A no-fluff guide to mindfulness, body scan, mantra, walking, visualization, loving-kindness, and Spirit Walking

If you read my last post, you know I have opinions about the “empty your mind” thing. (The quick version: Most people can’t, and you don’t need to.) Let’s get practical.

Here’s the thing nobody tells beginners. “Meditation” isn’t one practice. It’s a category.

It’s like walking into a gym and being told “go work out” with zero further instruction. It’s technically true, but also wildly unhelpful.

Mindfulness, mantra, walking meditation, visualization. These are genuinely different tools, built for different nervous systems and different problems.

Some help quiet a racing mind. Some are better if sitting still makes you climb the walls. Some work with your body instead of trying to override it.

I’ve spent almost thirty years in various meditative and journeying practices, and if there’s one thing I want you to walk away with, it’s this: If you’ve “tried meditation and it didn’t work,” what probably happened is you tried one type of meditation. It didn’t fit you, and you (reasonably!) assumed the whole category was the problem.

It wasn’t. It just wasn’t a good fit.

So let’s fix that. Here are seven ways into it, including the one I built myself.

1. Mindfulness meditation

This is the one most people picture when they hear the word “meditation.” Probably because it’s the most heavily marketed and app-ified version.

You sit. You notice your breath. Thoughts show up (they always do), and instead of chasing them down a rabbit hole, you just… notice them, and come back to the breath.

Over and over. That’s it. That’s the whole practice.

It sounds almost insultingly simple, and that’s exactly why people underestimate it.

The repetition (notice, return, notice, return) is what builds the muscle.

You’re not trying to stop thoughts. You’re practicing the act of returning, which turns out to be a skill that’s shockingly useful outside of meditation, too.

(Getting pulled into a spiral at your desk? Same muscle.)

Best for: People who want something secular, well-researched, and low on ritual. Great entry point if you’re the “curious skeptic” type rather than the “already own a singing bowl” type.

Try it if: You want the most studied, least woo-coded option to start with.

2. Body scan meditation

Body scan is mindfulness’s more physical cousin.

Instead of anchoring to the breath, you move your attention slowly through your body.

Start with your toes, feet, calves, and go all the way up your body slowly. Just notice what’s there.

Could be tension, warmth, numbness, or nothing at all. (It’s ALLLL valid.)

You’re not trying to fix or relax anything (though relaxation is often a nice side effect). You’re just…visiting.

This one is quietly powerful for people who live in their heads.

A lot of us (myself very much included, especially through this last year of health stuff) get so used to overriding body signals that we stop hearing them until they’re screaming.

Body scanning is a low-stakes way to practice listening again, before it’s an emergency.

Best for: Chronic overthinkers, people recovering from burnout, anyone whose doctor has said some version of “you need to reconnect with your body” and rolled their eyes internally when you didn’t seem to know what that meant.

Try it if: Sitting with your eyes closed and “just breathing” makes you restless, but you can handle a slower, more guided container.

3. Mantra meditation

Mantra meditation gives your mind a job.

Instead of watching thoughts float by (mindfulness) or scanning your body (body scan), you repeat a word, phrase, or sound (silently or aloud) as your anchor.

Transcendental Meditation is the most famous Western example, but mantra practice shows up across an enormous range of traditions, often with sounds considered to carry their own vibrational or spiritual significance beyond just being something to focus on.

If you’ve ever tried to meditate and found the “just watch your thoughts” instruction basically impossible (like being told not to think about a pink elephant) mantra can be a relief.

Repetition gives the mind something to do, which paradoxically makes it easier to settle. Try it and see.

Best for: People with busy, verbal, looping minds. If your inner monologue never shuts up, giving it a single phrase to loop on instead of forty open tabs can be a genuine mercy.

Try it if: Silence feels like an ambush, but rhythm feels like a handhold.

4. Walking meditation

Walking meditation takes the stillness requirement and just…removes it.

You walk slowly and deliberately, attention on the sensation of each step. Heel, sole, toes, lift, shift, repeat. Rather than on getting somewhere.

It’s meditation in motion, which probably sounds like a contradiction until you actually try it.

This is the one I hand to people who insist they’re “bad at meditating” because they can’t sit still.

You’re NOT bad at meditating. You’re bad at a specific version of meditation, which was never built for your unique nervous system in the first place.

Some bodies genuinely regulate better through movement than through stillness, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s just information.

Best for: Fidgety people, people with a lot of pent-up nervous energy, anyone who thinks better with their legs moving.

Try it if: The instruction “just sit still” makes your skin crawl a little.

