How to Meditate...The Easy Way (VIDEO)

Meditation can be intimidating. Sitting there, doing nothing, just breathing can be trickier than it sounds. It may feel strange, uncomfortable, or even put you to sleep. Distractions try their best to pester you. Thoughts of the weekend, family, work, finances, politics, what's for dinner, all invade your aspiring-to-be-still mind. You start to fidget, adjusting your seat, clothes, and hair, anything to have something to do. Meditation can be like a battle with yourself, your thoughts, your body. But if you stick with the uncomfortable moments, they will start to fade away and cool things will happen.

The experience of meditation has been described and taught thousands of different ways. One detailed instruction may click for you that won't make sense for someone else. For me meditation is a practice to get rid of useless junk cluttering my mind, and useless ticks inhabiting my body. Once you can sit and breathe and get past all of this, then it's like your whole being is plugged into the all-knowing light socket that's always there. To get motivated, I remind myself that practice reduces stress, builds focus, compassion, sensitivity, confidence and more.

Here are a few suggestions that I've collected along the way that help with meditation.

Any Time, Any Place, Any Outfit. You can sit and breathe anywhere. You don't have to be in your best yoga outfit sitting on your yoga mat to do it. Take a couple minutes first thing in the morning, at work, at home, before bed, whatever works for you.

Conscious Breathing. That's all meditation is really, paying attention to your breath. Focus on watching your breath coming in and going out and you'll be doing a whole lot of good.

No Pressure. Try sitting first for only a couple minutes and build slowly from there. There is no rush. This is something that you can do your whole life. Meditation will sharpen your senses and your awareness. Everything you ever wanted to know is right there waiting for you.

Comments

[Earl]

eight minutes

[Proud2BIndy]

I appreciate the sentiment but breathing is NOT all there is to meditation. That's kind of like saying inserting the key into the ignition is all there is to driving.

Controlled breathing is the first step, not the only one. There are, alas, way too many definitions of the term meditation, so it all really depends on your ultimate goal. If relaxation is all your after, breathing plus visualization will do the trick.

However, if higher conscious awareness is the goal, here is the standard mystic's formula:

* Relaxation through controlled breath and visualizing one-by-one each body part relaxing.
* Concentration on the desired topic (say the nature of consciousness).
* Contemplation - Seeing the topic from every viewpoint you can imagine.
* Realization, which is the uniting of your subjective awareness to your intuitive or super-consciousness (also called Cosmic awareness).

Yoga is Sanskrit for "Union" and this realization stage is the union being referred to (also called Self Realization). It's important to note that the last phase (Realization) does not come through will but rather surrender. You know you've reached it when you are in a tranquil state of bliss.

[Ed and Deb Shapiro - Huffpost Blogger]

Hi Tara, Yep it's cool. Your blog is great. I love it! meditation is definitely becoming part of peoples lives

Deb and I are writing a book called

HOW MEDITATION CAN CHANGE OUR WORLD
with Voices Of Remarkable Spiritual Beings

we interviewed wonderful people such as Marianne Williamson, Kathlyn and Gay Hendricks, Ellen Burstyn, Robert Thurman, Jack Kornfield, Michael Beckwith, Byron Katie, Ram Dass, Seane Corn, Jane Fonda, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Dean Ornish, Joan Borysenko, HH Karmapa, Jean Houston, Father Thomas Keating and others.

[Tara Stiles - Huffpost Blogger]

Hi Ed and Deb! Nice to hear from you guys! :) Can't wait to check out your book. Have a great weekend :)

[foxisms]

Gee, a non-pharmacological means of lowering blood pressure, increasing focus, instilling a sense of peace, tranquility and opening the mind to altered stes of perception. May we all be spared the day when the drug companies find a means to lobby against it and find a way to limit/prohibit this practice through the use of the A.T.F. in much the same way other substances and practices already are. And if it's not the drug companies that fear the loss of market and profit, then it could very well be government itself enforcing the restrictions. Because, thinking outside of the box and independently has historically ben looked down upon and persecuted. If you choose to doubt this, look at the current practice of persecution against the practioners of Falun Gong in China. Articles like this on meditation and how people can kick the anxiety of modern living without either Big Brother or the uppers and downers massively distributed by the FDA and drug companies should be front page stuff. If you wonder why it isn't, you needn't look much further than the Congress and the lobbyists they have as bed fellows.

[stanschurman]

Your first paragraph is so true. I took Trascendental Meditation years ago. Once you get by all of the trappings for effect of bringing a white hankerchief, a piece of fruit and a carnation to the 3 training sessions (if I remember correctly) it was exhilerating. But, as it turned out, I could have learned the same techniques from a book or a tape, albeit without the "secret personal mantra" which turned out to be not so personal nor so secret. I can remember being at a party at which 2/3 of us had taken TM (it was the 70s) and most of us revealed our mantra and discovered there are only 2 or 3. But, as you say, it can be discouraging at first because of the distractions and discomforts and sometimes the tendency to doze off. Your mind wanders, but that's ok according to your teachers. Just bring your mind back to the mantra and continue. You suddenly get itches you've never had before. Do I scratch them or will that break the trance? Can I move my arms? Is it ok If I uncrosss my legs? Should I be sitting more upright? Is it ok to open one eye to check my watch...only 3 minutes..could have sworn it was 15 at least. Did I just waste 20 minutes or was I actually meditating? Is that what it should feel like?

[boblawblogg]

Yeah...THAT wasn't annoying...

Sigh.....