Meditation is hard for me - can't visualize

[Ennui.]

Mindful meditation is supposed to be this great thing, but a lot of the ones I've seen use guided imagery. I can't imagine I'm walking in a beach or am in some peaceful forest or anything because... I can't really form mental images in my mind all that well. What else do y'all do?

[Rivière]

To be honest I'm quite similar. I find it hard to imagine anywhere but in my bed. When I went to a stress and depression management course at the hospital, they taught us to practice mindfulness by listening to the sounds around us. Another technique on top of that was to place one hand on the chest, and the other on the diaphragm and see which rises first. Apparently when we're born, we breath first from the diaphragm, and then the lungs (which sounds backwards to me but hey ho). By focusing on seeing which rises first, we can determine how to control our breathing.

Personally I tend to just lie there and sometimes when it's so dark, I see those weird funny colours in my eyes sometimes (kind of like when you press on your eyes too much and it looks weird) and focus on the patterns generated by it.

[Celyn]

I can't form images in my mind very well either. I tend to either use a memory of walking along the beach/countryside, or I might get a picture up on my laptop and look at that while doing guided meditation. Otherwise, I tend to do the breathing exercise that Sarah said above or do body scan meditations which focus on the sensations in your body, as opposed to doing guided imagery meditations.

Guided meditation is difficult for me, I can't form mental images in my mind either; and listening to any form of auditory guide is tough. I try the breathing exercise and it helps, but it doesn't exactly do what people claim it does 100%. I really just focus on other things instead that doesn't require sitting still, forming images, or listening to an auditory guide.

I do stretching, but not yoga; instead, I do what I've learnt in physical therapy and fitness classes.

I do light easy reading as well, but nothing that forces your brain to work in overdrive or anything like that.

[Ennui.]

I'm so glad that it doesn't seem to be uncommon to be unable to form mental images (ha, I typoed it as illnesses) in your mind either! I'll try those.
What types of stretching do you do? I can't really do yoga either because positions that require me to lay flat or invert my head trigger headaches.

[NeuroBeautiful]

I used to be in a group called "Mindfulness in Everything You Do" I liked it because it felt realistic and manageable which is what I needed at the time. I won't say I can't visualize but I don't get only peaceful images either (hello intrusive thoughts in the form of images )

We did things like taking a single potato chip and noticing what we see and feel about it before putting it into our mouth and using our senses while eating it. We also chose objects around the room so it wasn't conjuring images in our mind's eye. It was noticing the chosen object and describing it using observations and not emotional interpretations.