Meditating

Try meditating and feel like a failure? How many struggle quieting the mind?  How many of you think yoga is separate from meditation?

We’ve all recently seen a plethora of research and articles on the health benefits from a regular meditation practice. Unfortunately in many yoga classes you’ll take today in the West you won’t find meditation as a part of the practice, so people think yoga and meditation are separate, when in fact they are not.

There are actually 8 components of a yoga practice that assist us in balancing our lifestyle, our health, our energy, our senses, increase our awareness, and prepare us for stilling the mind and resulting in joy and connection to who we truly are. Meditation is one of the components to practicing yoga.

But what if we can’t sit still for long without pain? Or we have trouble focusing because there are too many other “more important things to do?”  Or what if we think we need to achieve something with meditation but we can’t “shut off our mind?” Trust me, I have struggled with all of this in my personal meditation practice. Here’s what I tell my private clients:

Get Started Meditating

1. You don’t need to be free of thought during meditation. The mind is built to think, but with practice we can learn to become more aware of thoughts and train our brains to not get carried away in the stories and conversations in our heads and eventually achieve a little more quiet.

2.  Finding a comfortable position that allows your spine to be straight and alert is key to staying awake and aware during meditation.  Sitting still can be painful!  I prefer to do yoga before meditating, even just a few poses! I also use a wall to support my spine and sit on a pillow to ensure as my body relaxes and I am more aware of any slouching which helps relieve any nagging ache I feel in my upper back.  You might also try sitting in a chair, or lying down if you can keep from falling asleep.

3.  It doesn’t have to be an hour long meditation to be effective.  Try sitting in meditation for just 2 minutes a day and work your way up over time.  This isn’t going to happen overnight, similar to other yoga practices, it is just that, practice. We must commit, have patience, and persevere.

4. Do not look for or attach yourself to a particular result or experience. It will be different for all of us. Instead practice consistency to create a habit and built a meditation practice one day at a time.

You can now practice meditation with me for FREE on the #1 meditation app; Insight Timer! Click here to give it a try and follow me to see new meditations as they arrive! Get more FREE meditations and on demand classes with me here.