Meditation

I am starting a new meditation practice this morning with my husband. Our goal is to continue it on some level throughout 2012 and see what gifts it brings to us personally and as a couple. We’ll be celebrating our 22nd Wedding Anniversary on December 22, 2012 and getting married again. This is one of the ways we are preparing ourselves for that day and hoping this practice will evolve into an enriching part of our lives. However, my husband has never meditated before so I started to do a little research online to find a way to easily explain the step to him. I’m sure most people have never meditated and some might find it a little intimidating. So, I thought I’d share what I found.

“Meditation is a mental discipline by which one attempts to get beyond the conditioned, “thinking” mind into a deeper state of relaxation or awareness.”  There are many different meditation methods but at the core of meditation is the goal to focus and eventually quiet your mind.

Below are 6 easy steps to follow to begin your own meditation practice.

Step 1: Make the time to meditate. Set aside time in your daily routine that works for you. Many find the morning works best and it doesn’t matter how long you meditate. Some people find that 5 minutes works well for them and others benefit from a longer time.

Step 2: Find a quiet and relaxing place that will have no distractions or noise.

Step 3: Sit on level ground, tilt your pelvis forward by sitting on the edge of a cushion and straighten your back. This will help keep you comfortable and help with your breathing. Relax your arms and legs. You don’t have to be in a special position juch make sure you are in a relaxed one.

Step 4: Relax everything and keep searching for things that aren’t relaxed and relax them. Your posture might need to be adjusted and even muscles in your face might be tense.

Step 5: Let your attention focus on your breath without judgement. The goal is to let go of the chatter in your mind and let it fade away. Find something to settle your mind. Count your breath from 1 to 10 and then count again or recite a mantra over and over again, like ‘om’. To quiet images in your mind, simply think of a place that calms you. I often imagine space…darkness with stars surrounding me. As my mind wonders, the voice in my mind will say ‘space’….’darkness’, for example, to bring me back to a quiet mind.

Step 6: Silence your mind. Once you’ve trained your mind to just focus on one thing at a time, the next step is to focus on nothing at all. Clearing your mind takes a lot of discipline but is the purpose of meditation.Good luck!