January 2019 Challenge 30 Days - Best Practices For Integrating Meditation Into Your Life (Day Twelve)

dragosroua (74)in #challenge30days • 5 years ago

Welcome to the twelfth day of the 30 days writing challenge of this year. You can find a list of all the articles I wrote at the end of each article. Please have a look at the end of it to understand how can you participate in this one.

So I Can't Just Stare At A Wall And Pretend That's It?

I'm sorry, but no, you can't. Or, if you really want, you can stare at a wall all day long, but that's not meditation. I'm not going into details about the two main types of meditation (vipashana and shamatha) because that's not the goal of this post. Maybe in a future article, if there's enough interest, I may jot a few notes about what I think vipashana and shamatha are. For now we'll consider that meditation is just a mental health practice.

If you really think at it, although the mind is our main reality interface, we're taking so little care about it. We are trying all sort of diets and detoxifications, and we are trying to embellish our bodies and overall appearances in so many ways, but when it comes to mind, we don't even take even the most basic steps to ensure a decent level of hygiene. And because of that, more often than not, our mind is starting to "stink": bursts of uncontrollable anger, overwhelming sadness, crushing depression and oh, so many others forms of mental stinking.

Meditation is basically a form of prevention, trying to delay - or even eliminate - all these disturbing mind slippages..

I've been trying many approaches to it and what follows is a very, very short list of best practices on this topic.

1 Don't Force It, This Doesn't Work Like That

When they first start to meditate, many people are going way too deep into mimicking what they think the external symptoms of meditation might be: closed eyes, a serene face expression, maybe chanting inaudibly "AUM". Well, meditation is the opposite of that. Meditating doesn't mean forcing yourself into another state of "doing", but just being. It doesn't mean silencing the mind (that's not possible, by the way), but actually observing the mind from a distance, without attachment and without judgement.

2 Start Small. Keep At It

Although every habit has way more chances to succeed if it's started in small, but persistent installments, meditation has even more chances to do so. Because our minds are so erratic and they are jumping incessantly from one thing to another, holding them still all of a sudden is a very difficult task. Almost impossible, at the first try. So, you may either segue into a state of self-inflicted trance and mistake this as meditation, or you can just skip the meditation practice altogether because "it never works". Instead of trying to meditate 30 minutes at once, better start with small, very easy to do 5 minutes chunks, for at least one month. Increase only when you're comfortable with the current interval.

3 Breathe In, Breathe Out

The most basic form of meditation is just focusing on your breath. Just keep your attention at your breath and try bringing you mind back every times it wonders away. And oh, how many times it will try to wonder away. Just accept that. Just let it go, but observe it, and then bring it back slowly, showing to it the only thing that it has to focus on: your breath.

4 It's Not A Contest, So Don't Look For The Finish Line

Nor do you try to "become better" or to measure your "improvement" at this, the same way you would measure your fitness when you go the gym. Although a comparison between meditation and some form of "gym for the mind" is very common, I accept it only for the symbolism related to persistence, any other resemblance is inexistent. In a very surprising way, if you meditate correctly, you will start to notice improvements not in the practice itself, but in other parts of your life. You will enjoy a much calmer mind, less troubled moods, more lucidity and clarity. You may stay "at the same meditation level" for months (meaning you will bring back your mind many, many times during a meditation), but, surprisingly, you will notice that your life entirely changed so much during the last said months, only as a result of this tiny, and still "flawed" practice.

So, this was my (very short) list of best practices for integrating meditation into your life.

How Do I Participate In This Challenge?

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post must be at least 300 words long
post must be original
post must be on best practices
post must use the #challenge30days tag

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I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.