Meditation is a practice that has been around for thousands of years but learning how to meditate has become much more common today. It originated as a religious and spiritual practice, but today, it is practiced by millions of people without any religious or spiritual undertones.
I think it’s important to focus on that point. Meditation doesn’t need the “woo woo” or the hyperbole. Approach meditation like you would approach the gym. You go to the gym to strengthen your muscles and keep your body in good shape. After working out for a while, you begin to learn a bit more about your body and its strength. You begin to develop new abilities, flexibility, and skills.
A regular meditation practice is like this. You strengthen your mind and keep it in good shape. You also begin to learn a bit more about yourself through regular self-insight and introspection. You also begin to develop new tools to help you deal with things that happen to you and in your life.
Meditation also doesn’t require you to believe anything or have any expectations. There aren’t any claims or dogma. Everything about meditation requires you to simply test and see for yourself. It’s your opportunity to run an experiment in your mind. All it takes is 10 minutes, seated on a chair or cushion, with your eyes closed, to see the nature of your consciousness.
So now that we ground meditation a bit to reality, why do you want to learn how to meditate?
Meditation today is used by many people to alleviate stress, practice mindfulness, and as a way of self-insight and introspection. Studies have already shown the countless scientific benefits of meditating regularly.
Determining why you want to meditate, can help point you in the right direction in terms of what type of meditation practice is best for you. Some forms of meditation are better for introspection and clearing the mind of thoughts. Other forms of meditation are better for stress and anxiety.
Becoming clear on why you want to learn how to meditate, can help not only decide what kind of meditation to learn, but also make it easier to learn, as part of practicing is setting your focus on your intentions.
The reality is that most of us live constantly in our heads all day. We live in constant momentum, with our minds dwelling on the past or worried about the future. It’s kind of like being awake but dreaming. We’re not actually here.
Meditation is a way to “snap out of it”, in a sense. It’s a way to live more presently, to get out of our heads and in some ways, get out of our own way. It’s a way to finally live in the moment. A lot of our suffering comes from our suffering of suffering. In other words, it’s stress, anxiety, and pain created by the mind. Bad things inevitably happen, but our minds make these things worse. Meditation helps us change our relationship to emotions and the things that happen to us, which can lead to much more fulfilled and happier lives.
There are many ways and styles of meditation. Here are some of the more popular and easier ways of meditating that are great for newcomers.
One of the more famous and mainstream forms of meditation is known as Transcendental Meditation. In general, this style of meditating is known as mantra meditation. Sometimes you’re asked to meditate on an idea, others ask you to meditate on a phrase or word. The idea is the same: to internalize this idea with regular practice, until it becomes a part of the consciousness.
Visualization meditation is just as it sounds. You’re asked to visualize an object, a place, a setting or even a person. Some people do this to prepare for an event or for their day. Others use this to change their mood or set themselves into a certain state of mind.
Mindfulness meditation is probably the best type of meditation practice for beginners. Of course, there’s many ways of practicing mindfulness meditation, but using the breath to practice it is what we’ll be teaching. In our opinion, it’s the most well-rounded practice. It helps improve attention to the present moment, which can help with stress and anxiety, it helps improve regulation of emotions and thoughts, which can help with depression and rumination.
It’s often the type of meditation taught to newcomers, since it also fulfills the purpose or reason why most people are looking to start meditating.
Ultimately, all these types of meditation are to help getting you to a meditative state. Whether it’s a mantra or focusing on the breath, these are simply vehicles.
It’s important to mention that meditation doesn’t require any special posture, seating arrangement, or connecting your thumb to your index finger like you often might see in movies or popular depictions in media. Meditation posture is actually quite simple.
The truth is, you could meditate standing up and with your eyes open if you really wanted to. However, for beginners, the easiest way to learn to meditate is seated in a comfortable chair, with an upright but relaxed posture.
One of the common things new meditators complain about when trying to learn, is meditation can make them sleepy or fall asleep. This is why we’re going to suggest sitting and not lying down when you’re trying to learn to meditate. Also, you don’t need to sit in any kind of lotus position, again, like you might see depicted in popular media. For a beginner, all that matters is you have some privacy to learn and not become distracted, as well as a comfortable spot.
