. A guided meditation is similar: your feet on the ground, your heart open to the people you're helping, and something sincere.
Writing the opening
We can't make anyone feel safe, but we can create conditions that are conducive for safety. For me that means a gentle, friendly invitation to find a posture that feels relaxed and alert, and real choices: eyes open or closed or looking down, whatever feels comfortable.
Then the first anchor, almost always the ground. The bottoms of the feet on the floor. The weight of the body on the seat. The sense of gravity. If you're writing for beginners, it helps to offer a little more guidance than pauses in the beginning. Distraction tends to be rampant.
Before a concentration practice I'll also invite a little gladness first, something we're grateful for or someone we love. Rick Hanson calls this gladdening the mind. The mind settles more easily when it isn't looking out for threats.
Writing the body in invitational language
This is the part I'd slow down on. When we lead a meditation, we're not trying to get the group, or any one person, to feel a certain thing. We're inviting people to notice whatever their experience is. So I'm inviting rather than telling people what to do. If a script says "Now I want you to relax your shoulders," it isn't quite in the spirit of practicing together. It feels directive, and it's a little revealing about how the teacher thinks of themselves versus the group.
What I use instead is mostly -ing phrases, with a "maybe" or a "seeing if you can" in front of them. Sensing into the belly as we breathe. Seeing if you can soften the belly a little bit. Maybe noticing the temperature of the air at the nose. Noticing whether these sensations feel pleasant, unpleasant or kind of neutral. For sensation words I stay with the physical: temperature, heaviness or lightness, movement or stillness, tingling, the shape of a sensation.
A few words I'm careful with. I try to steer away from calling things good or bad, right or wrong. Pleasant and unpleasant tend to be a little less judgy, less hierarchical. With beginners, or anywhere trauma might be in the room, I don't use the word "accept" early on. My default is "acknowledge," and after a few weeks I'll move toward "allowing." And "softening around the tension" needs the point made that we're not trying to get rid of the tension, only giving it some room, or some people will hear it as an instruction to make it go away.
Pauses and silence
When in doubt, stay silent. As new teachers, the tendency is to fill the space with words. I'm guilty of it myself. If we're inviting people to notice and to open, they need room.
So write the pauses into the script, and experiment with different lengths. Some teachers offer two or three minutes of guidance at the beginning and then leave ten, twenty, thirty minutes of silence. There's no secret sauce. Some people love long pauses and some don't. You try things, ask for feedback, and do what feels right in the moment.
One thing I pay attention to is how the voice comes back after a minute or more of quiet. "And now we're going to sense into the feet" can be startling after a long pause. Ease the voice in, in a soft cadence. A warm drink nearby helps too.
The close
My closes follow the same order almost every time. A wish, usually starting with "May we." Then "maybe taking a deep breath or two." Then back to the ground, feeling the body on the seat or the floor. Then "slowly opening the eyes whenever you're ready." That's it.
The wish carries the intention of the practice. May we continue to bring this gentle awareness to our experience for the rest of the day. If words like these don't resonate for you, find words that do, ones you can feel. Regardless of the words, the invitation is to feel it.
A short sample script
Here's a short one, the way I'd say it, with the pauses marked. Read it aloud, and change whatever doesn't sound like you.
Taking a moment to settle in. Finding a posture that feels relaxed and alert. Eyes open, closed, or looking down, whatever feels comfortable. [pause] Feeling the feet on the floor. The weight of the body on the seat. These points of physical connection. [pause] Maybe noticing the belly moving as we breathe. Sensing this inhale. This exhale. [longer pause] Noticing whether what's here feels pleasant, or unpleasant, or kind of neutral. Without judging it to be good or bad, right or wrong. [pause] Perhaps bringing a little care to whatever we're feeling. Gentle awareness. Allowing it to be here. [longer pause] Breathing with the whole body. [pause] May we bring this same gentle awareness to the rest of the day. Maybe taking a deep breath or two. Feeling the feet, the seat, the ground. Slowly opening the eyes whenever you're ready.
Common mistakes when writing a meditation script
- Instructions instead of invitations. Instead of "close your eyes," I'd say something
like "maybe letting the eyes close, if that feels comfortable."
- Too many words. If every line is followed by another line, people don't get any
space to practice.
- Promising outcomes. You're not promising zen on the freeway by tomorrow afternoon.
You're offering some tools, in baby steps.
- Reading it word for word. A script is a general framework, not something to read word for word. People can
usually tell. There's more on how I'd use one on our free guided meditation scripts page.
- Never hearing it. When I started teaching, the most helpful exercise for me was
recording myself teaching it ten times and forcing myself to listen. Listen back as a student. Did I give people enough space to settle? Was my pace too fast? Did I take a left turn too sharply?
For full-length examples, every script in our free guided meditation scripts library is yours to read and adapt: a body scan for sleep, a script for letting go of anxious thoughts, a short morning practice. There's a guide on how to lead a guided meditation, and the how to teach meditation guides cover particular settings. There's also a paid library of guided meditation scripts, for teachers who want a larger set. For whatever it's worth, if you'd like to go deeper into guiding others, we offer the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification. None of the free material depends on it.
