Listen to My Guided Meditations

I have recorded a wide range of guided meditations, which are available – mostly for free, with an optional donation – on the Insight Timer app. My collection of meditations is available at: insighttimer.com/danrobertstherapy

I chose Insight Timer because the Insight Timer team want to make meditation free for everyone, everywhere. The app hosts thousands of teachers, with tens of thousands of meditations available, completely free. Unlike most other meditation apps, you don’t have to subscribe to get the best content – there is a vast amount of guided meditations, talks, teaching and other resources available, free for anyone. You can subscribe to gain access to courses and other resources, but you really don’t have to.

Building a daily meditation practice is a fundamental part of your healing journey, so you will find an ever-growing collection of my meditations on the app.

Internal Family Systems Meditation

• Calming Your Parts: IFS Meditation – This practice will help you learn to identify uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, and body sensations as a communication from your parts. Learning how to follow them to the hurt parts of you inside, then comfort and reassure those parts, is a powerful way to heal and feel calmer, happier, and more at peace in your day-to-day life

• The Path: IFS Meditation – In this guided meditation, I lead you along a path in your mind's eye. As you travel along the path you may find yourself feeling an increasing amount of 'Self-energy', which will help you feel calm, grounded and in a state of flow, where thoughts, worries and day-to-day concerns naturally ebb away

• Fire Drill: IFS Meditation – If you are struggling with your anger, or in conflict with someone in your life, the Fire Drill will help you perceive that person, and your reaction to them, in a different and more helpful way. Understanding which protective parts get triggered by this person and how they try to protect your young, vulnerable parts from being hurt, can be transformative

• Taking in the Good: IFS Meditation – This guided imagery will help you counter negative self-criticism by generating positive thoughts, feelings, and body sensations. I guide you through a nourishing, relaxing visualisation, which will help you develop positive self-beliefs, emotions, and qualities you would like to possess. This will help change unhelpful ways of perceiving yourself and, over time, generate feelings of calm, contentment, and self-acceptance

• Accessing Healing Self-Energy: IFS Meditation – In this talk and guided imagery, I explain what Internal Family Systems therapy calls your Self – the deep, rich, powerful set of inner resources such as calm, courage and confidence we all possess, even if we struggle to access them. You will also get a taste of Self-energy, so you can experience this warm, healing resource and learn to access it on your healing journey

• Working with Your Inner Critic: IFS Meditation – Everybody has an inner Critic: the voice inside you that may be harsh, negative, or constantly putting you down. In this practice, I help you first visualise, then speak to this part of you – because only by understanding and having a dialogue with the Critic can you help this misunderstood part of you become quieter. In turn, this will help you feel calmer, happier, more confident, and at peace

• How to Calm Your Inner Worrier: IFS Meditation – This guided-imagery practice will be especially helpful if you struggle with worry and anxiety. If so, you probably have a loud Inner Worrier, who worries constantly about everything that might go wrong in the future. I lead you through a powerful, highly effective technique he created for my anxious clients – you will learn to calm your Worrier down, which will help you worry less and feel calmer, more relaxed and at peace

• Helping Your Anxious Inner Child Feel Safe – In this guided imagery practice, I help you cope with an upcoming event that is daunting, potentially triggering or generally anxiety-provoking. I guide you through first creating a safe place, then gently placing your anxious Inner Child there, so they feel calm, safe and protected while you deal with your challenging event. Used over time, this technique will help you deal with anything – even the most challenging situations – with calm, confidence and grace

• Sending Loving-Kindness to Every Part of You: IFS Meditation – In this practice, I combine the tradition metta (loving-kindness) practice with the internal family systems model. I guide you through a step-by-step process of sending loving-kindness to every part of you, from the easiest and most likeable part to the trickiest part, which may be much harder to like. Slowly, you will begin developing greater compassion, warm-heartedness and understanding for all your parts. This will help you feel calmer, more at peace and compassionate to yourself in your day-to-day life

Sleep stories & meditations

• Sleep Story: Searching for Treasure – If you struggle with insomnia or are having a difficult time sleeping for any reason, this calming, soothing story will help you drift off into a peaceful, nourishing sleep. I guide you on a journey through lush green hills, beautiful wildflower meadows, and lush forests, on a quest to find a magical, healing treasure you have longed for your whole life. You will also meet three wise beings, who share their love and wisdom and help guide you on your quest. You will feel increasingly calm, relaxed, and at peace, eventually drifting off into a deep, restorative sleep