5. Visualization meditation

Visualization uses your imagination as the vehicle. Mentally picturing a place, a scene, an outcome, a healing, in vivid, multi-sensory detail.

And this one’s personal for me, because it’s the exact mechanism behind my favorite party trick.

I’ll walk someone through imagining they’re cutting into a lemon, then sucking on a wedge.

No physical lemon anywhere in the room. But their mouth waters anyway.

That’s not a metaphor. That’s your body responding to a vividly imagined experience as if it were physically real, because on a certain level, it doesn’t fully distinguish between the two.

(To me, that’s enough proof that many folks can heal their body by thought alone…you literally just influenced your physiology right there. More on that in another post.)

Visualization meditation takes that mechanism and puts it to deliberate use. For relaxation, for rehearsal, for healing work, for exploring possibilities your rational mind might otherwise talk you out of.

Best for: Imaginative people, visual thinkers, anyone drawn to manifestation-adjacent work who wants to understand why it might actually do something rather than just hoping it does.

Try it if: You want proof, in your own body, that the line between “imagined” and “real” is blurrier than you were taught.

6. Loving-kindness meditation

Also known by its traditional name, metta, loving-kindness meditation is a practice of deliberately directing goodwill.

You do it first toward yourself, then toward people you love, then toward neutral people, then (this is the hard level) toward people you find difficult, and eventually outward to all beings.

You typically use a repeated phrase. It could be something like “may you be safe, may you be at ease.” And you cycle through each of those categories.

If it sounds like too much “love and light” to you, I’m with you.

Until you actually sit down and try to direct genuine goodwill toward someone who’s actively annoying you. (Try it.)

Then it becomes a real practice, fast.

Loving-kindness is less about achieving a peaceful mental state and more about actively rewiring the direction your attention habitually flows. Meaning outward with more generosity, including back toward yourself, which is usually the hardest part for the people who need it most.

Best for: People carrying resentment, self-criticism, or compassion fatigue. Also genuinely lovely for anyone in a caregiving role, professional or otherwise.

Try it if: Your inner voice is a lot harsher with you than it would ever be with a friend.

7. Spirit Walking (this is what I do)

Here’s where I diverge from the standard taxonomy, because the truth is, most “7 types of meditation” lists you’ll find online are recycling each other’s copy, and none of them include this one. So I’m adding it.

Spirit Walking is the personal, intuitively guided shamanic journeying practice I’ve developed over the better part of three decades of study and work with my own Spirit Guides.

It sits at the intersection of meditation and shamanic journeying.

It’s deeply experiential and personalized, and genuinely different every time, for every person.

In a session, I connect with you (or your animal companion) on a soul level, and together we journey to my Astral Temple to do work designed specifically for what you’re carrying.

Where mindfulness asks you to sit with what’s already there, Spirit Walking is closer to visualization’s cousin.

It’s all about going inward as a way to go outward.

You’re sitting still, eyes closed, but the journey generates real physiological responses, the same way that lemon does.

The body doesn’t check your passport at the door between “literally happening” and “vividly, intentionally experienced.” It just responds.

I want to be super clear that this isn’t Wiccan practice, and it isn’t tied to any single tradition.

It’s its own thing, built from my animistic worldview that treats consciousness as something woven through existence. Rather than something that starts and stops at the edges of the human skull.

You don’t need to already believe that to try it. You just need to be willing to find out what your own body and experience tell you.

Best for: People who’ve outgrown standard meditation apps and are looking for something with more depth, more personalization, and more room for the unexplainable. Also genuinely lovely for people wanting to include an animal companion in the work.

Try it if: You’re the person who read all six practices above, nodded along, and thought “okay, but what about the stuff that doesn’t fit neatly into any of these boxes?“

So which one is actually yours?

Honestly? Probably not just one. I use different practices for different days, different needs, different nervous system states.

A racing mind on a Tuesday morning might call for mantra. A body that’s been sitting at a desk too long might need walking meditation instead of another minute of stillness. A hard week emotionally might call for loving-kindness, or it might call for Spirit Walking, depending on how deep the thing sitting on my chest actually goes.

If you’re just starting out, don’t overthink it.

Pick the one on this list that made you go “oh, maybe that.”

Try it for a week. See what your body tells you. And if none of the standard six quite land, that’s not a personal failing. That might just be your cue to go deeper.

Disclaimer
The information shared in this post is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. What I share here reflects my own personal experience, research, and practice — it is not a substitute for the guidance of a qualified healthcare provider. If you have a medical condition, are managing a health concern, or are considering changes to your care, please consult your physician or licensed healthcare professional before making any decisions. Your health is your own — honor it accordingly.