Meditation courses

If what you want is a course built around your own situation rather than one produced in advance, StillMind composes the whole sequence from what you tell it: a course name, an arc, and every session with its own technique focus and length. You answer a few questions about what you are working on, and on a Goal-based course you describe the goal itself in a sentence, spoken or typed. Each session script is then written fresh at the moment you press play. Headspace offers professionally produced courses with a set progression and a consistent voice, which many people prefer. Both are courses. One is made in advance, the other is made for you.

Yes. Each session’s script is written fresh at the moment you press play rather than pulled from a library, so no two are identical, even within the same course. Every one is anchored to the goal you gave at the start and placed in the arc, which is why a later session picks up where the earlier ones left off. You can also change the narrating voice from one session to the next.

Yes, within limits that are deliberate. After a session you can reflect on how it landed, and that reflection shapes the next one: how much guidance you get and how it is framed. What it does not do is change what the next session is about or reorder the arc, because the plan is what makes it a course rather than a run of unrelated sessions. In StillMind the adaptation happens inside the plan rather than to it. If a reflection suggests you are having a genuinely hard time, it is never quoted back to you in a script, and the next session softens.

The goal you set at the start holds for that course. It’s what every session is anchored to, and it shouldn’t drift while you’re in the middle of the path. If what you’re working on genuinely changes, you create a new course around the new goal, and the sessions you’ve already done stay in your history. Reflections let you adjust how the course feels as you go without moving the target.

Yes. A course can sit paused for as long as you need, and there is no time limit after which it lapses. When you return it picks up at the next session with the arc and the goal intact. One course is active at a time, which keeps a practice focused on a single path rather than spread across several. That also means starting a different course sets the current one aside for good rather than parking it: the sessions you already completed stay in your history, but that particular arc is closed. Pausing is the option to reach for when you intend to come back.

None at all. Your experience level shapes the course rather than gating it. A beginner gets sessions of around 5 to 15 minutes that introduce a technique one piece at a time, with guidance that stays generous the whole way through. Someone further along gets 15 to 30 minute sessions and a course that refines the practice they already have rather than starting from the definition. All four course types are open at every level.

The arc is set when the course is created, so the order of techniques and themes is decided up front. After a session you can reflect on how it landed, and that reflection shapes the next one: how much guidance you get and how it’s framed. It doesn’t move the focus of the next session or reorder the arc. Adaptation happens inside the plan rather than to it.

That depends on the length you choose when you create it. Short is a gentle start to build on, Standard gives room to build a real habit, and Deep is the full path. Courses run roughly three to fourteen sessions depending on the type and length, and each session comes out between 5 and 30 minutes based on your experience level. There’s no timetable to keep up with, so you take the next session when you’re ready for it.

Long enough to settle, which for most people means 5 to 15 minutes when starting out and 15 to 30 minutes once a practice is established. Shorter sessions done consistently do more than longer ones done occasionally. In StillMind the length is worked out for you from your experience level rather than left as another decision: beginners get around 5 to 15 minutes, intermediate 10 to 20, and advanced 15 to 30, with each session in the course given its own length based on what it is teaching.

That depends on the type you pick and how far you want to go. A Techniques course runs 3 sessions at Short, 5 to 7 at Standard and 10 to 14 at Deep. Loving-kindness runs 3, 6 or 8, moving through the traditional circles of metta one at a time. Goal-based runs 5, 8 or 12, because one intention needs room to be approached from several angles. Self-discovery runs 4, 6 or 8. You see the whole sequence, every session named, before you begin.

By moving through the circles in order rather than jumping to the hardest one. The traditional sequence is yourself, a benefactor, a dear friend, someone neutral, someone difficult, and then all beings, and each stage is easier once the one before it is familiar. Not feeling much at first is ordinary rather than a sign it is failing. In StillMind a Loving-kindness course paces those circles across 3, 6 or 8 sessions: the longest gives each circle room of its own, while a short one keeps the pillars of self, the difficult person and all beings and leaves the middle circles for another course. If being kind to yourself is the hardest part, it can open on a benefactor instead and come back to you once the practice has steadied.

No. MBSR is a specific eight-week programme developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts, taught by certified instructors with weekly group classes and a day-long retreat, and faithful free versions of it exist online. StillMind does not teach MBSR and makes no claim to. What it shares is technique: the body scan comes out of that tradition, and a Techniques course can be built around it. If you want MBSR specifically, look for a certified programme. If you want a shorter course built around your own goal, that is what StillMind builds.

Every course type and every length is open to everyone, and building a course uses no sessions by itself. What a course draws on is your monthly allowance of guided sessions: you need at least one remaining to start a course, and each session you play uses one. StillMind Plus raises that monthly allowance. The longer courses are available on every tier, and there is no separate course purchase.

Courses in StillMind are measured in sessions rather than days, and they run between three and fourteen depending on the type and the length you choose. There is no timetable, so a course might take a fortnight or a couple of months and neither is wrong. If you want to practise daily for a month, you can take one session a day and keep practising once the arc completes, or build a second course when the first one ends. Counting sessions rather than days means a missed day never ends anything.

Yes, and it follows the traditional sequence. A loving-kindness course works through the classical circles of metta: yourself, a benefactor, a dear friend, someone neutral, someone difficult, and finally all beings. You say who you most want to hold in mind and what would feel like progress, and the course paces those circles across 3, 6 or 8 sessions depending on the length you choose. A short course keeps the pillars and drops the middle circles. It opens with yourself in most cases, and can start with a benefactor instead when self-directed practice would be the harder place to begin.

