Beginners Guide To Meditation

Beginners Guide to Meditation

When it comes to meditation there are hundreds of books, videos, and guides out there. My goal is to create a simple and easy guide that anyone can follow and understand in a few minutes. This is how I currently meditate and I learned this method from the book The Mind Illuminated by Culadasa which I highly recommend if you want to learn more about meditation techniques.

Do’s 

1. Sit with your back straight. You can do this either in a chair or on the floor. If you do it on the floor I suggest you sit criss cross or in lotus position. I sit criss crossed with my back straight against the wall. I do not suggest meditating while lying down, especially as a beginner as it makes it very easy to fall asleep.
2. Before you start, take in three deep breaths and exhale with some force. This just gets you in the mode to meditate.
3. Only breathe through your nose. Keep your face relaxed and tongue lightly pressed against the roof of your mouth. 
4. Focus on one of these; the space in your nose where you feel the air moving in and out of your nose, the rising and falling of your belly as you inhale and exhale, or the space between your eyebrows. 
5. With each inhale then exhale count one rep and count up to ten. You will get lost in thought many many times, that’s ok, that’s why we practice. Each time you notice yourself getting lost in your thoughts, stop and just sit there and notice that you got lost; then reset your focus back on your spot and start counting back up to ten from one. I like to think that each time I get lost in my thoughts and bring my awareness back to my breath, that I have just completed one “awareness rep” and it’s building my “awareness strength”.

Don’ts

1. Don’t try to stop yourself from thinking because it will not work. 
2. Don’t plan things in your head while you meditate. When you sit down to meditate you will not have control of your thoughts, they will just come and go, but you will have control of whether or not you sit there and plan your day or life. When you sit down and meditate you will see what I am talking about. Just focus on your breath.
3. Don’t give up after one session.
4. Don’t expect every session to be a life changing session. Meditating is like anything in life that takes practice, you will have good sessions and you will have bad sessions. As long as you don’t give up you will get better and better.

I suggest starting small. If you are one of the people who thinks you have ADD or ADHD, and think you can’t meditate… you are wrong. Anyone can meditate and become good at it, but people who have ADD or ADHD just might take longer to get better. I would suggest starting at a very low amount of time, like five minutes, and then each day you successfully complete the full time you have set for yourself, increase the time by ten seconds. 

Thank you for reading this far and if you have any questions email me (ianocampo95@gmail.com) or DM me on Instagram (i_oca95). Thank you and have a good day.