Vishuddha chakra meditation – Take a comfortable seat and extend your spineupward towards the crown of your head. Deepen your breath with long deep exhales and full inhales. Allow the body and mind to relax as you continue to breathe and keep a straight spine. Begin to focus on the throat and imagine the throat as being open and expansive, embracing the quality of space. Breathe into the throat area from all directions, as if the skin could breathe threw every cell in your neck. On your exhale, extend energy lines to earth and sky. Continue. As you continue to breathe with the visualization of breathing into the throat area, imagine that the throat is getting brighter and brighter with each breath. Imagine that the color of this light is a bright light blue. You may also add the Bija mantra for the 5th chakra, Ham. To do this repeat the sound of Ham in your mind as you inhale and as you exhale.

Mantra meditation: Take a comfortable seat and extend your spine upward towards the crown of your head. Deepen your breath with long deep exhales and full inhales. Allow the body and mind to relax as you continue to breathe and keep a straight spine. With each inhale and exhale repeat a mantra such as Om or Om Namah Shivia. Words have strong transformational properties. Many mantras such as Om and Om Namah Shivia have been repeated for thousands of years in India to help purify the mind. If you don’t like the sanskrit words you might try the simple word ‘yes’ with each breath.The vibration of the sound whether repeated verbally or inside the mind can help the mind stay present. It the case of ‘yes’ we are saying yes to life with all of it’s variety of play. It has a very uplifting vibration. Instead of saying ‘no’ to things, give alternate options that you want instead. It can feel liberating.

Japa mantra walking meditation. Take a silent walk perferably in nature but anywhere is fine. As you walk repeat a mantra (Om Namah Shiva, Yes, Love, etc) silently in your mind. With every step you can repeat the mantra. Optionally, you can use Mala beads for keeping track of each repetition of the mantra. It helps keep the mind focused on the present moment. You hold the loop of beads over your middle finger and move the beads with your thumb for each repetition of the mantra. The index finger is related to the ego so we don’t use it in japa mantra repetition.

Pause of the breath– Take a comfortable seat and extend your spine upward towards the crown of your head. Deepen your breath with long deep exhales and full inhales. Allow the body and mind to relax as you continue to breathe. Start becoming aware of the pause between the inhalation and the exhalation, where there is no movement of the breath. During each pause relax deeper, feeling the peace in the space of no movement of breath. Imagine that with each pause there is a door that opens to a quieter and quieter space. Notice the mind quieting. As the breath stills, the mind rests.

So’hum mantra– Take a comfortable seat and extend your spine upward towards the crown of your head. Deepen your breath with long deep exhales and full inhales. Allow the body and mind to relax as you continue to breathe. As you breathe, listen to the sound of the breath as it passes through the nostrils. Hear the sound ‘hum’ as you inhale and the sound ‘sah’ as you exhale. The breath has a natural mantra called so’hum which translates to ‘I am that’. Hum is ‘I am’ and So or Sah is ‘that’. As you inhale with the sound hum, feel an embrace of the ‘I am’ deep within the body. With the exhale, feel the expansive quality of the Sah or ‘that’. ‘That’ is everything everywhere. It is all. So feel yourself expand to include it all. With awareness we can be continuously reminded ourselves to identify with the infinite which is that.