I just went through my first guided meditation! It's the Body Scan from "The Mindful Way Through Depression," which basically involves just becoming aware of every part of your body, one section at a time.

Having done some of the basic prep work for NEW in Astral Dynamics, this was a really easy meditation for me to do. The experience itself was very interesting...as I went through it, and when I got towards the end, I felt almost as if my entire body was enveloped in a kind of warm and gentle blanket...and I'm still feeling waves of this sensation come and go. My mind didn't wander nearly as much as I thought it would, and when it did I just refocused on being aware of my body. I think the fact that I was listening to a guided meditation helped with that, though. I'll have to experiment without the CD to see if the mind chatter is more pronounced when it doesn't have a voice to hold it's attention.

Interestingly enough, my right elbow has been really sore all day (possibly due to a bad sunburn I got on my arm earlier in the day x.x). When I got to the arm portions of the body scan, I didn't really pay any particularly special attention to the pain...I just kind of let myself be aware of it along with all of the other sensations in my arms, I guess in a way taking it as part of the whole. At some point in the meditation, it didn't even hurt anymore.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with the experience, and look forward to tomorrow's meditation.