Meditation (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Sometimes those of us “regular people” get intimidated by the idea of learning meditation techniques even if they will do us a lot of good. For a lot of us, when we think of meditation techniques, we get an image of a white-haired guru sitting on top of a mountain, not of an ordinary run of the mill person like you and I.
But we know that meditation techniques can do even everyday people like us some good. That is because people that you know who use meditation techniques tend to be calmer, more at ease, relaxed and able to handle stress better than those that don’t. So it makes you think, maybe there is something to meditation techniques worth looking into.
The good news is that most of those meditation techniques that those “gurus” use are based on some very practical and easy things that we can do, without special equipment and even without a huge amount of special training to get the simple results that a lot of people work hard to achieve. So what we all need are meditation techniques that anybody can use.
Meditation Technique #1 – It’s all in the breathing.
It may seem ridiculously easy but much of the fuss about meditation technique is all about breathing. You may have already noticed that as you get more upset or excited or agitated, your breathing becomes shorter and you breathe faster. When that happens, you get less oxygen to your blood, your heart beats faster and your mind, with less blood, gets upset more easily.
So by slowing down your breathing, you can reverse the effect. You take the outcome and make it the cause. Instead of letting your breathing react to how you feel, you control your breathing to change how you feel. It is as simple as taking a few moments and closing your eyes and concentrating on breathing ten or so deep breaths in and out.
As you do so, think about those breaths and nothing else for a moment. Think about the air going in and then going out again. It is as though you are breathing on purpose. The outcome of this meditation technique will be your heart will slow down, your blood will get more oxygen and before long, you are calmer and able to react to things much more serenely. You have taken control of the situation.
Meditation Technique #2 – A moment of peace and quiet.
Life has a way of taking over and running us instead of us running it. Work gets hectic, a family life full of joys and challenges and you have days where everything seems to go crazy all at once. There is another simple meditation technique you can use to return control of the day to you.
The gurus who use the advanced meditation techniques know that they should have a place where they can retreat to enter into a more contemplative state of mind. So too, you can start to look around your various environments and select a place where you can get a moment of peace and quiet to do your breathing and gather yourself to get control over the chaos that sometimes your day turns into. While in that quiet place, don’t just reflect on how bad things are, slow your breathing, use your ability to reflect and calm yourself and slowly get back to that inner tranquility that will give you control. One meditation technique that people use is to imagine a quiet lake inside their soul. You want that lake to be still, the surface quiet, the air pure and cool, the environment serene and at rest. Then when the world around you is going mad, your tranquil lake is never disturbed.
Meditation Technique #3 – Self Talk
You are what you think. And how you talk to yourself when you are using your meditation techniques can bring you up and calm you if you know what to say. Now don’t panic at the idea of talking to yourself. Self-talk is a long established meditation technique that you too can use to get your composure in the midst of your busy world.
Again, as we mentioned above, you have to let that self-talk be positive and reassuring. Remember the good of your life and your feelings when you were in control. There are other key meditation techniques that you can use that fall under the category of self-talk that can calm you and put you in a serene state of mind fairly quickly. Remember a time when you had perfect control and try to become that person. Have a common location that is always serene for you and go to that place in your mind for a moment and gather your thoughts there. Reflect on the things in your life that give you power and self-worth. Let those things talk to you. Slowly this positive self-talk can do its magic and lift you back to a stable place and give you peace.
Now, this is not to say that formal meditation techniques are not of value. They certainly are. As you take advantage of these down to earth meditation techniques we have talked about here today, you will start to feel the benefits in how you sleep, how you react to stress and even in your health.
If you enjoy those benefits, then you are on your way to a lifetime of meditation. Then you can start to look into some more formalized meditation techniques that will take the simple steps and take you to the next level. Who knows, maybe one of these days you will be that white-haired guru on the mountaintop. I bet the view is great from up there.
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