How To Meditate

I hope you saw my video last week on all the incredible benefits of Meditation. Today, I’m talking to you about how to meditate and I’m even gifting you with a free Meditation – Releasing Stress. It’s from my Sedona Meditations series and it’s very powerful.

Watch this video now…

I hope you watched my previous video called, “Why you should be meditating as if your life depends on it – Because it does”…

Because I talk in there, about all the incredible benefits of meditation… so I hope I’ve talked you into how important it is to start meditating.

Meditation has so many incredible benefits on all the levels – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. It can literally transform your life. That’s a picture of me meditating in Sedona.
But for many people, they just find it too hard to meditate. They say to me, Debra I can’t get my mind to quiet down, my thoughts keep racing, so let’s talk about that and how you can get started meditating today.

Different types of Meditation
There are lots and lots of different ways to meditate. I read an article a while ago that talked about 23 different types of meditation. Meditation has been around for thousands of years, so there are lots and lots of variations. I’m going to talk to you about the ones that seem to have become the most popular in the West.

Mindfulness Meditation
Mindfulness Meditation is one of the simplest meditation techniques. Sit on the floor or in a chair with your back straight, close your eyes and simply focus on your breath.
Notice your breath going in, notice your breath going out. Thoughts will come into your head, just allow them to come in and go out without judging them, just notice them. Once you start doing this, you can start bringing mindfulness into all parts of your everyday life, being fully present and aware of what you’re doing, and not reacting or being judgmental about what’s happening.

Body Scan Meditation
If you find that your mind is too active for the Mindfulness Meditation, you may want to try a Body Scan Meditation. With this one, also sit on the floor or in a chair with your back straight. Start breathing deeply, close your eyes and then bring your attention to your body and how it feels. You can then start at the feet and move up the different body parts and notice how they feel – tight or soft, heavy or light. Some people do a variation of this and go through each body part, tightening each part and then allowing it to relax, so they actually feel the difference between the tension and the relaxation.

Mantra Meditation
Another very effective meditation technique is the Mantra Meditation and again, this works great if you have what they call a Monkey Mind that won’t stop chattering. With a Mantra Meditation, start as always, sitting on the floor or in a chair with your back straight. Start breathing deeply, close your eyes and then say a mantra or word over and over again. Some people use the word “Om,” some people use the word “love.” Finding a word that has deep meaning for you can quiet your mind and bring you into higher vibrations.

Guided Meditation
This is one where you are led through a guided imagery or visualization. Most people use these as recordings and it’s interesting because when you use headphones, depending on the type of recording you have, you can actually be syncing the right and left hemispheres of the brain. Guided Meditations are great because they replace the chatter in your head and they can be designed for accomplishing specific goals, like reducing stress, losing weight, learning faster… the range is almost unlimited.

You can find all kinds of apps or recordings online that have different types of meditation, including guided ones or ones with music or sounds.

Find something that appeals to you and just start, that’s the most important thing, just start!
And two more things.

I’ve talked about sitting on the floor or in a chair. That’s how most teachers recommend you do it. I don’t recommend lying down and I don’t recommend doing it in bed. When you lie down in bed, your brain immediately thinks, “It’s time to sleep!” and you’ll fall asleep. So unless you’re doing a meditation to help you sleep better, sit up straight on the floor or in a chair. This also helps to bring your chakras into alignment. 

The second is how long to meditate? Most people answer that question by saying “as much as you can,” but in our busy world, that isn’t realistic. Transcendental Meditators meditate for 20 minutes two times each day, at the beginning of the day and the end of the day, and that’s fantastic. There has been a movement recently in the United States showing that 10 minutes a day can actually render amazing results.
Again, the most important thing is to just start!