My thoughts keep racing!!!! How to start meditating for beginners
Someone asked me a great question yesterday and that question was “Do you meditate daily?”
And in the moment I answer them by saying “No, I do not meditate daily but I incorporate meditation into my life.”
And the person asked a follow-up question: “Okay so what do you mean the incorporate meditation into your life?”
So that’s what this video is about today how I personally incorporate mindfulness meditation into my daily life.
Essentially, I make sure I breathe deep (a great tip to manage food cravings too!).
My belly expands as I inhale. This is super important!
This is the easiest breathing technique to incorporate!
And as I thought about what to say of this video I realized a couple things:
- I never officially meditate
- Also I don’t like the word meditate
- However, I do take breaks to relax, check in, and breathe into my belly.
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And this third point, that I relax, I take some breaks, during the day I check in, I feel my body, I try to listen my gut feelings, to take a moment to think about my day – this is central to who I am.
This is so important to me.
Earlier today for example, I had to drive and meet someone and I had a headache, and didn’t get enough sleep, and so during this car ride I am just riding in silence, feeling the vibrations of the car, loosely following my breath, just getting centered in my body.
I’m not meditating.
I’m not sitting down officially, lighting some incense, crossing my legs, and rigidly following my breath.
This is extremely casual and it’s part of me, it’s part of my life.
And to be clear another really important aspect of my ‘centering’ activities, I do go to meditation groups maybe twice a month, and I do go for walks where I walk in silence and just try to feel and breath and so forth.
But the main thing I’m trying to communicate here is that I myself, I’ll call myself a meditation expert because I’ve put in a lot of time meditating, I’ve lived as a monks for 13 months, I’ve done over 10 silent retreats each over a week long I’ve led meditation groups, I’ve taught hundreds of yoga classes, I have read dozens of books on meditation, and even I don’t feel that an official meditation practice suits me.
And I’m okay with that.
So my advice on how to start meditating would be to chillout for a few minutes each day – and deep breathe.
Deep breathing is so easy! And it’s one of the best tips to stop food cravings!
Not too deep. Just making sure that you are inhaling without going too shallow.
In official meditation practice, for me it comes with a lot of baggage.
It comes with a lot of perfectionist standards – like trying to relax, trying to clear my mind, trying to sit upright with a straight spine, trying to not fidget, trying to find 10 minutes per day 2 meditate.
So whenever I officially try to meditate I just put too much pressure on myself. And so… I don’t officially meditate.
Also, I don’t like the word meditate.
But I do… reflect. I think I like the word “reflect” if I had to settle on one word, instead of meditate. That word would be reflect. Just by reflecting you naturally learn how to take care of yourself and others.
I take time to reflect each day and sometimes my reflections are just trying to feel my body, but other times my reflections are planning out the rest of the day.
I think the key thing is is that this is a relatively low energy activity, it relaxes me, and honestly that’s about it.
So… I just wanted to share with you my thoughts about how I personally do this meditation thing and and how I make it work for me.
What are your thoughts how do you make meditation work for you?
