Learn to meditate in 4 easy steps!
Any person who has ever mediated or practiced mindfulness before will tell you that the world would be a much better place if we all practiced a bit of meditation. But it can be really tricky to actually know what this means, let alone how to do it yourself. So here are my steps to learning how to meditate - I hope you can use them to cultivate a meditation practice of your own!
Step 1: Relax
Meditation is basically the art of concentration, whether than be concentration on one thing such as the breath or even concentration on nothing, that allows us to break free from the holds of our minds and experience a manner of difference things, before returning to ourselves feeling calm and refreshed. So the first thing you need to do is begin to learn to calm the frick down and let your mind and body chill. Just relax. It's harder than it sounds!
Try lying down on your bed and taking a moment to see if you can relax your entire body so that you hold no tension, even in places like your eyebrows or your glutes. Once you think you can do this, have a go at seeing if you can stop your mind's inner monologue and just observe the sights, smells and sounds around you. Allow yourself to be present, allow yourself to relax.
Step 2: Focus
Once you have worked out how to relax your body, you can move on to focusing and further relaxing the mind. Usually we start off learning to do this by focusing on things like the breath. A great way to initially learn this is by guided mediation classes or apps. I prefer apps because you can do it when you want in the comfort of your own home, but I do like that guided classes allow you to disconnect from technology for a while and you are guaranteed to be free from distractions like someone giving your a surprise visit or something.
Anyway, the apps I like to use are Smiling Mind, Headspace and Insight Timer. Smiling Mind is great as it caters for all ages, even young kids, and it gives really simple exercises that you can listen to and then practice whenever you like - plus it's free! Headspace is great because it gives you lots of different types of meditations for different things you might be going through, like relationships or meditations for creativity, however it does include in-app purchases. Insight Timer is also great as it has a range of different meditations submitted by hundreds of meditation teachers, so you can choose who you like or what type of meditation you would like to do. It is also free to download and use.
Step 3: Practice
Once you have practiced some guided meditations with someone spurring you on the whole time, it is time to start trying out the new tricks you've learnt in your own time. Start to memorise a breathing mediation and practice it whenever you have a spare moment. This can be difficult as you have to try and keep yourself concentrated without allowing yourself to become too distracted. A great way to start doing this is by playing some calm, lyric-free music to remind your brain that it is meditating time. Another trick is to eliminate the temptation of checking the time by setting a timer so you know you will be awoken when you need to be (all of which can be done using the Insight Timer app). Once you can do this you can try meditating without any helpers and see what happens - you'll be amazed, I guarantee it!
Step 4: Keep practicing
It is so important to continue to develop your skills in meditation and most importantly to practice as much as you can. You will be amazed at how good you feel when you find a meditation technique that works for you and really allows you to come into the present moment and forget about the silly little things that are stressing you. Practice by listening to a guided meditation every now and then and practicing with music or on your own whenever you can: on the bus, walking to school, lying in bed, as a break from study/work, whenever you like!
So that's it! Learn to be a pro-meditator in just 4 steps! Now all you have to do is get started! Let me know how you go, comment, message me, tag me in your posts - I want to hear from you! And feel free to give me any feedback about why these tips did/didn't work for you.
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Namaste my friends x
