Gentle Breath Meditation® tips for beginners
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Gentle Breath Meditation® tips for beginners
When starting meditation it is easy to become overwhelmed with all the things you have been told meditation is or isn’t – from how you sit, to the way you breathe, whether you should have thoughts or not, should you include visualisations, chanting, OM-ing and so on.
How on earth do you know if you are doing it right, and out of the vast number of meditation techniques, which is the right one for you? It’s no wonder as a beginner to meditation, people often don’t know where to start.
The Gentle Breath Meditation® is very easy to do as a technique but initially you may wonder if you are doing it right or not ...
To support you, here are 3 tips that have worked for others:
1. Don’t try to not think
Contrary to what you might have heard, meditating does not mean we need to somehow get rid of our thoughts.
Emptying the mind is actually not possible and neither is it the goal of the Gentle Breath Meditation®, which is designed to bring your body and mind together as one.
The key is to engage the brain in the meditation by giving it something to focus on, like the feeling of your breath as it enters and leaves your nose. Left alone however, our minds are used to being busy, wandering often and jumping from one thought to another, thinking about the past or something that may come up in the future.
- As we learn to bring the mind’s awareness to the body, thoughts will naturally flow and this is normal; the key is to not get caught up in them and get carried away
- When you notice you are thinking about other things there is no need to be upset or feel that you can’t meditate or that perhaps you have failed
- Our minds are so used to having their own way that it will take time to be able to be fully present during the 5-10 minutes you have allocated for your meditation
- Simply acknowledge that you have drifted off and gently return to the focus of the Gentle Breath Meditation®
With practice you will find that you can engage your mind more easily and be present with your body in your meditation. With this your thoughts and busy mind actually interfere less and less. When a thought does pop in you catch it quicker and quite simply return to being with yourself.
2. Every meditation is different
How you live each day can be very different to the next and the way you feel, your emotions, thoughts, reactions and experiences and how you are with yourself will be different as a result. Thus, every time you meditate you are starting from a new point, or marker.
- You may notice tension in your body, stiffness or aches and pains, changes in your breath and your heart rate and how you feel generally compared to the last time you did the Gentle Breath Meditation®
- You may feel agitated, tired and may even drop off to sleep or find it difficult to go as deep or as still with your meditation today as you did previously
- Or you may find you can take it to a new level of gentleness and a deeper connection with yourself
These differences are not because the meditation is different, but because how you are and how you have lived up until that point has been different. If you use the Gentle Breath Meditation® as a point of reflection you can become very aware and honest about what it going on for you at that moment.
The purpose of the Gentle Breath Meditation® is to bring you back to you, for you to reconnect to who you are in essence.
Let go of expecting a particular outcome and remember that you are developing your connection with yourself.
3. There is no one way to meditate
Whether you sit or lie down to meditate is your choice, so long as you are choosing to reconnect to you and are breathing gently in and out through your nose. You can do the Gentle Breath Meditation® anytime and anywhere (although if you are driving your car it would be best to keep your eyes open!).
There are many different approaches and techniques that you can apply to the Gentle Breath Meditation®, as you will see if you browse the free meditation downloads. Try a few to see what you enjoy, what works for you and what fits in with your lifestyle.
Meditating in the morning and in the evening before bed is very supportive but you can also take five minutes during your lunch break, before a meeting or appointment or sitting in the car waiting to pick your kids up.
As you develop your connection to you and being gentle, this then becomes a way of being that you carry in your day and thus your life becomes your meditation too.
Filed under
Connection, Meditation, Breath, Gentleness, Healthy living
