Meditation Guide

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are many ways of meditating, everyone can do it and there is no right or wrong way. Read the notes below and if you are interested in experiencing a guided meditation try one of our online meditations. I have also produced a CD of guided meditations and affirmation chants, ing

How to get started now - The important thing to begin with is just getting started by taking quiet time for yourself. Make sure you will not be disturbed in order to relax fully, so take the telephone off the hook (for the sake of ten to fifteen minutes people can wait ) - change your answer-phone message if you like.

You can start with just 10 minutes and progress to longer periods if you wish, however, meditating for an hour or two will not necessarily make the experience more worthwhile. Regular short meditations are far more valuable in my experience than an hour long burst every now and again, but you will work out what feels right for you.

1. Lie down or sit comfortably in a well supported chair.

I find that lying down suits me best if I have about 30 minutes to spare, it means my body is totally supported, my spine is straight, my arms are alongside my body palms uppermost and my body automatically knows that it is supposed to relax. If I only have 10 - 15 minutes then I tend to sit in a chair, again I make sure that my back is supported and that my feet touch the ground and are flat on the floor (ladies it helps to remove your shoes!).  Try both ways and see which one feels right for you.

2. Allow your mind to quieten its' thoughts, and allow the body to completely relax.

There are many ways to quieten your mind and body here are a few:

•  Focusing on your breath - slowing the pace of your breathing, noticing the coolness of the breath entering your nostrils; if you do yoga you could do some alternate nostril breathing and counting to four as you inhale and four (or more for the practised) on the exhale. It is important to breath through the nose if possible as the body tends to breathe rapidly through the mouth when highly active or in fight or flight, so if you are breathing steadily through the nose it is the reverse of that pattern. For information on Conscious or T ransformational Breathing follow the link.
• Counting down from ten to one slowly
• Visualising yourself walking down a very long staircase, getting more relaxed as you go further down; in a similar vein you could visualise yourself as a leaf falling from a tree in Autumn and gently floating down to the earth knowing that you go deeper and become more relaxed the closer you get to the earth.
• once you have done some visualisation you can create your own inner sanctuary, a place where you feel safe and relaxed and the more you use that visualisation the easier  and quicker it becomes to achieve relaxation under any circumstance.
• Music can be very helpful in "putting you in the mood", however, it needs to be very much in the background and non-intrusive as if you start to get involved in listening to the music you may just take a walk down memory lane and what we actually want here is to slow thought right down and go within.
• Affirmations can be useful initially when you settle down just as you breathe in and out to say "I am..relaxed" or something similar. Look here for guidance on affirmations.

3. Once calm and quiet just stay in that state for a while or introduce a question such as "What is it I need to know". This does not presuppose the answer and allows any topic that needs your attention to come up. Do not try to consciously answer the question yourself, just remain quiet and go with the flow.

4. When you are ready reverse your relaxation process by counting up from 1 to 10 or climbing the stairs etc. If time is an issue for you on any occasion do not use an alarm of any sort to bring you out of meditation, either use a guided meditation recording or play a piece of music you know last 10 minutes, so that you will gently know when to come out of it.

5. Finish by affirming that today is a wonderful day, that what you need to know is revealed to you and what you need comes to you, all is well in your world.

6. Practise meditating as often as you can for as long as suits you.

 

What can you expect to experience?

Initially just some relaxation if you are starting by yourself, if you listen to a guided meditation like the ones online, then you may experience emotions which can include anger. This is a good thing as it means you are releasing these feelings which may have been held inside you for a long time. 

As you practise you will find these brief moments of calm as restoring, healing and ultimately essential to a happy healthy life.  In these busy times we rarely get the opportunity to get back in touch with ourselves. We all have an inner child just wanting us to listen for once and do the things that bring us joy, we also have a wise and "higher self" who will answer all our questions if we listen. Unless we take quiet time and put ourselves in an appropriate state to receive this information it doesn't get through but these facets of ourselves will try and get our attention another way via illness, discomfort or sudden emotional outbursts which surprise us and seemingly come from no-where.

Give it a go, you have absolutely nothing to lose and health and happiness to gain!

 

 

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