While meditation may not physically require much of you for you to learn how to meditate and get started, there are some things you should consider bringing into your first practice, and consider not bringing. Your mindset and attitude can influence the first impression meditation leaves on you. It’s important to consider your attitude before practicing.
There are many different ways to learn how to meditate. We’ll be focusing on one specific way, but let’s go over some of the more common ways people learn to how to meditate.
This is a very easy and low maintenance way to learn how to meditate. Simply set a timer or alarm for 5 minutes, close your eyes, and practice.
When you start practicing for 10 or 20 minutes, you might want to set an interval bell, just to give you a notice of how much time you have left, so the practice doesn’t feel so long, and leave you feeling restless. For example, we might set a timer for 20 minutes, to practice meditating for 20 minutes, but set another timer that goes off at 10 minutes to let us know we’re half way through the practice.
Of course, make sure it’s a gentle noise. We’re not looking for an alarm buzzer noise here. Something like a soft bell, chime, or ding is perfect.
Many newcomers try to use meditation music to help them meditate. This is usually used by newcomers who are looking to calm their minds and nerves from stress and anxiety. For the mindfulness meditation we will practice, it doesn’t really make sense to learn mindfulness meditation with music as it might be distracting in the beginning. Still, if you’re learning to meditate by closing your eyes and spending some time to reflect on your day and thoughts, some soft background music can help.
A guided meditation can be done in person or through audio/video online and uses a teacher to provide verbal cues and reminder, so that you know where to focus your attention and when. I think the biggest benefit to using guided meditations as a beginner, is that it provides a reminder throughout the practice to return the mind’s attention back to meditating. New comers will find their minds wandering or becoming lost in thought, which is normal. A guide helps with this by providing gentle reminders to return focus, throughout the guided session.
This is how we recommend learning as well as maintaining your practice. Guided meditation isn’t just a tool for beginners. Many experienced meditators, such as ourselves, continue to use guided meditation.
We have a growing library of guided meditations that’s completely free. You can also seek a meditation teacher or go on a meditation retreat. However, you don’t need to go to such lengths to learn. Simply download a guided meditation app, fire it up, find a seat, and practice.
Let’s begin to learn how to meditate. First, the way we recommend learning is through guided meditation. There are a ton of apps and teachers out there that are great for this.
However, we don’t believe you need to pay to get a great guided meditation teacher. That’s why we put together all these free guided meditations on YouTube. We wanted them to match the quality of something you might pay for online, but make it accessible to everyone.
We recommend learning by going through our short, 5 minute, “how to meditate for beginners guided walkthrough“. It’s short, goes through each step in detail, and will teach you the basics of a mindfulness meditation practice.
Like we said earlier, we think mindfulness meditation is the most accessible, well-rounded, and easiest type of meditation for beginners and new comers to learn.
Many people who want to learn how to meditate, are usually looking to relieve their stress, reduce anxiety, and improve their mental health. A regular mindfulness practice can help with this. But it can also do much more than that. It can help us live more fulfilled and happier lives. It can help us get out of our heads more often and live more presently. It’s also a way to better understand ourselves and our consciousness. So let’s go step by step, on how to meditate for the first time.
To get the most out of meditating, make sure you try to keep a regular practice. Start with 5 minutes a day and slowly build up to 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and 20 minutes a day. Some days you’ll be more restless. Others you will be more distracted. The great thing about mindfulness meditation is that this is part of the practice. Observe how you feel before you start a session. Observe the feelings that come up. Become aware of the patterns and thoughts that happen when you meditate.
It’s important when you’re learning to make a commitment to practice at least once a day and to stick with it for a few weeks. Again, drop those temptations to attach expectations to your practices. Treat this as an experiment over the next few weeks and see if you begin to develop a deeper understanding of yourself and your mind, and if you start to practice mindfulness outside of your practice.
One of the more clear ways to determine if you’re making “progress” with your practice is if you’re practicing mindfulness outside of your meditation practice, even if it’s only for a few seconds. Once you start doing that, you’re starting to break out of this awakened-dreaming state that so many people live in everyday.
Once you’re able to maintain the habit of sitting down and practicing, the next step is to practice outside of the practice. The key to success with meditation is when you’ve developed your mindfulness muscle enough that you’re able to practice mindfulness in your day-to-day life.
From there, you’ll begin living a happier, calmer, and more examined life.
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