A few years ago I attended a 10-day silent meditation retreat in TwentyNine Palms, CA – where I completely fell in love with the desert. It was a very intense, yet a rewarding experience, which I’ll write more about one day soon.
Sitting meditation is a practice that deals with concentrating on one point. This way, you have one main focus as you start to become aware of your thought processes, and patterns and habits that arise in the mind. Over time this gives you insight to find ways to change your suffering to peace.
There are many ways to meditate and quiet the mind, but I’m going to teach you how to work with the breath as your point of concentration. When you can sit for 30 minutes without moving or opening your eyes, we’ll work a little deeper.
Commit to 5-15 minutes: Set an alarm to go off in 5-15 minutes so that you don’t keep opening your eyes and checking the time. If you’re completely new to this, start with 5 minutes and work your way up. That 5 minutes will seem like an hour, but don’t give up!
Find A Good Sitting Position: Sit is a cross legged comfortable position. Create a space in your home to sit, but don’t let it be the bed. The bed will just make you tired. Sitting for a long period of time can cause some pain in the knees or hips, so it’s good sit on a pillow because that elevates the hips and relieves pressure in the lower back.
Keep Your Eyes Closed: Close your eyes, and let your eyes fall to the area between the eyebrow center.
Breathe Through The Nose: Take deep breaths in and out through the nose. As you clear your mind, begin to slow down and control your breath. Make sure the inhales and exhales are the same length. Start with a count of 5 seconds for the inhale, and 5 seconds for the exhale. Stick with this the first week. As time goes on, and the breath feels easy and steady, try to lengthen that to 7, then 10, all the way to 20. Keep the focus on the breath, if the mind wonders – bring it right back to the in-breath and the out-breath.
Be Aware Of Sensations With The Breath: Pay attention to what the breath feels like going in and out of your nose. Is it cold or warm? Maybe it feels cool going in and warm going out? Can you feel the breath hit upper lip as you exhale? Focus on the feel of the breath hitting the upper lip. If you can’t feel the breath hit the lip, keep trying. As you continue to practice, your awareness of sensation will soon become intensified.
Be Aware of The Breath When You Have Thoughts: Does your breath speed up when your mind gets away? When does your breath slow down, or become deeper? Just start to create some awareness of the feeling and patterns with your breath in relation to your mind.
Be Aware Of Sensations In The Body and Mind: While keeping your focus on the breath, you might start to feel some pain in the hips or knees. You might also feel anxiety or panic build up in the chest, or old memories and emotions might surface that you completely forgot about. The purpose of this is to start to notice awareness of the ebb and flow of sensations in the body and mind, so just try to observe what’s happening, and sit with it it with it until it becomes a passing memory.
Count Your Breath: If you’re having trouble sitting still or keeping your mind from wondering, start to count each breath (count one inhale and exhale together as one breath). This will create a one pointed concentration. Eventually, you’ll be able to sit without counting, but let’s not worry about that until later! If your mind wonders, that’s okay, and it’s normal. It’s just an observation, not good or bad, it just is. The goal is to catch yourself, and to always bring the focus back to the breath. If you lost count, no biggie, just bring it back to one.
In a society, where we are always trying to run away from our problems, it sounds funny to say that It’s a good thing if this brings out anxiety. It’s happening because you’ve probably never taken the time sit with your thoughts, and it’s also happening simply because you are human. Things start to come up that you might have never taken the time to deal with in the past. Sit with those emotions and just keep breathing because eventually you’ll see it goes away. Then it comes back. Then it goes away. That’s life!
Meditation teaches us how to change our reaction and find peace in difficult situations. It also teaches us how these situations create growth and strength within. The purpose is to learn to be at peace with discomfort and uncertainty. Things will become a little more tolerable, and you’ll worry and stress a lot less! Great news, right!!
So, don’t give up! It’s only 15 minutes of your life, and you’re doing great.
