Introduction

Need a break? Want to be more intentional about taking care of your mind? Let me introduce you to the age-old practice of meditation. As a daily practitioner, yoga instructor, and mental health advocate, I know first-hand that there is nothing more impactful than taking just five minutes to allow yourself to merely exist, and breathe. Setting out to answer the question of "How can guided meditation enhance lives and improve mental health?", Where Your Feet Are: A Digital Collection of Guided Meditations & prompts to script your own is an accessible magazine that introduces readers to meditation's empirically-backed benefits. 

Literature Review

Where Your Feet Are draws artistic inspiration from Youtube channel "Simply Always Awake," a living platform for introducing meditation basics, common themes and calls to action, as well as presenting ongoing research through spiritual testimonies and interviews (Dilullo). Like this channel, Where Your Feet Are is a living magazine, meaning that pages will continuously be updated with new research and techniques. In addition, Mindful, an online magazine of both written and recorded guided meditations, is what inspired the artist's connected website of audio recordings (Mindful). 

Scholarly influence was found from a journal article entitled "Using Youtube Meditation Videos to Boost Mindfulness and Occupational Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic" from the International Journal of Stress Management. The study reiterates what daily meditation does for you long-term, and puts a lens on how digital formats like Youtube make the practice more accessible. It found that attention and focus improved with brief but regular meditation, and themes of awareness and acceptance required more frequent and longer practice (Wang et al 115). Unlike a constrained savasana meditation led by the artist in her yoga classes, the written and recorded meditations in the magazine allow for greater variance of lengths and themes, and hence (proven with this source), greater success with the practice.

Methods

For the completion of the magazine, the artist prioritized academic research from journal articles and meditation organizations as well as honing a good writing process, including brainstorming, copyediting, and the commitment to a creative nonfiction tone. Qualitative feedback was received to enhance the editing process, and familiarization with Adobe Premier was necessary for the audio component. The book's outreach was also tested by the artist in a practice-based research session: a UMD RecWell Meditation Workshop.

Audience & Impact

While this project's audience is anyone who can meditate (almost all people), the free use of this digital magazine is particularly encouraged for college students. This is a group for whom mindfulness and meditation can be life-changing, and one that can utilize the outside UMD resources provided, like RecWell yoga class schedules and mental health hotlines. Where Your Feet Are is being shared (through a displayed link at ArtsFest and continuously in the artist's yoga classes) with the goal of encouraging meditation as a mental health tool. The digital format makes the project more accessible and has the potential to make a real and lasting impact as a living magazine. 

References

Simply Always Awake. YouTube, www.youtube.com/c/SimplyAlwaysAwake.

Accessed 8 Apr. 2025.

Mindful. Foundation for a Mindful Society, www.mindful.org. Accessed 8 Apr. 2025.

Wang, Yao-Chin, et al. “Using YouTube Meditation Videos to Boost Mindfulness and

Occupational Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” International Journal of

Stress Management, vol. 31, no. 2, May 2024, pp. 105–20. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1037/str0000309.

Acknowledgements 

I would like to thank Arts Scholars faculty Harold, Heather, and Irene for their support throughout this semester, as well as my CPSA250 peers for their valuable feedback. I would also like to thank my parents, Lauralei and Jerry, for supporting my academic career and my older sister, Emily, for inspiring me to stay grounded.