• Sleep Meditation: Deeply Relaxing Body Scan – This calm, relaxing Body Scan practice will help you relax every muscle in your body and drift off to sleep. I guide you to be mindful of your breathing, before focusing on each part of your body in turn, helping you ease places of tightness or tension, as your body moves from wakefulness into a peaceful and restorative sleep. If you struggle with insomnia, this practice will help you gently move your focus from a busy mind into your body and then slowly into a good night's sleep

Mindfulness meditation

• 5-Minute, 10-Minute, 15-Minute and 20-Minute Mindfulness of Breath Meditations – the core daily mindfulness practice, suitable for beginners up to more experienced meditators

• Body Scan Meditation – You can use this body scan meditation to help you drift off to sleep. I guide you through a deeply relaxing practice that will help you release any tightness or tension in your body, perfect for easing you into a deep, restful sleep. Or you can use the practice to enhance your mindful awareness and feel calmer and more relaxed on a busy day

• Mountain Meditation – This guided practice involves imagining a lofty mountain, towering above the hills and valleys below. As I guide you through the visualisation, I help you embody the qualities of this mountain – still, calm, strong, rooted in the Earth. And I help you see that these qualities – intrinsic to us all – allow you to weather the emotional storms and upheavals integral to living a human life

• Trauma-Sensitive Body Scan – If you have a trauma history, you may find traditional mindfulness practices triggering. And the Body Scan can be especially tricky, so this Trauma-Sensitive Body Scan focuses on neutral parts of the body, which should feel comfortable for you. Over time, you can expand the practice to include more of your body, which will help you add this highly effective practice to your mindfulness repertoire

• Learn How to Take a Mindful Pause – When we make decisions, we often act quickly and impulsively – leading to decisions we can come to regret. In this talk and practice, I teach you how to take a mindful pause before acting. This will help you slow down and act mindfully, which will help you make decisions that feel authentic and right. Over time, you will learn to stop, breathe and listen to your body – helping you live with greater ease, groundedness and equanimity

Metta/Loving-kindness meditation

• Loving-Kindness Meditation: Three Stages – In this loving-kindness meditation I guide you through three stages. First, generating feelings of warmth, gratitude, love and care for a beloved person; then directing those feelings towards yourself, and finally sending metta outwards in ever-increasing waves to include all people and life on this planet. Practised often, this meditation will help you generate feelings of warmth, care and kindness for yourself and others

• Loving-Kindness Meditation: Five Stages – In this longer version of the classic Loving-Kindness meditation, I guide you through five stages of the practice, offering warmth, love, kindness, and care to a beloved person, yourself, neutral and difficult persons, before expanding your well wishes to all life on Earth. The practice – called Metta Bhavana in the Buddha’s language, Pali – will help you both generate and feel positive mental states like kindness, compassion, love, and generosity of spirit

Self-compassion meditation

• Compassionate Friend Meditation – This is a guided imagery exercise to help you imagine a safe place, meet a compassionate figure there and get help, guidance, and loving presence from them. I lead you through this calming, nourishing and often profound practice

• Four-Stage Self-Compassion Practice – In this self-compassion practice, I guide you through four stages: adopting a more grounded and alert posture; using Compassionate Breathing; Supportive Touch; and Compassionate Self-Talk. Each of these stages builds on the last one, to help you feel calmer and more relaxed, soothe, and stabilise your nervous system, and generate feelings of kindness and compassion for yourself. A simple but highly effective practice that will help with your mental health and wellbeing

• Learning to Forgive Yourself: Talk & Practice – Many of us struggle with harsh Inner Critics, who berate us for every little thing we think, say, or do. If this resonates for you, your Critic will probably make you feel embarrassed or ashamed about each mistake you make, telling you it means you are a bad person, not good enough or flawed in some other way. In this powerful, healing talk and practice, I guide you through a technique I use with my clients, helping you first reframe whatever you feel bad about, before using a mantra that will promote forgiveness and inner transformation. Used daily, this practice will help you start being kinder and more compassionate to yourself, which will help you feel calmer, happier, and more at peace

