How To Meditate For Beginners

One of the most common things that I hear from people who have attempted to meditate is that they tend to get frustrated, so I'm going to make everything very simple and easy.

The power of meditation

 Meditation is really about coming into that place of quiet. The beauty of this practice is when you start to get good at this, it can start to flow into your everyday life. Instead of being in this internal dialogue with your energy somewhere else, you can really be in the world. This is why meditation can be so wonderful and is so essential for creating presence in your entire life.

Quiets the mind

Meditation allows you to quiet the chatter in your mind. It quiets all that internal dialogue and allows you to let go so you can relax. Relaxation and being calm is so important. It can even lower your blood pressure as you start to really get quiet and tap into that internal calmness.

Creates awareness

Meditation creates awareness of your thought patterns. While meditating, thoughts are bound to arise. Maybe there are certain repetitive thoughts or things that you have a tendency to focus on. And as you meditate, you start to bring light to these patterns. It creates a deeper awareness of who you are. This practice can be extremely helpful for creating that awareness so that we can start to make some shifts in our life.

Brings clarity

Meditation brings clarity to your life. Once you start to get better at practicing meditation and quieting your mind, it's the gaps between your thoughts that bring a state of calmness and clarity. It's those moments when we can start to tap into our own divine energy. This is where a lot of our best creative ideas come from. This is where your intuition grows stronger. You start to really tap into the essence of your own higher self and your soul, bringing more clarity into your life.

Brings peace

Meditation brings more peace into your life, more awareness. You really start to step into the real you instead of being bogged down by all that internal dialogue and mind chatter. It allows you to create concrete and massive shifts into your life.

Steps for meditating

Before anything else, we want to get into a comfortable position—but not too comfortable where you start to fall asleep. Make sure you're not too tired while practicing your meditation.

Get quiet

Close your eyes and get quiet. Take a deep breath, start to quiet your mind and your thoughts. You may want to do a little bit of relaxation. Starting from the top of your head, relax the muscles around your eyes, underneath your eyes, your cheekbones, your jaw. Slowly relax your body from head to toe.

Maintain focus

Focusing on quieting the mind can get boring, so it helps to have an external focus. One technique is to focus on sound. Try to just focus on the sounds you hear. Be in the moment and allow them all to happen.

This is where I think most people get frustrated. It's okay if thoughts start to arise in your mind. As you start to notice a thought come in, just notice it and let it go. Keep bringing yourself back into that state of quiet and just being clear and noticing.

Another thing you can focus on is space. Focus on feeling the space around you. The goal is to notice, to be present, and to be one with it. The gaps between our thoughts are when we become present. When you have no thoughts in your mind, that's when you're right there—in the present, in the now.

A few reminders

It's also extremely important that you're not hard on yourself when practicing. Thoughts and emotions are going to come up—that’s completely normal. But remember that the goal is just to notice it, and let it go.

Your meditation is not the time to analyze, but to be in the moment and to be in your awareness. And this takes practice. It's one of those things that's going to evolve over time. And the more you practice, the better you're going to get at it. Allow yourself to let go; this is not the time for perfection.