How to Meditate – 7 Top Tips to make your Journey into Meditation more focused!
Everyone can meditate right? Surely you just close your eyes, focus and Zen like enlightenment will just start to flow right? Well yes, for some people that is certainly true, but for others it can take time, practice and patience to get into the zone of meditation. With these 7 little tips I hope I can help make your journey into meditation smoother, cleaner and spiritually deeper!
1 - Be in the right frame of mind to start with! You’ve just had a stressed day at work, Your children are normally Angels but not today, You got a parking ticket and are having a crap day all round, You just need to meditate? Well I would say yes you do, but don’t go straight to it in that stressed out/angry/resentful/negative frame of mind. Create a small gap between. The best way for me is to have a Himaylan Salt Bath! I write about this magic salt here if you want to read why, but it’s a great way to create a small gap so you can start to unwind and cleanse energy as well as your body. Maybe have a quick snack, but just use the time to mentally start to let go of the stress of the past day and focus on the forthcoming peaceful meditation. Turn off your phone and if possible wifi connections in the house or the room you intend you use. Put comfortable loose clothing on.
2 - Cleanse the room and yourself before meditation where possible! No, I don’t mean reach for the Hoover or Duster, I mean in a spiritual sense. Burn White Sage, Palo Santo Wood, Oil burners containing Myrrh, Frankincense, Copal or Dragons Blood to cleanse the surrounding area. Walk around the area with it burning, you can use a shell to contain it, and maybe draw your favourite scared symbols in the air with the smoke or say a positive affirmation such as “ Remove the Negativity, Replace with Positivity !” Light your favourite incense cone/stick or use a Diffuser and place in the corner of the room so it can slowly diffuse over the next 45 mins or so. Use 100% Natural Oils on your 3rd eye Chakra and a little dab on your Crown Chakra. My Healing Oils are perfect for this, but you could also make your own blends or simply buy one or two oils you like from a Holistic or Health food shop. This just takes a few minutes to do all this, and not only does it purify the room and yourself of negativity, it lifts the senses and gives a lovely sense of ritual and preparation for meditating. As you are cleansing just take nice deep breaths of the aromas and start to slow down your pace and heart beat, moving gently around with the purpose and intention of removing and cleansing negative energy.
3 - Choose between Dream Yoga (laying down) or Meditation ( Seated with the hips higher than the feet). If you are unsure what these are please read my blog on the subject here!
4 - Use your Hands and Voice! Using Hand Mudras and Mantra vocalisations helps us to focus on specific areas of the body, mind or aspects we would like to focus on changing. There are many Youtube videos that show Hand Mudra positions and also beautiful recordings or Mantras that you can listen to in the background or maybe learn for yourself. The repeating of Mantras focuses the mind or evokes certain beings or feelings such as :
This Buddhist Mantra evokes many different things, to many different people, so to understand the full teaching of this Mantra you would need to learn for yourself and seek higher knowledge on the subject as I still do seek....
You could also make your own mantras up - ones that are personal to you or simply repeat key positive sentences to yourself such as :
“ I wish to be at Peace. I wish for Peace and Love from my Heart for Others and for Myself”
or
“I wish that all my Chakras are open, bright and vibrant! Resonating in Perfect Unity”
There is no wrong or right thing to say only that it helps you, but say it from your heart, either out loud or repeated in your head and believe in yourself and the power of your intentions.
5 - Visualise and Breath! This is the key part to deeper meditation. On the Inhale breath imagine the whole of the universe around you is entering into your Crown Chakra, right through the top of the skull and down through every Chakra in your body. If you need to know more about Chakras then please click here! Take beautiful deep breaths and imagine your breath going deep down into your body right to the bottom of your stomach and even lower! Hold the breath comfortably and really take in the sensation of the Universe and all it’s love flowing into you. Feel your Heart Chakra in particular opening up and filling with Love from the Universe. It is inside you, as one with you, and you are inside of it and you are at one with it! On the Exhale breath imagine all that beautiful energy you just took in is now pushing it’s way down your legs and out of the souls of your feet. On its way down the energy is gathering any negative feelings you have accumulated during the day, any anger or negative feelings and thoughts. These unwanted energies travel out and away from us exiting the feet and shooting down into Mother Earth to be absorbed! Do not worry about sending your troubles down into Mother Earth, she Loves you and will easily absorb such things! Continue this breathing and visualising until you literally feel you have no more negative energy to release.
6 - There is no right or wrong amount of time to meditate! Continue to meditate for as long as you need to, some days will be longer than others, some days will be shorter than others. Try not to focus on the time spent, but do what you need to do to feel more at Peace.
7 - Say Thankyou to yourself after meditating for making the effort in yourself! This is so important and yes it feels a little silly to say thankyou to yourself, but you need to acknowledge that you just actively did something to make yourself feel better. You didn’t dwell in the crappy day, crack open a bottle of wine or start a row with your partner because you were stressed....you went and dissolved the negativity, nurtured your energy and deserve to be congratulated with a simple thankyou to yourself. A Heart Felt well done from me as well for investing in your higher self today!
Meditating not only brings you inner peace, compassion and connection but from a Holistic Therapists point of view you Ladies and Gentlemen that are doing it are stopping negativity in its tracks!!! That is why I love people that are mindful and meditate. You get up each morning and some days negative people and circumstances are just thrown your way all day sometimes, sometimes days after days or months after months. Those people who choose to dwell in the negativity and carry on its journey from person to person by taking the attitude “ well so and so or such and such pissed me off today so I’m going to piss off others with my mood now!” will always be caught in a cycle of negativity. But those who choose to stop negativity in its tracks by methods such as meditating will always be able to release and find Peace.
I wish you well in your Meditations and releasing of negative energy!
Namaha, Lisa x
