How to Meditate

The only prerequisite to meditation is that you know how to breathe. If you are reading this, congratulations! You can meditate.

Everyone can meditate, even you.

I started trying to meditate back in 2010. At the time, I had a roommate who turned out to be an alcoholic. I found out in the second week after he moved in. Living with someone who has a substance abuse issue will wreak havoc in your home and creates issues with every other part of your life. I came to realize that trying to reason with an intoxicated person was a waste of my time and energy. I wasn’t relaxing at home because my roommate was drunk every evening and partying on my couch like a 20-year-old college girl. I was sleep deprived due to the noise and that started to affect my work. My mind was foggy, I felt stuck and unable to think.

At the time, I came across an article that recommended meditation for various reasons but what stood out to me was a sentence that read, “If you ever feel stuck or at a crossroads, meditate for 5 minutes and soon enough you will be able to know exactly what you should do.”

I was desperate! I felt like I had nothing to lose and anything to gain.

The next day, during my lunch break I walked through the streets of downtown Honolulu trying to find a spot to sit and close my eyes. A block away from my place of work was the Honolulu Post office. It contained a hall that had somewhere to sit where I could lean my back against a pillar and no foot traffic. Plants and grass framed the pillars, and this made me feel peaceful and calm. it was perfect!

I took out my phone and set the timer for five minutes. I closed my eyes and listened to all the sounds around me like I had read to do. I thought I would find this distracting, but it was soothing. I listened and 2 minutes into it a thought popped into my head! My sister was leaving Hawaii and moving to Dallas which meant that she was vacating her BEAUTIFUL apartment. I was sure her roommates would be looking for a new roommate. Why had this not occurred to me before! Sure, I had the lease in my name for my current apartment but with the right negotiations, I could get out of it and into this other place. I felt scared because I would have to make many maneuvers and being tired, everything seemed much more difficult. But the possibilities elated me.

I continued to meditate five minutes during my lunch break in the coming weeks as self-therapy from all the chaos at home. Soon after that realization, I moved into that apartment that overlooked the city, ocean, and mountains. It had a wonderful pool surrounded by plants and mountains. I floated in that same pool facing to the clear blue skies and I recognized a familiar feeling. I had experienced this sensation time and time again during my meditation and here I was, reliving it in reality. I ended up having a wonderful new roommate from Lomas Linda and we had the best conversations in the evenings. I am still friends with her to this day. Shout out to her if she is reading this! You know who you are!

I could have booted my old roommate out and kept the apartment but instead, I went into a new path that led me to a better place with wonderful new people.

It’s true when I tell my friends that I only learned to meditate as my last resort.

Now that I have been meditating consistently, I can give you tricks that I’ve learned through my own experience and pass down helpful advice from friends who are more experienced.

Tips to Start your Meditation Practice

Making it a habit is KEY!
Choose a place where you will always meditate. This will give your mind cues that it’s meditation time and you will start to build associations.
Meditation isn’t about keeping uncomfortable poses for long periods of time. It’s about breathing and having your spine aligned.

As you can see above, she has her spine stacked and aligned. Also, her thighs are lowered than her waist, this will open your diaphragm and allow you to breathe easier. You can prop yourself up with a cushion, towel, block, or whatever you can find to sit on and feel comfortable. Anything works if you’re comfortable. This is important.
Meditate in the morning. I meditate first thing in the morning and away from my bed as suggested by a friend. I’ve noticed that my mind is calmer in the mornings and this makes it easier to enter into a meditative state.
If you find it difficult to relax, use the rule of 3 – Take a deep breath, hold it for 4 seconds, breath out and repeat this 3 times. This will cause your body to tense up and release, automatically putting you in a calmer state.

Some days will be good, and some days will be a struggle. The important thing is that you showed up to meditate.

How do I Start my Meditation Practice?

Tonight, set your alarm 15 minutes before your usual waking time.
Go to sleep
Wake up when your alarm goes off.
Walk to your designated area (Don’t meditate near your bed. If you see your bed you will get right back in it. Trust me on this!)
Make sure your back is supported with some type of backrest (chair, sitting against a wall or a couch. The possibilities are endless. Keep your back straight- no slouching.)
Set alarm for 10 minutes. (you spent 5 mins trying to do all the above).
Close your eyes. Focus on your breathing coming in and out your nose. Listen to your surroundings. Always maintain a steady flow with your breathing.
The alarm goes off. Done!

