How to Begin a Meditation Practice: My Journey with Meditation
If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance that your interest has been piqued by meditation. You’ve either tried it (maybe more than once), and couldn’t quite “get it”, or maybe just felt unable to get yourself to sit down and be quiet, because there’s just so much to do!
I get it, I’ve been there. I’m Type A, I’m a strong Capricorn (Literally almost everything in my chart is Capricorn except like three things), and I’m a proud hustler. I had tried yoga and meditation before and I never “got it.” More like I couldn’t bring myself to sit still, to move slowly, because I felt like I had too many other things to do, or more frequently, my brain was too busy buzzing around with thoughts. I couldn’t find a way to quiet my mind. And when I tried, I would get distracted. You know how they say “focus on your breath”? Yeah, I’d do that, and all of a sudden feel like I couldn’t breathe - like, how was I doing this without thinking before?!
But you’re catching my drift … yoga, let alone meditation to sit down with no movement in silence for...however long...just not my thing.
Until I hit an emotional wall.
I’ll spare you the details but basically I found myself in a headspace that was just done with emotion, and while I felt like I needed support in my life, it wasn’t something I felt I could receive from another human. It was something higher, bigger, that I felt I needed.
I did not grow up religious, and I always like to make clear that spirituality and religion are not the same thing. Other than the occasional Asian temple (I’m half Chinese), I didn’t go to church, and God was an entity I felt like I should believe in, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to. I wanted to, but GOD and the whole story of the Bible just didn’t resonate with me. No way am I knocking on those who do, by all means, believe in what you want.
Back to the story - I had heard some things about the idea of the “Universe” and enlightenment - essentially something bigger than me, and the possibility of achieving a higher mental state, which didn’t seem to come with the stories and “rules” I felt often accompanied religion. Again, I am not saying this to offend, it was merely my perception of what I’d heard. I’d heard of amazing things happening during meditations, and all I could think about was “I WANT THAT.”
So January 1, 2020 I promised myself to meditate every single morning as part of my morning routine.
I was concerned - how the heck am I supposed to do this when I couldn’t bring myself to meditate or even sit still before?
The three-word answer: Short. Guided. Meditation.
Thank goodness (or should I say Universe?) for Youtube. I found a couple of short (as in 3-minutes), guided meditations from Deepak Chopra (basically the only name I recognized from that world), and decided to try it.
It. Was. Amazing.
The key to establishing a long-term relationship with something you want, that might be uncomfortable at first, is to start slow. And boy, did I.
Short, guided meditations allowed me to two liberations at the start of my journey:
To know what I should be thinking about the whole time (and not just my breath until I couldn’t remember how to breathe)
To know that there was a time limit, and that the meditation wouldn’t last forever (because sometimes it does).
With time, I eventually bumped up my time to a 5-minute meditation (hey, it was a big deal okay?), to a 10-minute guided meditation, and when I felt ready, I gave it a go on my own.
I gave my meditations a little bit of structure to continue feeling guided:
Starting with gratitude - thanking the Universe for a few things that morning
Repeating an affirmation
Using my mala from The Mala Collective - it’s 108 beads and I actually started by meditating on half of them because I did not have the patience to do the whole thing. To read more about malas check out my blog post “The Beautiful, Powerful, Mala”
Visualizing something I desired/was manifesting
Asking the Universe for what I was manifesting
Taking a few deep breaths to really calm myself down
Et voila! Suddenly 10 minutes has gone by. And the first time I hit 20 minutes “unguided” I was so proud of myself.
So there you go, if you’re looking to begin a meditation practice, the key is to start with help, and for short periods of time and build from there. If you need some ideas for videos, be sure to check out the “Meditations on Youtube” section of the Spiritual Resources page on my website!
P.S. It’s June 21, and I’ve manage to meditate every single day so far, sometimes even twice!