Talks & Guided imagery

• Safe Place Imagery – This is a short but powerful practice that will help you feel calmer, safer, and more at peace in your day-to-day life. I lead you through the stages of this meditation, helping you first imagine your own Safe Place, then explore it with all of your senses, before feeling a deep sense of calm, safety, and peacefulness in your body

• Safety Bubble Imagery – This schema-therapy technique is a simple, powerful practice you can use to help yourself feel calmer and safer in your body and the world. I guide you through a step-by-step process to help you imagine your own protective bubble, which you can use whenever you need to feel safe and protected when dealing with tricky/triggering people or situations

• Mindful Grounding Technique – Dissociation is a common experience when we are feeling highly anxious or experiencing any kind of trauma. It is also a legacy of traumatic experiences in our past – helpful and adaptive at the time, but now confusing and often unhelpful. This simple mindfulness-based grounding technique will help you feel more calm, present and in control. I guide you through the technique, step by step, so you can use it any time you need to

• Hardwiring Happiness Talk & Meditation – In this short talk and guided meditation, I draw on the intersecting disciplines of psychology, neuroscience and Buddhist practice, explaining that our brains have a ‘negativity bias’, which we all need to correct. Focusing on pleasant and positive experiences, in great detail, helps us do that – and feel calmer, happier, and more content

• The Four Fs: Talk & Practice – Many of us struggle with our emotions, especially painful ones such as anxiety, hurt, or loneliness. In this talk and practice, I guide you through a simple, step-by-step approach to feeling and releasing uncomfortable emotions. I also explain why these tricky feelings can get stuck – and why we need to feel them lead a rich, meaningful, and vibrant human life

• The Treasure Chest: Talk & Practice – This practice was created to help people who struggle with self-worth and self-esteem. If that sounds like you, it might be hard to accept praise, compliments, or kind words from others. In this talk and guided practice, I explain how to take those treasures in, rather than pushing them away. Doing this on a regular basis will help you feel happier, stronger, more confident, and self-valuing

• The Story of You: How to Build Self-Compassion – In this short talk, I begin with the moment of your birth and explain what you needed to flourish as a child. I also explain why most of us don't get what we need as children and, especially if we experience trauma, how this leads to mental-health problems as an adult. I encourage you to see that whatever happened to you was not your fault – and that all wounds can be healed, with time and the right support

• Imagine a Happier Future – In this guided imagery practice, I invite you to imagine a day in your life exactly one year from now. And, as I lead you through this day, you will experience it as your Healthy Adult – the part of you that is strong, calm, grounded and wise. This powerful imagery, drawn from schema therapy, will help you both envisage and create a happier, more fulfilling future for yourself

Breathing techniques

• Compassionate Breathing – This is a practice that you can use any time you feel triggered, stressed, anxious or upset in anyway. Through this simple practice, I will teach you how to feel calmer, more relaxed and at peace. Used every day, it will help regulate your nervous system and improve your mental health and wellbeing

• Box Breathing – This breathing technique is highly effective if you're struggling with stress, anxiety, feeling upset or agitated. Box Breathing, as I explain, can also help with insomnia – either struggling to fall asleep or get back to sleep in the night. Try this simple but powerful technique for a few minutes and you will feel calmer, more relaxed and at ease

• 4-7-8 Breathing – 4-7-8 Breathing is one of the most powerful, effective, and fast-acting breathing techniques available. This technique has been taught in the yogic tradition for thousands of years – and if you are feeling anxious or stressed it will help you feel less calm, more peaceful, and relaxed in minutes. I explain the technique, then guide you through four rounds of the practice

• Ease Your Stress with Colour Breathing – Colour Breathing is a highly effective technique to help when you're feeling stressed, anxious, upset, angry or any other negative emotion. I give a short talk before guiding you through the practice, which will help you feel calmer, more relaxed and at peace. Used daily, Colour Breathing will help calm your mind, body and nervous system

• Soothing Painful Emotions with the Breath – If you are feeling any kind of painful emotion like anger, upset, loneliness, anxiety or sadness, that emotion will show up somatically, in your body. In this powerful practice, I teach you to identify what you are feeling and where, in your body, that emotion is showing up. I then help you to use Compassionate Breathing and a soothing imagery technique to feel a deep sense of peace, as well warmth, love and compassion