The fundamental meditation exercise is the breathing one. Simply concentrate your attention on your breathing. When your mind wanders, as it will, gently bring back your attention to your breathing. Everything in the practice of meditation flows from this practice of concentration. It is not forced, no effort is employed, just a gentle return of focus each time you become aware of straying.
Don’t worry about adopting any special position to meditate. Make yourself comfortable in a quiet place. This is the basic means to develop the process of meditation.
Meditation sessions of 5 minutes each day are quite sufficient to get started. An important part of success is for your meditation to become a habit, part of your daily routine. Starting small makes it easy to establish meditation as part of your life. As time goes by, you’ll find that almost without realising it, you will be meditating for 10, 15 then 20 minutes at a time.
A good recommendation as you begin to meditate is to keep a diary, particularly recording your feelings and emotions. Just a few sentences at the end of each day about what happened and how you feel about things. This will help you realize how much progress, in small steps, you are making in your meditation journey.
This really makes meditation seem like something I could actually implement in my life. I’ve always wanted to meditate, but I didn’t even have a clue as to how to get started. Thanks so much for the great advice!
Kate