A Simple Meditation Practice to Try Yourself
Meditation is a practice that combines concentration with awareness. Once you learn how to meditate, you can do it entirely on your own, with no external resources necessary. Mediation can help you to reduce stress, enhance your ability to focus, and improve your overall well-being.
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How to Meditate
Learning how to meditate is relatively simple, but your ability to meditate will improve with practice. Here are some simple steps for getting started. Enjoy!
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Get comfortable, either in a sitting or lying position. Find a place that is calm and quiet, whether that is in your home or outside.
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Set a time limit, such as five minutes to begin.
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Close your eyes.
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Focus on your breathing. Pay attention to your body, and where you feel your breath, such as in your belly or chest.
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Notice when your mind wanders. If you find yourself beginning to think about other things, gently pull your thoughts back to your breath.
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When your time is up, slowly come back to your thoughts, open your eyes, and take notice of your environment. Pay attention to how you are feeling at this moment.
Decide upon a regular time of day for your meditation to create a habit, and push yourself to continue your meditation practice.
Begin with a relatively short amount of time, such as a few minutes, that you will fully devote to your meditation. If you want to, you can increase this amount of time as you become more comfortable with meditation.
The steps to take to meditate may seem simple, but in practice meditating can sometimes be difficult. Our minds tend to wander, so it is important to be patient with yourself. The benefits of meditating come quite quickly, and with more practice, meditating becomes easier.
“All it takes is 10 mindful minutes”
Andy Puddicombe is a mindfulness expert who wants to make meditation accessible for everyone. In this talk, he describes the transformative power of doing absolutely nothing for 10 minutes a day.
« “Most people assume that meditation is all about stopping thoughts, getting rid of emotions, somehow controlling the mind, but actually it's quite different from that. It's more about stepping back, sort of seeing the thought clearly, witnessing it coming and going, emotions coming and going without judgment, but with a relaxed, focused mind.” »
« “The mind whizzes away like a washing machine going round and round, lots of difficult, confusing emotions, and we don't really know how to deal with that. And the sad fact is that we are so distracted that we're no longer present in the world in which we live. We miss out on the things that are most important to us, and the crazy thing is that everybody just assumes, that's the way life is, so we've just kind of got to get on with it. That's really not how it has to be.” »
To watch his full talk, “All it takes is 10 mindful minutes,” click on the link!