During my time discovering meditation, I found that I enjoy guided imagery meditations the most. The ones that work the best are meditations that allow me to imagine a place that I go to and that I can interact with. I think these work out so well for me partly because of my love for reading. And I think that's why Party in the Shire by the Honest Guys is my favorite meditation to use.
This meditation is in three parts and totals roughly an hour and a half. The inspiration for these meditations is the scene of Bilbo's birthday party in the Lord of the Rings. The first part is the the day before the party, with all the hobbits in the Shire getting ready for the big day. The second part is the night before the party and is more of a sleeping meditation. The last part is the day of the party. All parts can be done separately or all together. You do not need to read the Lord of the Rings or see the movies in order to enjoy this meditation. The Honest Guys have done a great job of describing the scene and the characters that you can easily picture where you are at and who you are interacting with.
I love these meditations just for the fact that they are inspired by Lord of the Rings. When the movies came out, my mom handed me her books from when she was in high school and told me to read them. I had just started back to school and wasn't able to fully read the first book before the movie came out because of my work load. But, I did enjoy the books. Tolkien does such a great job describing the various places throughout Middle-earth and the Shire would be one of the places I would want to visit. The Shire just seems like such a calming place to go and you know there would be good food and fun. This is why it makes such a great setting for the meditation.
This is the meditation I use when I am struggling with my thoughts. The last time I had to listen to it was back in the middle of April. I had been out of work for about a month because of the quarantine. I think that I finally realized how stressed and anxious I was with being stuck home all the time and not knowing what this pandemic was going to do. The realization hit me when I struggled for a week with sleeping. I'm usually a very good sleeper and to go from getting an average of eight hours of sleep to only about three hours a day is a bit of a wake up call that something is wrong. After a couple of days of not sleeping, I threw on the meditations to help me sleep. The first night, I listened to all the parts three times in a row. After a few days, I was able to sleep normally again.
Check out the meditations below if you would like to. I do highly recommend them if you are looking for a longer meditation and if you are a fan of Lord of the Rings. They have also done other meditations within the Lord of the Rings setting. If you are looking for other types of meditations, they do have some of those as well. Enjoy!!
The day before the party where you hangout in the garden of Bag End watching everyone get ready for the big day.
The night before the party where you hangout and sleep in Bag End next to a fire place.
The day of the party where you get to join in the festivities and get a little surprise at the end.