Where to Begin with Meditation?
“May your head & heart speak with one voice.”
If you’re new to meditation, just the thought can invoke feelings of fear. In our modern busy worker bee culture it is not readily taught to exist with inner peacefulness. Meditation is a practice of creating harmony.
What is a practice? A practice is something you repeatedly do in order to create long term change. Through daily action, you create new habits of inner stillness.
When we live life from a place of stillness, we can see with greater clarity the purpose of our life. We can exude more compassion, wisdom and radiance.
As Ram Dass Says:
“Pain is the mind. It’s the thoughts of the mind. Then I get rid of the thoughts, and I get in my witness, which is down in my spiritual heart. The witness that witnesses being. Then those particular thoughts that are painful – love them I love them to death!“
Meditation teaches us to love all aspects of ourselves: even the parts of us that seem too shameful or scary to look at. What we avoid, always finds us. Through mediation you can find radical self acceptance. With self acceptance comes radical freedom.
Now that we’ve outline what meditation is and how it can improve your life, let’s get into some tips for beginning a practice.
Be patient and kind with yourself!
You don’t go from never running, to signing up for a marathon tomorrow. Meditation is a practice, just like a sport. Start small, even just a few minutes a day. So what happens when you can’t turn those thoughts off and you feel like your practice was a total failure? Smile. Because the fact that you sat in silence long enough to truly listen to your thoughts, means you showed up as the observer. The longer you meditate and the more consistently you do it, the longer you will be able to hold a silent space of stillness. Be patient, and be kind as you are learning a new art form.
Use guided meditations
It can feel so overwhelming to start meditating. Sitting in silence with a timer and no reference of what you’re ‘suppose to be doing’ can be a lackluster experience. I say, save yourself the grief and start with guided meditations. A teacher will help train you, guide you and take you to new mental places you’ve maybe never gone before. Once you’ve got your footing under you silent meditations may be your jam! Again, be patient, start small and set yourself up for success.
Create a ritual or sacred place
Habits trigger a reaction in the mind. Having a specific place of meditation or a ritual beforehand will help you ease into stillness.
Let’s walk through an example:
There’s a beautiful corner of your home where you keep a comfortable meditation pillow. Before you begin your practice, you light some relaxing incense. Beginning to find your meditation posture on your pillow, the smell sandalwood triggers a remembering of mediation. You naturally start to drift your focus onto your breathing.
See how powerful that can be?
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” —Rumi
With each sitting in meditation you evolve with more awareness. No matter how young, old, experienced or unsure you are meditation is waiting to show you new worlds and ways of living.