A Techniques course centres on a single technique for its whole length: breath focus, body scan, visualisation, mantra or sound awareness. You pick the one you want, or let the app choose based on what you say you find hardest. A beginner course opens it up gradually, so a breath course moves from the breath at the nose to the breath at the belly to counting. An advanced one takes the same technique toward whole-body breathing and choiceless awareness. Guidance stays generous throughout, because you are learning something.

That’s what the Goal-based course is for. You choose the area your goal sits in, whether that’s calm and stress, focus and clarity, sleep and rest, confidence and self-belief, or connection with others, then say in one sentence what you actually want, spoken or typed. That sentence becomes the spine of the course. The arc then moves through orienting to the goal, building a foundation, deepening, integrating and embodying it, so the same intention is met from a different angle each session.

A course that works with the body first tends to help most, because anxiety usually shows up physically before you can think your way out of it. Breath focus and body scan give attention somewhere concrete to rest, and a course lets you build that skill over several sessions rather than reaching for it only in a difficult moment. In StillMind you can build a Goal-based course around calm and stress, describing in your own words what you want to change, and every session stays anchored to that. A Techniques course centred on breath focus works well for the same reason.

Yes. Confidence and self-belief is one of the goal areas a course can be built around. It works well as a course rather than a single session, because confidence shifts through repeated contact with how you speak to yourself rather than in one sitting. Loving-kindness is often the more direct route, since it works on the tone of that inner commentary. In StillMind you can build either a Goal-based course around a confidence goal you describe in your own words, or a Loving-kindness course. If you say you are hard on yourself, that course can start with someone who has been kind to you rather than with you, because goodwill is easier to feel toward someone else first, and it comes back to you once the practice has steadied.

Focus is trainable, and a course suits it well because attention improves through repetition rather than insight. Focus and clarity is one of the goal areas a course can be built around, and breath focus is the technique aimed most directly at it: you place attention somewhere, notice it has wandered, and bring it back, which is the repetition that does the work. In StillMind you can build a Goal-based course around focus, or a Techniques course centred on breath focus if you would rather learn the skill itself. Sessions can stay short if long ones are hard to sit through.

Yes. Sleep and rest is one of the goal areas a course can be built around, and it suits a course better than a one-off session because winding down is a habit rather than a single event. Body scan and long, slow breathing are the techniques most often used, and a course gives you enough sessions to make them familiar enough to work when you are tired. In StillMind a Goal-based course for sleep runs 5, 8 or 12 sessions depending on the length you choose, and each session is written fresh around the goal you described.

Yes. Body scan is one of the techniques a Techniques course can be built entirely around, so instead of meeting it once you practise it across the whole course. The sequence starts wide and then narrows: a full sweep through the body first, then the weight of the body and where it meets the floor or chair, then attention resting in the hands and the feet. Guidance stays generous throughout, because you are learning a skill. Body scan suits people who find sitting with the breath difficult, since there is always a clear next step to follow.

A single guided meditation is complete in itself. You open it, practise, and it ends. A course is a sequence with a direction: several sessions that build on each other toward one thing you named at the start. Each session in a course knows which techniques came before it and where it sits in the arc, so a later one deepens what an earlier one introduced rather than starting again. In StillMind a course runs between three and fourteen sessions depending on the type and the length you choose, and you can see the whole sequence, every session named, before you begin.

One, for long enough that it becomes familiar. Sampling many techniques gives you a passing acquaintance with each and fluency in none, and most of the benefit arrives after a practice stops feeling novel. Pick the one that suits how your mind works, breath focus for simplicity or body scan if you prefer a clear next step, and stay with it. In StillMind a Techniques course is built around exactly this: one technique carries the whole course, opened up a piece at a time, so you get properly good at it rather than half-knowing five.

Nothing is lost. A course built around your own goal has no timetable and no expiry, so missing days does not forfeit progress or reset anything. The next session is simply the next session, waiting where you left it. In StillMind a course stays exactly as it is until you come back to it, and the session you return to still knows what came before. Consistency helps a practice deepen, and the structure is there to support that rather than to keep score.

A personal meditation course is a sequence of guided meditations built around something you’ve told the app you’re working on. It has a beginning, a shape and an end, usually somewhere between three and fourteen sessions. In StillMind you choose the kind of journey, the tone and how far you want to go, and the app composes the curriculum: a course name, an arc, and a named session-by-session sequence with its own technique focus and length for each one.

Breath focus first is the usual answer, because it is the simplest to describe and the technique most others assume. Body scan tends to come next, since having a clear next step makes it easier for anyone who finds the breath hard to stay with. Sound awareness, mantra and visualisation follow well once attention is steadier. In StillMind a Techniques course sequences this for you at the level you are at: a beginner course introduces one technique piece by piece, and a more advanced one takes the same practice toward whole-body breathing and choiceless awareness.

Deepen rather than restart. The most common gap after a first course is knowing the basics without knowing what to practise next, and the answer is usually to take one technique further rather than collect new ones. In StillMind a Techniques course adapts to where you are, so the same course type that introduced a technique at beginner level refines it at intermediate and integrates it at advanced, moving toward noting, working with difficulty and choiceless awareness. A Loving-kindness or Self-discovery course is the other direction, opening ground a beginner course does not cover.

On an iPhone that supports Apple Intelligence, the course plan itself and the running “journey so far” narrative that carries it forward are both generated on the device by Apple Foundation Models. On other devices, or if the on-device model cannot run them, they are generated in the cloud instead. The long-form session script is always written in the cloud. Either way, what leaves your phone is a short list of derived labels, each capped at 64 characters, and never the text of your journal entries.