You did it! Don’t worry if you got distracted. There is always tomorrow and the day after that.

Great job you!

You have officially meditated, and you are on your way to making it a habit!

Now you can go off into your day and tackle whatever comes your way.

Meditation Tips for Beginners:

When you first start to meditate, don’t force yourself too much to focus. Allow yourself to feel whatever feelings you have been suppressing for a while. You finally sat down and are in a quiet place, things will come up. You might realize that you are upset and start crying. Do it! See this as a moment of purging. Make room for you. It will be difficult to enter a meditative state if you have something tugging away at you. Get rid of the baggage first.

When you meditate feel your feelings. You feel a lump in your throat? A pain in your stomach? Whatever it is that you are sensing, sense it. Once you focus on your body, you will start to digest whatever you feel, and it will surface and dissipate.

Meditation is about giving yourself room to feel what you don’t have time to feel during the day. Once you get rid of what is holding you up, then you will feel inner peace. Because you allowed whatever was bothering you to surface, and then it’s gone, forever. Well, until the next time. Which is why you are going to meditate every day! Meditation gives you the opportunity to listen to your body, mind, and spirit. It’s your time to love and care for yourself.

-K

The Experience of the Mind

I sat on my patio watching the sunset when I had an epiphany!

We experience EVERYTHING through our minds.

I found this thought very comforting. If we experience everything through the lens of our own minds and we REALIZE that we can use our will to exert control of what we think or stop thinking, then we are ULTIMATELY in control of how we experience the world. Putting your perception on check for your own greatest good, feels,… well…, so damn empowering!

I often see how- we get bogged down with circumstances, people, thoughts, etc… But meditation has taught me a very useful skill and that is to exert my will over that wily brain of ours! By doing this, I am also choosing the type of interactions I have with others and thereby my experiences.

“You should not let anyone, or anything dominate your mind.”- This was taught to me by a very wise person. This is a quick way to become prisoners of your own making. There is no worse prison than a prison that you are unable to escape- your mind.

Our imagination is very powerful, our minds are very powerful and if left unchecked, they can cause us real issues in our lives. It can cause us to experience life at the mercy of our own preoccupations.

I’m currently reading The Wisdom of the Shaman by Don Jose Ruiz and he explains that in the Toltec tradition, when someone begins to regularly practice awareness, they say he or she is now called a Toltec Hunter, because they begin stalking their mind and watching for thoughts or beliefs that no longer serve them. The Toltec Hunter defeats his thoughts instead of allowing them to drag him back into suffering.

If we kill thoughts that are burdensome then we can have a pause to truly experience our surroundings, our relationships, our reality with an open and receptive way without the baggage. When we are open and receptive, we experience peace and wonder.

And so, to my fellow Toltec hunters, I wish you all happy hunting and may we all come to know the power that resides in each of us.

-K

Meditation: Reducing The Chaos

It is so easy to forget that we are in charge. That we have tools. You have something that no circumstance can take away and that is your will.

I know, sometimes it feels that we can think our way into finding whatever answer we are seeking if we just spend more time thinking about it. But in fact, your mind needs to step back in order to get some clarity.

So how can you use your will to get your mind to work for you, not the other way around? Meditate.

You sit down, close your eyes and use your will to focus on breathing through your nose. Meditation trains your mind to concentrate on a single point. In this case, it’s the feeling of oxygen coming into and out your nose. This is the anchor. Your mind will want to start thinking about everything else. Stop! Focus on feeling that nice oxygen going in and out your body. This is your anchor.

This is why mediation is like strength training for your will.

Sit down.

Breathe through your nose.

When you catch yourself looping something over in your mind. Breathe through your nose. Focus on your breathing as if your life depended on it. Before you know it, you will feel better because you officially willed yourself into having peace of mind.

Success!

Gentle Reminder:

Take it in strides. No one ever went to the gym and started bench pressing hundreds of pounds on their first day, or second day or well, you get the point.

Your will is the boss of your mind. Your breathing is the motion that keeps you anchored. Keep at it, it WILL get easier.

-K

Tag: Meditation