Meditation Open Mic Night (Part 2)

The community is the teacher

Hi friends, it’s Joe again.

Wow! An amazing response from our fearless community to our Meditation Open Mic Night. Thank you! Many of you sent in practices that were grounding and vulnerable, genuine and even weird. We love weird. I can honestly say I’ve never meditated in so many beautiful and varied ways.

Image Credit: Wirestock from Getty Images

These recordings are a direct line into what connects us here. As you practice with them, you’ll be sitting with voices that were once just usernames in the comments. New styles of connection and regulation, new ambient sounds and environments, and at least one restless meditating cat. This is what the Democratization of Mental Health actually sounds like, gathered in this Dropbox folder: (click the button below — if you are on your phone, you won’t need the Dropbox app, just click “open in browser”)

Each practice is listed by community member name and theme. You can download the files or listen online. New practices will be added as they come in, so if you’re curious about guiding a meditation yourself, there’s still time:

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Today we’re featuring FOUR practices for your listening pleasure — from both new guides, and one familiar face from the Do Nothing Project:

Tamar Zinn is a regular in the Home Base community, and you might know her from Home Base Hangouts or our Sunday night Do Nothing Project chat. Tamar guides a caring introduction to dealing with chronic pain (or any type of discomfort). Tamar is a NYC-based visual artist whose work can be found here.

Tamar - An Introduction to Chronic Pain

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Andrew Lenards — a frequent much-loved The Do Nothing Project sub, and (it so happens) a Zamboni driver-in-training — sent in a hypnotic 15-minute practice of a Zamboni ice-machine rhythmically and methodically cleaning the surface of your mind. Andrew will be guiding this coming Sunday’s Do Nothing Project, so come join us!

Andrew - Zamboni Meditation

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Angie Mitlehner offers a unique “body kindness” practice for any time your physical body needs some extra love. Angie regularly guides meditation via Zoom on Thursday evenings at 8:30pm PT, focusing on relaxation and easing into the evening and weekend.

Angie - Bodykindness

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Malaya C has been meditating for years, living — in her words — “with a perpetually dysregulated nervous system.” She offers a grounding relaxation practice, helpful for any time the system is revving.

Malaya - Relaxation Practice

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There’s still one more week to hop on stage and take the mic. Some final encouragement from Jeff:

I think it’s good to de-mystify meditation guidance. Not so the world can have more would-be-gurus (God help us); more as an exercise in understanding the accessibility of practice. By actually trying it yourself, you begin to get an experiential feel for what can support both you and others. And then - who knows? Maybe one day it comes in handy, in a way you don’t expect.

Select this link on your phone or computer to record directly to us. Share your first name, offer a brief framing (optional), and then go for it. If you’d rather use a phone voice memo app — or send in an audio file you recorded some other way — DM me here on Substack and I’ll share an email address to send it to. Please keep your practice under 10 minutes. And don’t be afraid of silence! That’s when the medicine really lands.

We’ll feature more practices in next week’s post. Until then, enjoy!

Joe

A few quick notes—

• The next Do Nothing Project (DNP) live meditation, guided by Andrew Lenards, is Sunday, August 16 at 8pm EDT. Link here. Replays are archived Monday mornings on Home Base and YouTube.

• New to Home Base? We have over 80 free guided meditations in our audio library, over 65 extended meditations, over 365 meditations on YouTube, and a growing number of community practice videos. New writing, new audio meditations, and new live community gatherings happen every week.

• Home Base is best experienced on a web browser (laptop or mobile), NOT the Substack app. To manage Substack emails and notifications, read this.

• Did you find me on Calm or Happier? While the meditations I made for the apps live on in perpetuity, I’m not paid to record new meditations for them. My latest work happens here; becoming a paid subscriber is the best way to support that work. If you found this meditation and post helpful, but becoming a paid subscriber isn’t an option, you can also …

Many thanks!

Being Human Takes Practice - North Caroline

Art of Living Retreat Center, North Carolina
October 23-25, 2026

A retreat on what meditation teaches us about being human. We explore resistance and fixation, stuck emotions and stuck views. We explore awe, humility, connection and mystery. The aim is for everyone to leave the weekend with a clearer sense of why they practice, and a more intimate feel for the many strange and beautiful ways to move deeper into life.