Category: Meditation

Meditation Evolved, a Musing into new methods and techniques: Mental Health Awareness Month 2021

As I’ve drafted this article, I’ve thought about what I want to cover and how I want to cover it. I’ve written about meditation in the past, an article covering 9 months of meditation and my thoughts on making it a regular practice.

With the Pandemic this last year, I set a goal to meditate consecutively for an entire year, a goal that I will have reached as of publishing this article. This year I wanted to dive deeper into my practice and go beyond simply taking time out of each day to inhale and exhale.

In college, I meditated sporadically whenever I was feeling stressed as a way to cope beyond journaling and exercise. It felt like a missing piece to a puzzle that I couldn’t quite solve. 5 minutes a day was not a long time and time I gladly spared to slow life down and breathe.

Since 2019, I’ve suffered from terrible anxiety. Panic attacks that led to me freezing and the cause as of yet, I do not know. And then, the Pandemic hit. My stress was through the roof, so I decided to try meditation again and this time see what could be with daily practice. 5 minutes became 10 minutes and 10 minutes became 20 with seemingly no fuss dedicating the extra time to just be with myself. I’ve tried 30 minutes based off of studies but 20 minutes is adequate for most of my needs.

I feel better and my anxiety, to my knowledge, is lessened. There are breathing techniques to calm to help with sleep and there are others that help manage anxiety and ultimately dispel it altogether. Whenever I’m stressed, I tell myself to breathe.

At the moment, I’m currently exploring the lessons on Headspace, craving knowledge of what meditation can be. Headspace recently released a Netflix special and it helped quantify and refine my methods.

For the first time in my life this last year, I’ve started having conversations about meditation with my friends, having previously thought I was relatively unique in the interest. While my friends are new to meditation, I’m happy to see that mental health is becoming a topic at the forefront of everyone’s minds.

A couple weeks ago, I finally reached the 365 day milestone, solidifying meditation as the longest continuous habit I have ever done. A year of my life spent, breathing and learning, it honestly feels great.

My life at the moment is extremely chaotic. My mood shifts from hope to despair from day to day and my anxiety prevents a lot of the complex goals I’ve set for myself from being completed. I’ve started running again but meditation has proven the strongest for calming myself. This May, take time for yourself and remember to breathe. The world is in chaos, so it’s imperative that we slow it down for ourselves. Look inward and start with 5 minutes. Listen to the sounds around you and simply note thoughts that arise. This is the year for looking inward.

A walk through the woods

“Two roads diverged in a wood and I -I took the one less traveled and that has made all the difference” – Robert Frost

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The city has its moments yet it is a place of chaos. clock in, clock out, sleep, eat, work. We forget to breathe. We close our eyes and take a deep breath, we listen.

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At first we are met with silence, a gentle breeze rustling our hair. We hear the birds chirp merrily as they build their nests. We stop, kneel, and notice the moss growing on the rocks.

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We walk further and find a path. We follow the path, not knowing where it leads.

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We find a creek and listen to the trickle of water. The sun shines through the canopy of trees and we feel its warmth, a blanket of joy as we lose ourselves in the moment.

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Our steps begin to slow, our panic subsides. Time fades as we continue down our path. And for a moment, we see the world through another’s eyes.

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9 months of meditation: Has it been worth it?

The short answer, yes. The long answer, also yes, but longer. So full disclaimer; as much as i’d like to say I’ve meditated every day as I set out to do, I haven’t. In my defense however, progress is not a straight line. When you attempt a new habit, you will have your ups and downs but the idea is to stick with it until you set a new bar for yourself. without further ado let’s start with the most important question.

Why Meditate?

Let me set the scene. I had just come back from Germany, awaiting my kingdom upon my triumph return home. I had my head held high and was ready to seize the world. But as life would have it, my kingdom had turned to ash. My hero’s welcome was using all my available energy to put out fires and keep ships from sinking. In the first time in years, my journal failed me. You know things are bad when Mike Cole is carrying around a stress-ball at every waking moment. All my systems were collapsing and even my books couldn’t save me this time around. But if you know me, I carry on to the bitter end. So I rebuilt my old systems.

I started with 5 minutes a day and went from there. It was hard at first but got easier over time. When I was able to do 5 minutes on a consistent basis, I bumped it to 10, which I think is the perfect amount. But once again, why would you want to meditate? Couldn’t those precious minutes be put towards something more valuable? Well…

Imagine you have anxiety. Scratch that, don’t imagine; everyone has anxiety. What if I told you your deepest fears could melt away and that your clouded mind could become clear? Well, that’s meditation in a nutshell. The hard part is sitting down and making it a priority. As I’ve deemed it, meditation is kind of like hitting the reset button. Done right, it’ll clear the clutter and allow you to focus. Meditation in the morning can set your day up for success.

What is meditation?

Before I started, I looked up different techniques online. I couldn’t find a proper explanation and this frustrated me. Some people go to the extreme for meditation and when they try to explain the experience, it comes off as gibberish. If you look up mindfulness, you’ll get close but still it reads more like a self-help book more than anything else. So what I did, is simply combine the pieces I liked and then simply started meditating. After a few times, I got a feel for the experience and refined it to what is a mix between the spiritual and the mindfulness techniques your friendly neighborhood psychologist would tell you about.

My Techniques

So the idea behind meditation is not necessarily letting go of the negative thoughts inside your head but rather acknowledging them and moving forward. What most don’t realize however, is meditation is not simply an emptying of the mind, it’s a process of clarifying thoughts, much in the way we feel refreshed after sleeping. A good thought can branch out much like a tree and instead of trying to focus on nothingness, simply follow the thought and the thoughts thereafter. Think of yourself as a leaf flowing down a river, perhaps imagine a gentle breeze with branches gently swaying in the wind. A leaf in a river simply is and does not work against the current.

That’s only the first half. The second half is focusing on your body. It can be as simple as breathing to start but eventually you’ll want to focus on nerves. Find the tension in your body and simply be aware, massage, wiggle your fingers, pay attention to dexterity, etc. If you’re uncomfortable, adjust yourself. Listen to the wind blow, the sound of your breath, the gentle trickle of water from a fountain.

There are few ways to do meditation wrong. However, if you want more guidance, here’s a few suggestions. Buy a sleeping mask. If you find yourself reaching for your phone, this will prevent that. It will also block out light and should you open your eyes you will simply see darkness. If you have raw emotion and simply can’t get comfortable, let your meditation posture reflect that. Try leaving one hand open and clenching a fist. The open hand should relax and the clenched fist should control. Over time you’ll most likely end up with both hands open, pressed together in the center.

If you’re looking for a spiritual aspect to meditation but don’t want to turn into a monk, try going into meditation as your time to connect with nature. Sit outside under a tree or leave a window open. Simply learn to appreciate the present moment.

Thanks for reading! It’s been a while since I’ve done a self-improvement article and it feels great. I hope you find the advice helpful and feel free to share and comment below. If you have your own technique or a personal story, I’d love to hear it!

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