How to Meditate for Beginners

by Christie on June 24, 2010 · 5 comments

Learning how to meditate for beginners can feel out of reach, especially in our society that embraces a fast paced lifestyle over slowing down and being present. Many people also have preconceived notions on what it means to meditate or what mediation should be. In my own meditation practice, I struggled with the discipline to do it everyday because I didn’t think it would help that much. I meditated regularly in yoga class or in my home practice and I even sought active forms of meditation like coloring mandalas but just sitting on that pillow for a few minutes each day eluded me.The first time I meditated was a pretty awe inspiring experience and made the elusive power of meditation even stronger. Since then, I’ve learned a few techniques to guide me in my path to a regular seated meditation practice.

Tips on How to Meditate for Beginners

  • Start out small – Meditating for one minute is better than meditating for no minutes. Once you feel more comfortable in your meditation practice, you can slowly begin to increase your time.
  • Use a gentle timer – I use this online meditation timer, it has a few different chimes to bring you out of meditation or to designate phases of your meditation. Whatever you use, make sure it isn’t a jarring sound. You will want to come out of your meditation slowly.
  • Use a mantra – I go back and forth between using mantras and not using mantras. My current favorite is  “om namah shivaya” which translated means to bow to your supreme being, your inner self. But, you can use whatever works for you. If you already have a mantra, use it.
  • Allow your thoughts to float – Many people believe that meditation is about clearing the mind when in fact, it is about observing the mind. Even the wisest, oldest yogi’s don’t have perfectly clear minds. We are human, our thoughts drift and embracing that fact will make your meditation more beneficial.  It may be helpful to imagine your thoughts as leaves floating on a river. You are sitting on the bank watching them float by. You do not jump in the river to try to catch the leaves, you just let them be. When your thoughts drift, come back to your focus, whether it is your breath or a mantra. There is not need to chastise yourself for thinking as that will only antagonize your mind to keep coming up with stories to get in your way.
  • Leave your expectations aside – Expectations are limiting, be open to whatever happens rather than labeling what you want to happen. Want to feel enlightened? It is going to happen by expecting it, it will happen by allowing it.
  • Just do it – I know that sounds cliche but in this case, it really is true. You are never going to reap the rewards of meditation if you never meditate. Dedicate the time of day you will meditate and just do it. Maybe it is as soon as you rise or just before you go to sleep but just do it, even if you only have three minutes. Those three minutes are three minutes you deserve to spend on yourself.

The benefits of mediation are endless and just getting started can be the hardest part. But once you make the commitment to practice a seated meditation everyday and open your mind to the possibilities, you will not want to go another day without it. You will even wonder why you didn’t start sooner but that doesn’t matter. What matters is you and those moments to just be with yourself, time to sort through the clutter and tap into who you truly are.

Do you meditate? How did you get started?

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The Art of Just Being

by Christie on June 22, 2010 · 3 comments

The first time I was introduced to meditation outside of a yoga class was at a laughing yoga workshop in Yogaville. I’d only been practicing a couple of months and little did I know of the world that awaited me. My friend and I had gone to the workshop to see what laughing yoga was all about and had no idea a 30 minute seated meditation was part of the agenda. I arrived in the meditation room, a room at the top of the lotus shrine, it was round with altars to every major faith lined against the walls. At the time, I wasn’t very spiritual and I certainly wasn’t religious. I thought the room was kind of hokey, filled with bearded men in orange robes and weathered pillows everywhere.

I sat upon my pillow for the required 30 minutes. My back ached, my legs fell asleep and most of all, my mind darted all over the place. I started to notice that there were light trails dancing along the back of my eyelids and I started to just follow them. I felt at peace, in this silly round room in the middle of nowhere. My thought patterns slowed and I just sat in the awe of those trails. I was in the most present moment I think I had ever been at that point in my life. When the bells chimed after 30 minutes, I just wanted to stay, on that weathered pillow with the men in orange robes.

A few days later, I told my yoga teacher I had “successfully” meditated. She looked at me with surprise and kindly asked what it meant to be successful at meditation. I told her I was finally able to just clear my mind and that I had felt enlightened. She didn’t respond, she just smiled but I knew there was something more. Something I obviously still didn’t get.

Since then, it has taken me years to figure out what that smile meant. And honestly, I’m not sure that I will ever know but what I do know is that mediation isn’t about enlightenment or clearing ones mind. And a “successful” mediation practice is just one that happens at all, not some pre-defined notion of what it should be. It doesn’t have to be in a lotus shrine, it doesn’t have to be for 30 minutes and enlightenment may not feel the way we’ve always assumed it would.

Most recently, I’ve started to practice seated meditation on a daily basis as well as other forms of just being. It is the just being part that is the secret to meditation. The art of just allowing your thoughts to flow without becoming caught up in them or weaving stories into them. Slwoly but surely becoming aware of what lies beneath those stories and accepting them for what they are. Sometimes, it is driving in silence or listening to soul shaking music. Sometimes, it is sitting on a weathered pillow among orange robed men. But always, always, it is the act of just being.

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