How Meditation Changed My Life.
We live in a chaotic world, where life is served up fast and frantically. We work long hours, we spend money to keep up with the Joneses, we dream a little more than we do and as a result, life can sometimes become a great big ball of stress, grief, heartache with lots of indecision, no direction and lack of action. This is where meditation comes in, and this is how meditation changed my life and how meditation can change your life.
Getting started in Meditation
It is super simple to start, just stop what your doing find a comfortable chair, or even just lie down on your bed. Confirm to yourself that you are going to try and do some meditation and the next twenty or so minutes are yours and yours alone. Switch off the phone, close the door and enter the meditation zone. Starting most things is easy, even more so for meditation because you don’t have to buy anything, you do not need fancy clothes, although our spiritual t-shirts are pretty cool to meditate in. You do not need new technology or some fancy gadgets, all you need is some time and a willingness to stop the world for twenty minutes whilst you enter the zone. Starting is easy, as I said, consistency is the killer. Like almost any new skill, consistency over time is the key.
Seeing Results from Meditation.
However, seeing results in meditation isn’t so easy at first. Compare it to a comparable goal of building muscles for 20 minutes a day, after three or four months you would be able to see some weight loss, some muscle definition, a few inches of the waist etc. In meditation practice, you are not going to see those physical markers that signpost that you are on the right path and that you should keep going. But nevertheless, they are there. They display themselves in calmness, less stress, clarity of thought, happiness and these positive mental attributes are directly linked to the body and slowly but surely your immune system will become stronger. But it’s gradual, it’s subtle and it’s something a friend who hasn’t seen you in a few months would notice rather than you noticing it daily as you look in the mirror to assess if the meditation is doing anything.
The key to meditation
The key to meditation is consistency, it is as simple as that. Set aside a 20-minute slot each day, or start with a 3-minute slot!! Everyone has 3 minutes where you can zone out from the physical world of your life and enter the metal realm of your world. This is all good and well I hear you say, but how do I actually meditate? OK, now that is an interesting question and there are lots of answers.
Set your meditation goals
I think that if you set your goals and determine what you want to get out of your meditation sessions then you will find the best methods of meditation to achieve those specific goals. Do you want to begin meditation practice to destress, to learn to relax, to improve concentration, to reconnect with your breath, to reduce your asthma, to improve memory, to take a stepping stone towards astral projection and psychic powers, magic or just to have some quiet time each day to contemplate and reflect on life? Take five minutes to determine your goals.
Meditation Goals in Mind
Now with your goals in mind, we can look at learning some basic meditation practices. Now if the goal is relaxation or calm reflection or just twenty minutes of me time to destress from your busy life, it does not matter as the basics are always the same. As mentioned above grab yourself space, with off the distractions (phone, tv etc) and get yourself comfortable. Use the words related to your goals to quickly analyse the positive outcomes of achieving those goals. Ie to reduce stress, think and envision your life with less stress, a boss that looked up to you, no more money worries, no more anxiety when driving etc etc. First we need to relax, we need to anchor ourselves in space and time and release all the tensions from the body and the mind. I like to visualise, contemplate, talk to (whatever works for your inner mind) a multitude of workers that operate throughout my body, these minions are great workers and I start at my toes and go through each part of my foot, then up to my legs, bum, back etc acknowledging the great work they do, thanking them, asking them how they are doing, feeling the area with my mind, sending calm vibes and then I tell them it’s meditation time and they have a 20-minute break, go get a coffee, go put your feet up. I go through the entire body, relaxing all my muscles in this way. This works for me and at first, it may sound like utter claptrap, haha. But try it and make some tweaks for you.
Now that you are calm
This is when the real work starts when you get a sense of relaxation of calmness of emptiness as all your thoughts etc switched off, this is when your mind starts to revolt. The workers come back from their tea break early and your mind begins to wander. Don’t be put off if you only manage five minutes of calm relaxation the first time. From here I like to switch over to concentrating on my breath and use a simple in for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four breathing patterns. It is sometimes referred to breathing the square. I use these two techniques to calm my body and mind and then to focus the attention of my wandering mind. With the consistency of practice, you will be able to relax the body and mind quickly and then keep the state under will with focused breathing. The more you practice, the more your concentration and focus will improve. And the speed and efficiency of your ability to enter a calm state will become easier and easier and it can then be called upon in any situation.
For me this is the basis of meditation, you could say meditation 101 or meditation for beginners. I hope you enjoyed the blog and have fun getting chill.
