How To Meditate: A Beginner's Guide
Perhaps you have tried meditation and come away disappointed - you were expecting to feel calm, happy and focused, and instead got into an internal battle against your unruly mind! Rest assured, you are not alone. Meditation is an incredible tool to help you feel calmer, happier and more centered but many novices are under the mistaken impression that they have to try to stop their thoughts - and sadly give up when they realize they are unable to do this.
Please let me reassure you, you don't have to stop your thoughts! Meditation is actually really simple. There are thousands of meditation techniques out there (focusing on your breath, repeating a mantra in your mind, feeling the sensations in your body, gazing at a candle or a mandala). But basically there are just 2 steps to any meditation practice.
To begin with, ones attention is brought to focus on an object of concentration, (such as the breath, mantra etc) and then, when the mind inevitably wanders OVER and OVER again, all that has to be done is to notice the mind has wandered and then patiently bring it back to the object of concentration. We do this each time we become aware that the mind has wandered.
Over time, rather than stopping your thoughts, you start to develop the ability not to get LOST in your thoughts, not to be dragged away by the stream of your mind and you start to tap in to this whole other aspect of your consciousness: your AWARE MIND.
Most of us spend the majority of our daily lives caught up in our THINKING MIND rather than our aware mind, and our thinking mind is where we experience our stress, frustration and worry. The nature of the thinking mind is to chew on problems, create a lot of internal noise and fixate on the future or the past. Unfortunately, the present moment is never enough for the thinking mind, it is always searching for something better or different, which of course, is a recipe for unhappiness.
The aware mind, on the other hand, is where you can experience surrender and acceptance of the moment because it is not bound to the past or the future, but the experience of here and now. It is spacious, calm and free from drama, negativity and mental stories. It is also satisfied because it seeks nothing, it simply experiences the moment as it is. Regular meditation starts to train your mind to slip into this state of awareness more easily, and then with time, this awareness starts to spill over into your everyday life and then everything starts to change from the inside out.
The benefits of meditation become more pronounced with regular practice, at least 10 to 20 minutes per day. So many areas of your life can change for the better: increased focus is a boon to your work life, increased compassion improves relationships and the new ability to be more self-aware means you can make healthier, more conscious choices for yourself. Your resilience and ability to cope with stress, anxiety or depression becomes stronger. And most importantly, being able to live in the present moment means you can truly enjoy all that your life has to offer.
Please let me reassure you, you don't have to stop your thoughts! Meditation is actually really simple. There are thousands of meditation techniques out there (focusing on your breath, repeating a mantra in your mind, feeling the sensations in your body, gazing at a candle or a mandala). But basically there are just 2 steps to any meditation practice.
To begin with, ones attention is brought to focus on an object of concentration, (such as the breath, mantra etc) and then, when the mind inevitably wanders OVER and OVER again, all that has to be done is to notice the mind has wandered and then patiently bring it back to the object of concentration. We do this each time we become aware that the mind has wandered.
Over time, rather than stopping your thoughts, you start to develop the ability not to get LOST in your thoughts, not to be dragged away by the stream of your mind and you start to tap in to this whole other aspect of your consciousness: your AWARE MIND.
Most of us spend the majority of our daily lives caught up in our THINKING MIND rather than our aware mind, and our thinking mind is where we experience our stress, frustration and worry. The nature of the thinking mind is to chew on problems, create a lot of internal noise and fixate on the future or the past. Unfortunately, the present moment is never enough for the thinking mind, it is always searching for something better or different, which of course, is a recipe for unhappiness.
The aware mind, on the other hand, is where you can experience surrender and acceptance of the moment because it is not bound to the past or the future, but the experience of here and now. It is spacious, calm and free from drama, negativity and mental stories. It is also satisfied because it seeks nothing, it simply experiences the moment as it is. Regular meditation starts to train your mind to slip into this state of awareness more easily, and then with time, this awareness starts to spill over into your everyday life and then everything starts to change from the inside out.
The benefits of meditation become more pronounced with regular practice, at least 10 to 20 minutes per day. So many areas of your life can change for the better: increased focus is a boon to your work life, increased compassion improves relationships and the new ability to be more self-aware means you can make healthier, more conscious choices for yourself. Your resilience and ability to cope with stress, anxiety or depression becomes stronger. And most importantly, being able to live in the present moment means you can truly enjoy all that your life has to offer.
About the Author:
Sharee James is a yoga and meditation instructor, a naturopath and founder of Ashima Living. To learn more about how to calm your mind, watch her quick video meditation for beginners or grab her free e-guide "Stress-Less" here .
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