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Beyond making the commitment to a daily practice, learning how to sit whenmeditatingis the first step in learning how to meditate.
Give the meditation steps and basic skills outlined below a try for one week. Consider it a one-week meditation experiment. Make a commitment to follow these simple steps every day of the week.
What You’ll Do
Sitting is the best position for beginning meditation. If you lie down, especially in the beginning, you risk losing awareness and falling asleep. Sitting in an alert position keeps you awake and focused, but frees your mind from having to process information (like where to put your feet). While you are sitting, you will practice focusing on something. It could be an image, a word, or your breath.
Basic Meditation for Stress Management
How It Works
Meditation is about making the mind still while keeping the body awake, but relaxed. In order for mental stillness to happen, you must first make your body still. To do that, you will sit. While you are sitting, your mind will want to roam everywhere from your to-do lists to your worries or event to where you want to go on vacation.
Get Motivated for Week 1
Meditation is not about making your brain stop thinking — that is impossible. Your brain doesn’t stop generating thoughts even when you’re asleep. Meditation is really about not nurturing the thoughts that come. By developing your skill of “letting go” of thoughts, feelings, and ideas that spontaneously occur, you’ll be able to experience the calming benefits of meditation, which include:relaxation, stress reduction, more accurate perspective on your problems, enhanced creativity, and increased energy. But it all starts with learning how to sit for meditation.
The Steps: Schedule, Sit, and Focus
Your Meditation Commitment This Week:“I will sit and focus for at least five minutes every day this week.”
Tips to Help You Along the Way
When meditating in your car, you are guaranteed time to yourself and freedom from most interruptions.
Ready for More Meditation?
If you are feeling ambitious, add a second practice session to your day. A session in the morning and one at the end of the day can be very interesting. Notice how your mind behaves differently at different times of the day. Perhaps in the morning, it is easier to sit calmly, or perhaps you are revved up and thinking about the day ahead. By experimenting at different times of day, you’ll be strengthening your meditation habit.
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