5 Easy On ramps to Meditation

“Meditation is hanging out with your soul.” — Rachel Ritlop

Meditation has been receiving an increasing amount of press in recent years. Books have been written about it. Celebrities have talked about it. A seemingly endless stream of apps have been developed. It seems that everyone is talking about meditation. We are a part of that everyone. We regularly recommend meditation to our clients. The reason for that is we have seen the benefits of meditation. But in spite of the benefits, there seems to be significant hesitation in people engaging with meditation. This does make sense since it seems most people still think of meditation as sitting still in the lotus position for an hour thinking about nothing. And it can be that. But for the huge majority of us, meditation is a 5–10 portion of the day we use to center ourselves, focus in for the day, and simply be. Let’s try to remove the barrier to getting started with a meditation practice by looking at a few tips for getting going.

Start Small

If you are looking to start meditating, don’t set an initial goal of meditating for half an hour. Don’t even set a goal of meditating for 10 minutes! Shoot for 5 minutes, max. Meditation is like working out. If you asked us to go run a marathon tomorrow, we wouldn’t finish. If you asked us to run one six months from now, we’ll cross that finish line for sure. Meditation is like that. It’s hard at the beginning and feels impossible. But if you start small and practice, you’ll get there.

Use A Guided meditation

Guided meditation sometimes gets a bad rap because some of them are a little corny. But there are plenty of options that are pretty great. YouTube is FULL of them. Just do a little searching and you can find guided meditations from just a few minutes to several hours long. Guided meditation can vary quite a bit. What you can generally expect is that a soothing voice will lead you through what to do. This can be breathing exercises, guided imagery, progressive muscle relaxation, etc. When you’re first getting started, having a voice guide you through the process can be extremely helpful.

Enjoy Active Meditation

Generally speaking, meditation is a physically passive process. Typically, you would be seated with your eyes closed, focused on your breath. Active meditation is a different take on the practice. Active meditation is taking time to focus in on your breath and your surroundings in an intentional way while engaging in physical activity. For example, going for a walk while focusing on your breathing and the sensations you experience on the walk. This could include the sun and breeze on your skin, the feeling of the soles of your feet on the ground, or the sensation of your legs moving as you walk. For someone who is more used to working out or otherwise being physically active, this can be a great on ramp to meditation.

Use A Mantra

The idea of a mantra sounds confusing and mystical, but it doesn’t have to be. A mantra is simply something you repeat while you are meditating. The classic example of this is someone sitting and chanting ohmmmmmm over and over again. Mantras can be much more practical than that. For example, you may choose to simply repeat, “In…… Out…..” as you breathe in and out. Or perhaps you will find it more helpful to count to 5 as you inhale, to 5 as you hold your breath, and to 5 as you exhale. This can be a mantra. The purpose of the mantra is to focus you mind on something outside of your thoughts so you can better remain present.

Download An App

We live in 2022. There is an app for everything. That includes meditation. Some of the heavy hitters are Headspace and Calm. There are smaller ones as well such as Medito. The benefit of an app is that they offer a huge variety of meditation options from guided, to self-guided, to active, and on and on and on. Most of them will help you track your practice and build consistency as well. A good quality meditation app can help you establish a practice and then kick it up to the next level. Definitely a great way to get started.

Meditation is awesome. Our clients who regularly meditate all say the same thing. If you’re curious about meditation or have been thinking about trying it, today is the day! Take one or two of the suggestions above and give it a shot. But if you are going to try it out, do us one favor. Keep at it for at least a week or two. Give it a fair chance to make a difference in your day before kicking it to the curb for being too hard.

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