02.19.10
Find Your Meditation Practice
It is so important to take the time in our day to quiet our minds, our spirits and our bodies. We can spend so much energy being up in our heads all day long, running from here to there, riding the roller coaster of emotions from the people in our lives. We find ourselves exhausted by the end of the day. Often we feel overwhelmed by life or sometimes even find our selves depressed. Some of us try to go on and put on our happy faces to face the world, when really it is not what we are genuinely feeling. We live like this, and this living depletes our spirit, increases our stress, decreases our immune system and leaves us feeling run down and tired.
There are many paths to re-finding our spirits. Taking a walk, exercising, Yoga, making art, playing with our kids, listening to music. But the one path that has been proven in scientific studies and has been practiced over thousands of years is meditation.
Meditation can be a scary word for some. It draws connotations of chanting and hippies and maybe even challenging religious beliefs. But the truth is, you can create your meditation practice to be what you need it to be and still benefit from it. Meditation can be done in a group or be practiced alone. It can be done formally everyday at the same time of day for the same length of time, it can be a guided meditation using visualizations or can be just a quiet moment you catch before your kids get home from school. There can be “rules” to meditation or there can be no rules at all.
Some ideas to try a meditation practice:
Stopping and being present.
Guide: The goal of these meditations is to get to know our minds better, to cultivate insight and peace, and to become calmer and more focused.
So stop what your doing and just sit there. It is as simple as that. But don’t just sit there, be present in the moment. Notice the birds chirping, or the sounds in the room. Be in the moment. Try this practice many times a day, for as long as you can. And if you are having a busy day, keep it even simpler and continue to do your day, just practice training your mind to be in the moment, moment to moment.
Breathing
Find a comfortable seat. Find a position that you can comfortably hold without moving around. Try not to lean against anything, sit away from the back of your chair, or the wall, allowing your body to find its own center.
Feel your body, your sit bones holding your lower body up, feel your chest open, your shoulders relax, as if they were moving down your back.
Relax your mouth. Allow your tongue to sit softly in your mouth, your jaw soft. Relax the muscles around your eyes.
Place your hands on your belly, just below your belly button. Notice your breath. Take a normal size breath in, and let it ease down your body until you feel the belly expand. Now slowly let the breath ease out. The belly gets smaller. Breathe in the belly expands, breathe out the belly gets smaller. This is breathing in a meditative way. Do this for a minute or longer.
