How To Meditate: 5 Easy Tips for Beginners E81
February 14, 2023
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Meditation is becoming bigger and bigger and still, most people have never tried it or just dabbled in it. If you are one of those and don’t really know where to start or if you are doing it right, this episode is for you! I will give you 5 easy tips that cover everything you need to know to start meditating. Let’s get started!
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As part of my program, my clients learn to meditate as one of the tools that helps them to change. And most of them have tried out meditation once or twice before but never really understood how to do it. I collected all of their questions and created this episode for anyone who wants to finally try it out.
Meditation is hugely powerful and transformative but with everything we do for the first time, it can feel clunky and hard at the beginning. In this episode I will help you understand why that is and what to do about it to move past this beginner’s phase and don’t give up.
Stop feeling like a Beginner, Start Meditating
I have so many little tips and tricks for you so you feel more confident that you can get started. Most of the time we don’t try something out because we just don’t know how to start. And we don’t like to feel helpless or waste our time when we just don’t know how to do it. I will give you just enough information so you can go ahead at the end of this episode and give it a go straight away.
And if you tried out meditation before and just don’t know if you were doing it right, we will cover that as part of my tips. There are a lot of misconceptions out there about what should happen when we meditate – but you will find out that it’s much easier than you think and that if it feels like you are doing it wrong, most of the time you are actually doing it right. Sounds like a good plan? Perfect!
Feel confident enough to give meditation a GO
Just a few years ago, I was exactly where you are now. I thought meditation was for relaxing and stress relief. And did help with that! But thinking that meditation is just for relaxation is missing all the other opportunities. Meditation is so much more and can help you in about every part of your life and health.
I have other episodes where I go into more detail on the benefits of meditation if you are interested. Today I just want you to move FROM not knowing how to get started or if you are doing it right TO having enough information to feel confident enough to give it a go.
Your future self will thank you that you started today. So let’s get started with the 5 Easy Tips!
Tip 1: Meditation Environment, Body & Time
> Find a quiet place where you are undisturbed and can sit comfortably. Don’t use your bed as your body associates it with sleep and we want to meditate – and not sleep. The same applies to the position. I want you to sit upright but as comfortably as possible. Don’t meditate lying down unless you meditate to fall asleep or the guided meditation says so. Lying down means your body falls asleep. And there is nothing wrong with falling asleep in your meditation – it happens – but we actually want to work on something in our meditation, so let’s sit upright so our body does not get the message to fall asleep.
> If you are a beginner, don’t sit on the floor in an advanced meditation position. Sit on a comfortable chair where your back is straight and your legs at a 90-degree angle, feet on the floor. Your back can lean on the back of the chair or a cushion but your head stays free – again just another reason for your body to think it can fall asleep if you rest your head.
> Take care of bodily distractions before meditating: use the restroom, take a small drink so you are not thirsty, and use a blanket so you don’t get cold. Take away all possibilities for your body to be distracted during your meditation.
> If you can, wear something comfortable and remove any items you don’t need like your glasses, scarves, watches, and belts. Make it as freeing and as comfortable as possible.
> Make sure you have the right amount of time for your meditation. give yourself enough time so that you don’t think or worry that you do have not enough time. Just another distraction that your mind could use during the meditation.
Tip 2: Select a guided meditation
If you are a beginner to meditation I want you to start with a guided meditation. You want someone that guides you during the meditation practice. Later on, when you exactly know what you are doing, you can meditate without it and guide yourself. But don’t try to do it yourself. There are enough resources out there to make it easy for you – and most of them are even free or at a low cost.
How do you find guided meditations? There are Meditation Apps that you can use like Calm or Insight Timer. Lots of people use meditations from certain people that they like and follow. The easiest way to find good guided meditations is by using YouTube. There are millions of guided meditations available and the cool thing is that you can just search for one that helps you with what you are trying to achieve.
I particularly like to use meditations for certain purposes and that’s why I create them. I will provide you with all of my free meditations on YouTube for you to check out.
Tip 3: Mastering Your Mind
When your mind starts to wander, do not get discouraged. Have you ever heard the expression of the monkey mind or the chatting mind? This is how one part of our human mind is often referred to as constantly jumping around, ruminating or chatting useless or harmful information. And it needs practice to quieten and calm down that mind when we begin to meditate.
So when you have thoughts during your meditation or realise that you did not listen anymore to the guided meditation and rather thought about what happened earlier at work or what you need to do later that day, don’t get discouraged. That is part of practising meditation. Do not get emotional or judge yourself for doing it wrong. It’s the normal process of meditation.
The more you practice, the better you will get at it. You will notice over time and with enough practice that you can focus your mind better and that your monkey mind is much quieter in general.
Tip 4: Mastering your Body
Don’t be surprised if your body reacts to the stillness you are creating. Think of your body as a dog that needs to be trained to listen to its owner. Take charge and tell your body who the boss is when it tries to get up or gives you some aches.
When you feel restless and you realize you are getting frustrated, calm down. That is the moment where it will feel like you are doing your meditation wrong and that it’s not working – but believe me, it’s working and you just have to stick it out until your body will let go and let you be the boss.
Tip 5: Highest Impact through Consistency
You can create the highest impact through meditation for yourself through Consistency. You will make bigger changes in your life if you meditate for 5 minutes most days instead of meditating for 1 hour once or twice per month.
It’s not all about the length you meditate for, it’s not about what meditation you complete and not in which way. Truly, it’s all about consistency.
It’s like learning to play a new sport. You go regularly to the training sessions, maybe once or even twice per week instead of just once every few months. You know you won’t get any good at it if you just play the sport a couple of times per year. But if you play regularly and go to regular practice over time you know you will get better at it.
And yes, the more you practice the better you get at it. It means you will get quicker or bigger results. That applies to most things in life. And so it applies as well to your meditation practice.
Review: 5 Easy Tips for Beginners
So let’s review the 5 tips again so you are ready to get started:
- Make sure that your environment, body and time are set up right for your meditation.
- Select a guided meditation for your needs.
- Master your mind by accepting it to be part of the meditation process.
- Master your body by training it to know who the boss is.
- Consistency is key to getting the best benefit out of meditation.
So now you are ready to go and find yourself a meditation and get started. I believe in you!
Now you know how to meditate
There is this beautiful saying by Confucius: “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
Just keep practising and over time you will get really good at it and you will reap the magnificent benefits.
Love yourself enough to do this!
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You Might Also Like
- Searching for a Morning / Evening Routine? Look no further! Episode 97
- Why should I try to meditate? Episode 34
- My Meditation Journey So Far Episode 14
Get stuff done while meditating
Purposeful meditations are the most effective way to meditate to change your life and turn it into the future you desired for so long.
I used purposeful meditations to overcome my burnout, completely changing my life for the better and enjoying my life more than I ever have done before. And you can too!
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