Meditation is a form of mental practice to help clear the mind and relax the body. It is commonly used to help cope with stress and every day occurrences in life. According to webmd.com, “…if practiced for as few as 10 minutes per day can help [people] control stress, decrease anxiety, improve cardiovascular health, and achieve a greater capacity for relaxation.”
Choosing a Place to Meditate
The point of meditation is to calm the mind, relax the body and clear away the negativity and distractions of life. For this a person needs a comfortable, quiet place to practice. It needs to be free of noise that would be distracting such as television, loud music or children. Soft, non-lyrical, music can be played in the background if the person so chooses.
Comfortable but not so much that the person will fall asleep. Meditating while laying in bed, while extremely comfortable and relaxing, tends to fail because as a person becomes that relaxed, they drift off to sleep rather than into meditation. There is no right way to sit for meditation. Just choose a way that is comfortable but harder to sleep in.
Make the temperature comfortable. Being too hot or cold just adds to the distractions while trying to meditate. Trying to keep focus is hard enough in the beginning without making it that much more difficult.
Atmosphere for Meditation
Some people find lighting candles in a dark room helpful. Other people like having soft music playing in the background. Make sure the fragrance of the candles are not too strong and the music should be very light tempo, calm, and without lyrics.
Some people like to be naked for meditation while others will stay fully clothed. Either way does not matter or affect the outcome. The importance is to be comfortable and in a place that will allow the person to relax. Heart of Healing website has some other useful ideas and techniques to further help with relaxing and heading into meditation.
Starting the Focus of Meditation
The start is the hardest part for people to master in meditation. Try to remember that this is a skill that will take work and practice. Don’t expect to achieve success the first time or ever the first few times. Be patient and diligent and eventually it will come.
Close the eyes and focus on the breathing. At first the breathing will be fast as the body starts to unwind. Concentrate on slowing the breathing and relaxing the whole body. Remember as a kid when pretending to be asleep? Slowing the breathing to try and fool the parents is basically the same technique but to be held for a little longer.
This also helps clear the mind so that it will be free of thoughts. If further help is needed, try imagining a room and then pushing all the thoughts outside of that room leaving the room clean and clear.
Feeling the Pulse of the Heartbeat
Once the breathing and heart rate have slowed, turn the focus more inward. Now concentrate on hearing the heartbeat. Then feel the pulse of that heartbeat. Focus on feeling that pulse in the hands, finger, arms, shoulders, chest, stomach, hips, thighs, knees, shins, ankles, feet and toes. Focus on each spot individually until each one is able to be felt.
Next, once every place can be pinpointed and focused on, try feeling them all together. Feel them as a whole versus individual places. This takes a lot of practice. Any little distraction breaks apart what was gathered together making the process very repetitive. The more practice, the easier this part will become. This is key to further states of meditation.
Levels of Meditation
The relaxed breathing, calming the mind and clearing the head from thoughts would be considered a light meditation or level one. Being able to successfully feel the pulse in each place individually would be level two or medium meditation. Being able to pull all of the above together as a whole and hold it there for a period of time is level three and considered deep meditation.
Deep meditation for long intervals of time is what is needed for things such as past life regression, spiritual communication or journeys. Light meditation on a daily basis can help ease stress and enable a person to better cope with life struggles.
Meditation Helps Refocus Life
Eliminating stress and worries from life can lead to healthier, longer and happier life. It helps deal with issues before they become monumental and helps to refocus the mind on what is important in life. It helps prioritize the concerns rather than worrying about every little thing.
In more spiritual uses, meditation works as a useful conduit and communication to the soul or spirit providing a way to possibly get answers that would otherwise remain unknown.
For further interest in this topic, visit:
How to Intentionally See Regression of Past Lives with Meditation
Past Life Regression Discoveries: Where They Come From and Why
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