Meditation is a technique anyone can begin using right away to…
- Bring more clarity into your life
- Control negative thoughts and emotions
- Balance your emotional state (lessening the high’s and low’s)
- Help manage feelings such as “loss of control” or utter “frustration”
- Set the foundation for greater self awareness, finding one’s purpose and living a happier, more fulfilling life
- Bring calmness and peace to an otherwise stressful life
- Lower blood pressure, help control pain and improve one’s overall state of being
Tall order right?
So many people have tried and have given up on meditation because they just haven’t found a way to make it work for them.
Correct…if meditation is frustrating, too hard or too complicated then you will not get the benefit and certainly will quit.
So, how can we make meditation easier?
1. Manage Expectations.
Many people begin meditation thinking that they should be able to immediately calm their mind and slip into some wonderful peaceful space within minutes of starting. The reality however is that meditation is more a state where you have unconditional acceptance of your thoughts (and you should expect to have many racing through your mind in the beginning). So instead of fighting those thoughts, accept them unconditionally (as if you are watching someone else’s brain) without judgement – this will actually result in a calming of the mind. The techniques outlined in Attracting Greatness take you through exercises that guarantee a meditative state – no matter what your current frame of mind.
2. Know What Relaxes You
For meditation, there is no one size fits all. For some, listening to a soothing voice helps them achieve different levels of meditation whereas I prefer sounds that bring me peace such as ocean waves or birds singing. Whatever stimulus you decide to use, it should be somewhat repetitive. Even a ticking clock can provide a terrific stimulus for meditation.
3. Have Faith
Your first few weeks of meditation should be without expectation. Just do it! What I found with meditation is that your first few weeks give you moderate satisfaction, but it is really after that first few weeks when you begin to see the real differences. Differences in your emotional state, differences in how easy it is to enter a meditative state and an ability to better control the depth of meditation you enter. It takes faith until you reach this point.
4. Rinse and Repeat
Like anything we want to master in life, practice makes perfect. With meditation, whatever you do – be consistent. I like to meditate for 15-20 minutes twice a day – once when I am first up and once in the early evening (when you finish work or after dinner). If you miss too many sessions you will need to begin again. If you can maintain continuity, you will find meditation so much easier and more effective.
5. You Deserve This Time
When I really mastered meditation some 15-years ago, I convinced myself that above all else I deserved this 15-20 minutes each day. This was MY time and if I was to be an effective, happy and fun person, then this time is more important than anything else in life. If you do not feel you deserve the time, then you will let that time be impacted by other things in your life and soon you will have quit. So commit to this 15-20 minutes of meditation as being SACRED time for you…then sit back and enjoy your experience.
If you are finding it challenging to meditate, study these 5 tips…after all, these 5 tips are the basis for us turning around years of frustration trying to meditate into a wonderful, simple practice that is now as normal as breathing for us. Best of all, the longer you stick with meditation, the easier it will get and the more benefit you will see in your life.
Have a tip on meditation or a question? Leave us a comment.
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