09 May Beginning Meditation
I wanted to say a massive thank you to Ibare for giving me the opportunity to speak to the ladies at their Mothers Day French High Tea Event on Sunday about beginning meditation. Here is just one of the techniques I shared with them.
Have you ever said “I want to start meditation, but I just don’t have time.” or you have tried meditation and just feel like it doesn’t “work” for you.
Here is a great starting point:
Meditation is about bringing your focus to one point.
Everyone has different goals in meditation, it could be from just taking a moment in silence with your self to going into more spiritual depth.
I want to talk about the very beginning the learning on how to just bring your mind to focus on one point.
One thing you need to remember whenever you are starting something new is, IT TAKES TIME! We live in such a fast pace world now where everything is at our finger tips and we can get the information straight away, so when we are learning something new, where you may have heard other people talking about all these great things that have happened for them, but you don’t feel anything or you don’t “feel” what you think you should be feeling through the experiance.
We are all different and when we are starting to look into ourselves we need to remember that we are all different and go in with absolutely no or very low expectation, not doubt I’m not going to be able to do this but I’m going to give it my best shot and enjoy the experience it brings.
When I was doing my training we used to sit together in a meditation hall and meditate once or twice a day.
When I first started I had this expectation that I was going to have some amazing experience while I went into the meditation. Guess what… it didn’t happen. All I was thinking about was “my backs sore” “my legs going numb” “don’t move, don’t move” “what did they say I missed it” “everyone else here can do this no problems, why can’t I?”, “someone else moved, maybe I can just move a bit” “BREATHE, FOCUS ON YOUR BREATH” “Nothings happening, I can’t focus”.
You get the idea lots of thoughts and no amazing meditation experience. Whatever I thought that was going to be.
This went on for a little while until I just let go of the expectation and accepted that going from practically no meditation to sitting still for 45mins wasn’t going to be easy, firstly my body isn’t used to it let alone my mind. It made being in the room, sharing an amazing space with amazing people in complete silence a lot easier, I didn’t have the “break though” I thought I would and I am ok with that because I am not ready for that.
So if you have been thinking about doing meditation or just don’t feel like you can sit still for a long period of time, here is one tip to get you started and to get your mind training to focus.
When you are doing an action bring all your attention to that action, for an example I love the most and enjoy doing so much myself is the action of making a cup of tea.
When you make a cup of tea bring all your attention and focus onto that cup of tea.
Placing the tea bag in the cup, listening to the sounds of the kettle boiling, watching the water change colour as you poor it in, noticing the cloud of milk immersing in the water, enjoying the swirl of the tea as you stir, focusing on the aroma of the tea, feeling the heat of the mug.
This practice is so lovely you can be doing anything it could be while you are playing with your kids and you just notice everything about you kids, the colour of their eyes, their smile, the way they are moving while doing the activity, just bringing your mind to focus on one activity.
As you are doing this you want to make sure you are not allowing any distractions in. For example you don’t have your phone by your side with the temptation to check it, you have the TV or radio turned off, you want to try and limit as many distractions as possible however if a distraction does come in or you lose your focus, be ok with that, welcome the lose of focus, thank it for being there and then just bring your focus back to your activity.
This is a great place to start to get you used to bringing your focus onto one activity but your still allowing your mind to wonder and explore a little.
We are focusing on one activity, an activity with many elements allowing it to not be such a shock to our minds when we are doing something we have never done before. Be humble to yourself and allow yourself to be at the stage you are at. We put so much stress on ourselves inside our work and personal life, don’t let the activity you are doing to relax become stressful.
Namaste.
p.s What are 3 things you are grateful for today?