If you want to meditate, have a try. Everything we plant in our daily routine, can become a habit.
It doesn’t have to be a long practice in the beginning, you can advance it gradually.
The key is patience. When we put a ritual in our day, it grows with us, it become a healthy habit.
I often find it easier when the goal start small, so it won’t “worry” or frustrate me.
For example when I wanted to practice more yoga, I set myself to do 20 minutes every day.
20 minutes is not a lot. It doesn’t make my mind flip like if someone told me 1 hour! Every day.
Then, I get rid of the annoying limiting thoughts that I’d rather do something else in that ‘precious time’ or that I lack the energy because I had a rough day. It get rid of the excuses, it is only 20 minutes…
So take 5 minutes for a start, take it out of your busy day. Choose if the mornings or the evenings are better for you, maybe in the middle of the day when there is time.
Try to isolate yourself from the surrounding, distracting people, telephones, tv etc. Turn off your phone or set it only as an alarm for your 5 minutes. But set the alarm to be Tibetan bowls or a soothing sound ;)
I love doing meditation with music in the background, I go to youtube many channels and find relaxing music. You can find all kind of sounds there, nature, delta waves, Isochronic waves, white noise, water, classic, flutes, whatever you like. You can also do it in silence.
Sit comfortably or lie down.
Close your eyes.
If you hear sounds from the room or outside, let them bring you into more relaxation, don’t fight or resist them, but invite them in the meditation.
Take few deep breaths. Notice the air fill your belly, then come up through your lungs, from the throat and out through your nose.
Now come back to your natural breathing.
Focus on your breathing. When you have a though or an idea coming up, notice them, as if you are watching a movie, and go back to focus on breathing.
Really pay attention to all the details in your body and breath. Your body is more relaxed.
The air comes out and touches the skin between your nostrils and upper lip.
Notice how the temperature of the air feels cold when it comes out, and warm when it comes in.
The tension between your eyebrows disappear.
The tension around your mouth is relaxing.
You are busy in BEING. The breath is autonomic and happen naturally by itself, we don’t need to DO anything.
So relax and be in the present moment for 5 minutes. Focusing on your breath.
You can also do another “thought exercise” by trying to count till 10, and if a thought is coming up, you stop counting and start from the beginning.
Or you can be with eyes open, gazing at one point in the not far distant.
Except from it being meditation for relaxing and taking the time to be present, it is also a good will-power training for the muscle in the brain that always run puzzled in thoughts.
You can watch the stream of thoughts you have and learn to view them as that, just thoughts.
We are often so caught up in them that we don’t recognize them as just “thoughts” but as the truth and reality. This practice help us understand how our brain work.
Try doing that for 5 minutes every day, and see if it changes something in how you feel, and in your life. Of course you can add more minutes with time.
There are many types of meditation, this is only one of them. Meditation suit everybody, even those who find it difficult to stay concentrated for long time.
There are meditations that invite all the thoughts to a party and don’t let you disregard them, but the opposite, give them more room, until they naturally disappear.
There are meditations that take you to a vision or a scene. You visualize it and immerse in it, it is usually serine place, Haven that you feel secure in, and usually in nature (like a beach or a hill over a stream).
Meditation helps me feel more energized throughout the day, I am doing a lot of brakes for meditation and it give me fresh energy and creativity.
If you want to explore the world of mediation, feel free to write me.
