Motionless motion, how can you move without moving? You can do that with meditation. By practicing mediation, you are moving your brain, exercising it in a sense. Meditation has proven to help improve memories, calm your nervous system, bring self-awareness and many other benefits as well.
Meditation, many ask how it works. 12, 23, 18, 7, 26, 9, 5 those all sound like lottery numbers but they are different types of meditation. All those steps can become overwhelming, and it is, but meditation is meant to improve yourself, not cause more stress and anxiety to make sure it is being done correctly.
How to meditate you may ask. Searching google can give you many answers. Mostly finding that you should find good seating in a nice quiet space. Close your eyes and breathe naturally, focusing on your breath. Sounds simple and to the point but it can be overwhelming when you see so many tips to follow. At that point it seems like you are having more anxiety by the thought and effort that you feel like you need put into mediation.
Every method does not work for everyone and messing it up is not a thing. Meditation is something that is impossible to get wrong and there is no wrong or right way to do it.
I am not sure of why our human brains must make sure that everything is perfect, but there has been no such thing since Jesus walked this earth. By doing some reading on meditation there are different positions that you can meditate in, one being sitting on the floor and the other is laying down.
Meditating sitting on the floor is the most popular method, it can prevent you from falling asleep and keeping you aware. With lying down you it can be more comfortable and feel better for back but you also risk falling asleep. You should find the position that works best for you so you can stay awake, focus on your breathing, and stay aware.
With me, every morning I wake up between 5-5:30am I enjoy the stillness and darkness in the house. I sit on the floor with a heating pad at my feet, my spine aligned straight, sitting with my legs crossed. I rest my hands on my knees and let my arms rest by my sides, relaxing my shoulders. It is so relaxing in a nice cool dark room, focusing on my breath, feet warm and toasty and it is a nice quiet way to start a busy day.
If you decide to meditate on your back, I feel like the yoga position corpse would be the best position to mediate. The corpse position is lying on your back with you arms by your side with your palms facing towards the sky. In both positions it is so important to relax the shoulders, it will allow for the rest of your body to relax.
I also practice mantra meditation. A mantra is a “statement or slogan repeated frequently”. Your mantra can be any phrase that you repeat while mediating. It will help you to focus especially if your mind starts to drift and with me that happens all the time. I love this type of mediation for myself because while concentrating I am reminding myself of a major goal I would like to obtain in life. My mantra currently is “change my thoughts, change my world” this mantra for me helps me change my perspective on how I look at things, makes me think twice before making decisions and reacting to certain situations in life.
Once you find out what position is comfortable for you and if you like come up with a positive mantra that will help you focus on your goals at hand. I also feel like having complete silence while mediating is best. They do make meditation music, but for me music with words or listening to jazz, I start to bob to the beat instead of focusing on my breath and my mantra. The next thing I wondered about was how long I need to sit or lay for mediation to become effective and how long would it be before I started to see the results that mediation brings.
During the pandemic Jay Shetty started doing daily mediations for 7 minutes every day, which brought my attention to the benefits that mediation brings and practicing it has brought to my everyday life. Every morning I try to mediation for 7 to 20 minutes to start my day, to become more aware, it relaxes me on my drive to work, gives me less anxiety and helps me to stay in the moment of what is happening instead of feeling cloudy headed or thinking of what the day may bring.
Daily meditation also helps me throughout the day as well. I suffer from anxiety and at any given time I can have a panic attack. I rely on my breathing to calm myself down, the same breathing I practice when I mediate, focusing on my breath during a panic attack and saying my mantra while breathing brings me down to earth and to a leveled ground.
Meditation has helped in so many ways. I never would have thought that taking out 7 to 20 minutes in the morning, having that time to myself, changes my entire outlook for the rest of the day. Missing a day of mediation is an odd day for me, feeling like I throw my entire day off if that time in the morning is not set aside. I have practiced meditation for a few months now, I started feeling less anxious within a few weeks of being consistent with it, and realize I said CONSISTENT. Practicing daily brings about change, just like exercising daily brings change as well. Exercise is not only for our physical body, practice learning how to exercise your brain as well with motionless motion.
