Meditation for Beginners

If you’ve found this page you must either be a friend of mine and/or curious about meditation. Either way it’s wonderful that you’re here. Meditation has been a very powerful technique for me. My love for meditation really flourished in my last year of school. With all the external pressures I didn’t know how exactly to control my stress. But with the help of my dear friend meditation, I survived it all with only a few minor scratches.

Now, a few guidelines before we begin. Know that:

*Meditation is a different experience for EVERYONE

*There is no right or wrong

*It is a gradual process, like learning a bike, these things take time – so be patient! J

*There are a variety of techniques; meditation is like an umbrella term with an amazing variety of styles

*It will require persistence, so please keep going

*IT WILL DEFINITELY HELP YOU AND MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD – and that’s what life is about, right?

IF you’re still reading that is a great sign for me and you. Some books I’d recommend for all you lovely nerds like me are: The Art of Meditation by Mattheu Ricard, The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho (thought the meditations are a bit more advances and this is constructed as a story about the pilgrimage “El Camino de Santiago Compostela”) and

Now you are almost ready to begin J

Step 1: Find yourself a comfortable and quiet place – possibly your room, outside, spare room, kitchen, garage... anywhere where you won’t be disturbed.

Step 2: Find yourself a comfortable pose – often people sit in lotus posed (cross-legged), and though it is recommended for some substantial reasons, I think it is OK for beginners to start with lying on the floor – I even find myself meditating like this too.

Step 3: Choose a suitable time for you, or you can trial out times – before breakfast, after work, before bed or whenever suits you best.

Step 4: Give yourself enough time, I like to meditate for 30 mins or an hour when I have the time, but this could be hard for beginners. Let this be a very gradual thing, start with 5 minutes a day, then maybe work to 10 minutes or 5 minutes twice a day. A

Step 5: Find some pretty sweet music, I will attach some youtube guided/non-guided meditation clips later on in another blog so you can check that out OR I would recommend just listening to Enya, her whole album is absolutely blissful!

Step 6: You are ready to begin! Yay!

The next two blogs are going to be two very simple and easy meditations. They have and continue to help me so much and are easily performed in any space; on a bus, when you’re walking, whilst you’re cooking and even at a bar... if you really need to.

The Meditation “Working through the breath” is a wonderfully basic technique that is the foundation of most meditation practices. It is about letting go.

“Eternally Present and Free from Attachment” is fairly self-explanatory in its title. It is about being here now but with a sense of detachment from the world, leaving you to feel as though you are looking onto your own life from a bird’s eye view – everything feels light and surreal. This is about accepting.

Please find some time to do the meditation before bed tonight, or tomorrow morning J

I love you, always.