Meditation for Beginners
If you have decided that you are going to start meditating, it means that you are searching for a way to help increase the health of your mind. But at the very same time, you may also be wondering how you are going to begin? What are the basics that you need to know in order to be successful? How is it going to make you feel? What should you expect after you have started?
These are all going to be very normal questions that most people who are thinking about starting meditation are going to have. With that being said, here is everything that you need to know about meditation and what it can do for you.
You Want to Start Meditating?
If you are a first-time meditator, there is a very good chance that you are going to find sitting in silence, reflecting on your innermost thoughts, doing nothing, to be very awkward. In fact, it may even feel as though it is somewhat alien to you. Just know that it is ok to feel this way.
Keep in mind that people have been using different meditation techniques for the past 3,000 years, most of those people more than likely feeling the very same way that you are right now. With that being said, just know that it is going to become easier and less weird after you have successfully completed a couple of meditation sessions.
Just be sure that you focus on why you started meditating in the first place. Maybe it was so that you would be less reactive to certain situations. Maybe you wanted to decrease the amount of stress that you feel every day. Or maybe you simply wanted to be more focused. No matter the reason you are starting meditation, it will be able to help you widen your personal development to some degree.
At the same time, maybe you aren’t doing this for you. Maybe you are trying to improve a relationship you have with the people around you. Again, it really doesn’t matter what the reason is. When you are training your mind with meditation, you are also going to be increasing your awareness. When you can increase your awareness, you are going to be able to change your entire perspective on life.
Experiencing Meditation
When you first close your eyes to listen to the meditation instructions that you are following (whether that be in-person or through a recording), you should have an expectation that your mind is going to be very busy, restless, and easily distracted. Just because you have decided that you are going to sit there and meditate does not mean that you are suddenly going to experience some type of uninterrupted calm. Just think about taming a wild horse overnight. It is simply not going to happen like that.
The entire process of meditation is going to be pretty easy, that meaning all you have to do is sit there and practice. Simply close your eyes, focus all of your efforts on your breathing, and simply let your mind do what it does. In fact, this is actually going to be the one thing where you don’t actually have to do anything in order to achieve something.
Just be sure that you keep in mind that there is not going to be anything that is considered good or bad when it comes to meditation. There is, however, going to be awareness and non-awareness. As soon as you realize that you are lost in your thoughts, that is considered awareness and is when you will return to your object of focus (which is normally going to be your breath). Just keep repeating this process of returning from your thoughts to your breathing, each time remembering to hone your awareness.
With more practice, you will find that the amount of time between your awareness and your distraction, will start to grow longer and longer.
Before You Start
Before you start your meditation journey, you should spend some time to get familiar with yourself and how your mind works. This will help you to get an idea of what you can expect when you start to sit down and actually meditate.
While you must know that meditation is not going to be able to solve all of your problems or answer all of your questions, it is going to be able to help you change how it is that you are relating, reacting, and even viewing the different circumstances that are around you every single day.
With the consistent practice of meditation, you can expect a change to occur in a very gradual, subtle, and even intangible way. It will help to increase your awareness of your surroundings, but also help you to understand all of those changes as well. If you are looking for a way that you can start feeling better about not only yourself but about others too, then meditation may be exactly what you are looking for.