Stay tuned & we’ll talk about how to take meditation to the next level.
Let me know how this worked out for you? Do you meditate already? I’d love to hear your meditation tips in the comments below!
The blog format and layout is outstanding! Thanks for the meditation tips. I’ll try it.
Thank you so much! I’m really loving the new layout and all of the capabilities that come with it. Glad you liked the post and I’d be interested to know how the meditation is working for you after a few weeks. Namaste 🙂
Thanks for the tips will certainly give it a whirl.
Happy SITS day.
Barb
Very welcome! I hope it brings you some inner peace 🙂
Excellent point about not meditating in bed! In fact, sometimes I do this technique in bed to help me fall asleep.
I’m a big fan of meditation, and like the chanting kind too.
Thanks for reading! I also love chanting! I find that it’s really effective in creating a meditation and also raises my spirits 🙂
I love the tip about setting an alarm clock so you aren’t constantly looking at the clock! Happy SITS DAY!
Thanks! I find that really helps. Thanks so much for reading!
Great advice! I’m just getting into a meditation practice. Hope you have a great SITS Day!
Thanks for reading! Glad to hear you’re working with some meditation. Have a great day!
Thank you so much for this post; it was much needed. Even though you originally wrote this post 10 months ago (I’ve visiting from SITS), it was like you wrote this just for me. I am in a busy and stressful season of transition and it feels like my body is waging war on me (I’m 28, have had 6 hip surgeries, and just injured my hip AGAIN). I’ve always wondered if yoga would be good for me but have struggled with getting comfortable and quieting my mind. Your post was great because it helped me to see that there are things I can do to help without having to do full-blown yoga at the moment. But I really do hope to start practicing sometime. Anyway, thanks and Happy SITS Day! 🙂
Hi Brittany! Thanks for your comment. I really think you would benefit from meditating for a few minutes a day so you can train you mind to slow down. The definition of yoga in the yoga sutras is to learn to calm the fluctuations in the mind, so you don’t even need to do postures to practice yoga! I do think down the line, when you’re comfortable, yoga would be healing for your body. That being said, I am not a doctor and cannot give medical advice, so make sure you check with your doctor first. I’ve never tried restorative yoga, but that might be worth looking into! Have a great day & night, and thanks again for reading!
I tried to begin a meditation regiment using the app Headspace – it was good but I realize I was in bed or sitting in the car and I would fall asleep versus actually focus on breathing, lol. I notice my brain races when I replay music in my head, depending what kind it either speeds up or slows down – electronic it speeds up which usually is what’s playing in my internal radio. I will try this today – I am a super anxious individual and haven’t had the patience to stick to meditation. 🙂 Have a great one Monica -Iva
I totally agree. I find that music will distract my mind as well, even when I’m practicing postures. I really think 5-10 minutes a day will help you a ton. You’ll have a hard time sitting at first, but after a few weeks you’ll see it pay off 🙂
Thanks for reading!
Great read, thanks for the tips! I love yoga but have never been good about taking the time to meditate, but you’re right…it’s only 15 minutes! I can do it! 🙂
Thanks for reading! Honestly, start with 5 minutes and work up to 15!
I have such a problem with a wandering mind! I’ve been trying to count my breaths and then I’ll realise I’m thinking “oh yay it’s working I’ve quietened my mind!” and then I have to start all over again… :-/ excellent tips here, thank you!
Hey Sessa! Thanks for sharing your story! It’s totally okay that your mind wondered. Actually, it’s totally normal. Just keep bringing it back to the breath. Even if you get really good at it, everyday is different. That’s the mystery of yoga or meditation. Some days your focus won’t be there – even after 20 years! So, just keep practicing & accept everyday for what it is. Thanks for reading 🙂
Such simple advice but yet profound. Meditation on the breath is a great place to start. Some people may feel intimidated with meditation at first because they may perceive it as a religious thing or something that requires esoteric rituals. Not so. Thanks for your work.