Tag Archives: meditation journal

Meditation How To: Allowing

September 18, 2009

Meditation How To: Allowing

Remember when you were working to bring your body under control while in meditation? How did you go? In the end, it’s best to come to some level of peace in the body before launching yourself into your meditation. I follow a process a bit like this:

  • Decide to turn up for my meditation practice
  • Ensure I’m not going to be disturbed
  • Get myself settled, cushion, shawl/rug, meditation journal and pen
  • Light a candle or incense just to help me get in the mood and focus a little
  • Relax – first the body and then the mind.

I do the “Relax” part slowly, using my breath to help me gradually release any tension, tickles and the like from my body. It usually takes me between three and five breaths before I turn my attention to my mind.

Again, I use my breath to help me focus my attention on finding the quiet bits within my thought stream. As I lose my focus and start interacting and following my thoughts (yes, it happens to everyone!) I have come to realise that my body gradually becomes tense again. It’s this tenseness or twitchiness often, that alerts me to the fact that I’m lost in my thoughts again. So once again I turn to my breath to settle my body again and then my thoughts.

So now we come to allowing. It’s been occurring to me that “control” is doing and as such is at odds with our meditation practice. Meditations aim is Being.

So, if my body does an occassonal twitch or itch, I am working on being in “allowingness” (hmmm the spell checker doesn’t like that one) about it. If it’s not distracting me, I just let it go – perhaps I’ll see if there is some tension that needs to be released and breathe it out but usually these little things just pass on by if I remember to allow them to.

Likewise with my thoughts and emotions. If I try to ‘control’ them they sometimes just dig in and won’t stop but if I can get my mind and my thoughts to a state of relative ease, then just allow the thoughts and images to just float in and out of my mind without engaging with them, I find they come and go, come and go…. come and go……….come and go. With much less frequency.

The Allowing of the body and the mind to do what they are designed to do seems to act as a soothing influence on their activity. The saying “What We Resist, Persists” really seems to apply here. So if you are having trouble with “Control” why not give “Allow” a go and see how it serves you.

May your dreams be vibrant and joyful.

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Meditation How To: Mind Games

August 13, 2009

Meditation How To: Mind Games

If you’ve been following the posts you will now have had an opportunity to get to know some of the games both your body and your mind will play with you when you attempt to meditate. Well done if you have turned up every day for your meditation session – that is the most important thing. The next most important thing is that you remember this is not a competition, you don’t have to compare today’s meditation with yesterdays or last weeks meditation.

Meditation happens now. Not yesterday or tomorrow, only now. It is the now that matters the most. Tonight I attended my weekly meditation group and we had a great little discussion about thinking during meditation and the group facilitator laughingly recounted how he said to himself this morning “Hey, this is great… I not thinking!” Doh! We all laughed out loud because we have all been there.

Image courtesy photobucket.com

So many times I’ll give myself a little mental pat on the back because my mind has become so still. I’ll think to myself “Oh, this is a great meditation, I’m hardly thinking at all” Gee I wish I’d just shut up! It’s a frustrating habit and one that I’m very keen to drop. So what is the task for this week?

This week is simple and helpful which is what Meditation How To is all about.

Using your Meditation Journal (see previous post if you missed it) record those thoughts that consistently and incessantly interrupt your meditation practice. Sometimes your mind will take the opportunity to remind you of something that you have forgotten to do or that is important for you to remember. A doctors appointment or job interview, perhaps you are picking up a neighbours child from school or something unusual. Your mind will use the quiet time of your meditation practice to ‘remind’ you of this and it may not leave you alone until you acknowledge it.

A simple way to do this is to write the thought down in your journal. Have the journal and a pencil sitting beside you so that you can gently write down the thing that your mind currently thinks is more important than your daily time spent in meditation. When it is written, take a deep breath, centre yourself once more and return to your meditation. If your mind attempts to “remind” you of this thing again I find it quite useful to just say to myself, “Yes, thank you, I have that written down” and let the thought go. Eventually your mind will accept that you have taken the reminder on board and will cease bothering you about it.

Give this technique a try and I’d love to hear from you of your success or otherwise using it.

