I’ve written before about overthinking and why we do it, so today I want to look how we can start to quieten overthinking, and one of the tools I use to do this: meditation.
Now, I know I’ve talked before about the benefits of meditation, but I really wanted to revisit it as I feel it is so important.
I started meditating around 6 years ago and it has been an interesting journey, not always as smooth as I would like, but it has helped me so much and in so many different ways.
I started off with almost what I would call guided visualisations – i.e. I listening to someone talking me through the process and usually in the background was some wonderfully relaxing music. I started out with a great little App called Headspace and with the lovely Sue Cooper’s meditation CDs.
These were a perfect way for me to start to explore meditation, they were short and easy to follow – I loved them, but, over time I felt the need for something more. I searched on YouTube and found numerous guided meditations that I listened to. Some were great and others just didn’t do it for me – like everything, it’s a personal thing.
Now, when I first started out I found it really frustrating as I thought the whole idea of meditation was to still the mind, calm the mind, clear the mind and I couldn’t – thoughts just kept coming and I presumed that I was just no good at meditation. Then I learnt to acknowledge the thoughts and let them go. This helped, though it did still leave me feeling that if my mind had wandered during the meditation that I needed to try harder, be better.
You can imagine that it left me always chasing the ‘perfect meditation’ – now we all know, that’s not going to happen as there is no such thing as the perfect anything!
However, I was still really enjoying the experience and I could feel the benefits so I persevered and explored some more.
I explored mindfulness and then I stumbled across Joe Dispenza, or should I say he came into my life and literally I felt like my mind had been blown. Here was a guy teaching meditations that took it to another level. It moved it away from relaxation and guided visualisations into something more powerful and more profound. I read his books and attended his courses and experienced meditating with 1200 people – the energy when that happens is awesome!
I absolutely loved it and continued with it for many, many months….until recently.
Again, I started to feel that I wanted more… I didn’t want to be guided so much, I was struggling to do an hour daily and if I missed a day I felt like I was failing – the bit that I had fallen in love with in his meditations was when I was nowhere, nohow, no-one, no time, that was when we weren’t guided so much and I craved more of this.
So, I started to search around again and then I heard a masterclass by Emily Fletcher on how she meditates and immediately it resonated with me. My ultimate ambition is to find a system that works for me and I can do daily forever, 15- 20 minutes at a time, because that’s what works for me.
So, like everything meditation is a journey, and a personal one at that. I encourage you to explore it, find out what works for you, remember as you grow and change, as your consciousness expands, so will your practice. YOU dictate your pace – really listen to what works for you, because at the end of the day that is all that really matters.
Here are 2 big realisations I got along the way that might help you:
- You CANNOT clear your mind, don’t try, just go with whatever comes up for you. You are not supposed to be sitting there with an empty mind – it is not possible.
- We meditate to make our life better. We do not meditate to get good at meditating.
I would urge you to try it, the benefits are now proven by science and it will help you in ways you least expect it to – why wouldn’t you meditate?
Join us at Balance for mass guided meditation on 11th May
A perfect way to try mediation is to join us at Balance on 11th May when we are taking part in the MOMM initiative.
MOMM, or Moments of Mass Mindfulness, is a meditation movement for everyone, using accessible guidance tools and techniques at mass meditation gatherings and events. Louise Luiggi and I will be doing guided meditations between midday and 1pm – you’ll be meditating with a roomful of people, and many more across the UK. We think it’s going to be pretty special. It’s a free event, but you’ll need to get a ticket via Eventbrite so we can manage numbers.