Dina Kennedy

Meditation – it doesn’t have to be hard!

I am pretty sure that if you’re reading this, you’ve heard that meditation has many scientifically proven benefits for your health and well being. I won’t bother listing them out, but here’s a link if you’d like to explore this for yourself: http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/meditation-heals-body-and-mind

You may have even tried, maybe multiple times, to start meditating on your own but it hasn’t taken hold for you. It’s just too hard to set aside the time, or you don’t know what to do. or you don’t know how to have meditation be a pleasure instead of a chore!

I’d like to help you let that go, and to perhaps start fresh. Because gifting yourself with a meditation practice can actually shift your life for the better. And it doesn’t have to be hard to start!

What you’re doing with your meditation is just letting the mind get quiet, and slowing the world down a bit. When meditating if your mind gets into some loop of busy thinking, or you start to worry about something, just imagine either putting those thoughts and worries up on a high shelf out of the way, or into a helium balloon that you then let float up, knowing you can retrieve the thoughts and worries from there when you are done.

Here are three ways to get started, and hopefully to keep going  All of these techniques give your brain an assignment – this is really helpful, I mean REALLY helpful when you are beginning!

1. Relax and start small! Really small! You don’t have to get all formal to meditate, contrary to what some suggest. Try 2-3 minutes to start. Here’s what to do: find a comfortable chair. Grab your timer or egg timer and set it for 2-3 minutes. Turn the timer on, close your eyes, take a nice breath in, then let it go. Repeat. Repeat. I like to use words for this one – breathing one thing in, another thing out.

For example, breathe in “peace”, breathe out “ahhh”. Or breathe in “let it” and breathe out “go”. Or breathe in “I am” and breathe out “love”. Anything is fine. This gives the brain a little something to play with as you just sit and breathe for a few minutes.

2. Try a listening meditation! This is my personal favorite. Rather than removing the distractions around you, you are making them part of the meditation. Here’s a nice video I did to walk you through this one – give it a whirl – I think you’ll like it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir9FtFS8TJ4

3. And then there is the awesome Walking Meditation – no, this is not going for a walk — it’s something quite different! I like this form of meditation, particularly for beginners, because it’s active and has motion, which really gives the mind something to do as you move into internal stillness. Here’s a terrific article describing this one – give it a try! It’s truly awesome. http://www.lionsroar.com/how-to-practice-walking-meditation/

I’d love to hear from you as you try these on for size! Let me know what you lied, and if you have any questions.

Until next time, peace,

Dina Kennedy
Your Trusted Authority for Untangling Energy
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