Many Blessings

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Meditation How To: Getting To Know Your Mind

June 25, 2009

Meditation How To: Getting To Know Your Mind

Realising that your mind has a mind of it’s own is probably one of the most incredible things a person can do when they first embark on learning about Meditation.

For too many people it becomes the main obstacle to their progress. I so understand that.

For me, deep down inside I found it a little frightening. I really and truly thought that I was in charge of me. However, I soon discovered that my mind had other ideas!

Remember the list of reasons I quoted in our first “How To” post – First Control Your Body? Here they are again.

  • I couldn’t stop thinking
  • I couldn’t concentrate
  • I couldn’t make my mind silent

I was shocked to be perfectly honest. Shocked at the negativity I discovered in there when I really had a good hard look and shocked at how difficult I found it to really understand the way my mind worked. I mean, why wouldn’t it just do what I wanted it to do? Why wouldn’t it just shut up for a few minutes. What on earth was it afraid I was trying to do?

Let me tell you a story.

Everyone (well I think most people anyway) has the same issue with their mind.

Once I realised that I really didn’t know my own mind very well I had to actually set aside some time to get to know it.

I found sitting and watching it a very useful tool in this regard, this is where I discovered the negativity and the anger that I hadn’t realised was there. I discovered that in my mind I was actually quite rigid, negative, judgemental, angry and very mean – mostly to myself. That was quite a shock!

So, with a little guidance from a trusted and much loved friend, I began to journal what I was seeing and hearing in my mind.

I began to look for patterns and processes and I began to understand my mind just a little better. The writing really helped. I had some ‘stuff’ to deal with here and it was getting in the way of my desire to meditate and to create a much better, healthier, happier and fulfilling life for myself.

So, along with your first task:
Learning about your body, watching it, acknowledging it and IGNORING it’s little games until you can comfortably sit for 5 full minutes, you are now going to turn your attention to your mind.

Your task for today:

Find a book you are happy to use as your Meditation Journal, a nice pen or pencil you feel happy to write with and bring them with you to your meditation practice.

Once again, at the time you have chosen as being perfect for your meditation time, go sit comfortably in your chair:

  • Feet on the floor, warm enough or cool enough and remember… NO distractions!

Now, take a couple of nice deep breaths. In and out releasing any tension and just really coming into your special, precious meditation time:

  • Allow your eyes to close softly, allow your breath to find it’s own natural rhythm
  • When your breath and your body have settled comfortably and you feel ready
  • Begin TO WATCH YOUR MIND

As with your body, it really won’t take it too long to start trying to get your attention:

  • It will remind you of something you may have forgotten… just say thank you, I’ll get to that in 5 minutes.
  • It will attempt to distract you with something your have a habit of worrying about… say thank you but I’ll think about that later.
  • It will bring a daydream to your mind and try to get to you play along with the story…. if that happens just come back to your breath. Thank your mind for the story but remind yourself that for now you are not participating right now… you are merely watching.

Just as when you were learning to control your body, continue to watch your mind.

  • Be kind to it, after all it has only one function and that is to think.
  • Acknowledge it’s purpose, thank it for being such an amazing thing,
  • Remain disconnected and non-participatory and just watch it’s antics.

You will learn much about it, yourself, your habitual way of thinking and perhaps a glimmer of what lays behind the noise and chatter.

At the end of 5 minutes, spend a minute or two recording your discoveries in your journal.

  • Did you manage to sit for the full five minutes?
  • Did you find some of the patterns of thinking you engage in?
  • Did you discover that you were unable to remain non-engaged with your thoughts?
  • Did your body get a little fidgety or did you loose your relaxed state as your mind did it’s thing?

Write all of this down and any emotions, memories or ideas you have as a result.

They will all be incredibly helpful to you over the coming weeks and months as you develop the skills you need to work with your mind and develop your meditation practice.

For the next week or so, practice this mind process and try to integrate it into your body practice which you have already mastered. You are now well on the way to developing your own precious meditation practice.

If you would like to receive audio and video recordings as they become available that may assist you develop your meditation techniques and practice,

  • Just put your name and email address into the box at the right hand side of this page and I will add it to the list of fantastic meditation resources I’m developing to assist you.

Remember, practice this exercise until you can sit, relaxed and still, watching your mind for a full five minutes. I know you can do it.

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