From Breath to Meditation
Many people shy away from meditation because they think that it is complicated, requires sitting in difficult positions, has to be done for an hour at a time, or means that you need to clear all thoughts from your mind.
I myself loved the idea of meditation, but like many things in my life, for many years I did not turn it into a habit - a daily practice, which meant that I did not persevere with it. That was until I decided to embark on an online course with Emily Fletcher’s Ziva meditation.
That was a year and a half ago, and I have never looked back. Ziva meditation requires 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the afternoon/evening.
However, you may choose to start your meditation practice with much less than that. A meditation practice can be as short as 5 minutes a day.
What is meditation and why bother?
At the heart of it, meditation is simply breath. It is breathing in and out purposefully and slowly, using different techniques such as counting the inhalation length and the exhalation length, holding the breath before releasing it, or just counting breaths. That is not all there is, as many of you would know, some meditation involves a mantra, some visualisation and some sound. More of that in my other blogs…
What the ancient traditions and modern science both know is that a meditation practice benefits us in many ways, amongst which are lowering of blood pressure and perception of pain, enhancing focus and concentration, improving mood, sleep and energy, and even helping in weight reduction.
Meditation can be done sitting, standing or lying down. My preference is for sitting. You can sit in a comfortable chair or cross legged on the floor, it does not matter.
But what about my thoughts? you may be asking; I have tried to meditate but my thoughts keep on getting in the way! As Emily Fletcher says, “you can no sooner stop your mind from thinking than your heart from beating”. Thoughts are uncontrollable, our minds are simply built that way. Accept your thoughts, acknowledge them, then release them and return to your breath. That is the essence of meditation.
