develop a meditation habit

Downloadable 1-minute meditation chat/music mp3s, here: www.just-a-minute.org

Just listening to the introduction one – them talking about the website! – made me feel calmer!

Cheers, Abs! :)

An interesting article from Psychology Today.

Living in the moment is, I suspect, what I’m trying to do with this goal, rather than the deeper aspects of full-on meditation.

It also occurs to me that perhaps this is why I spend ‘waste’ so much time, online or playing games or vegged in front of the tv: it turns my brain off. I stop thinking about then and whenever, and 20 billion other things, and just drift along with whatever. If I could change the drift to more of a focus, and yet still retain that calm one-thing-at-a-time mindstate… yes :)

I’ve skipped 3 days of the past 10 – and while 70% isn’t too bad, the ‘off’ days have all been in the past 5. I’m slipping, in other words! Largely, I suspect, ‘cos I’ve been getting home tired, and falling into bed at night.

Well, who said it had to be a night time thing, or even at home?

This morning, then, I found myself waiting impatiently for a bus. Girl – get those shoulders out of your ears! Stop looking for the bus coming round the corner. Breath. Look at the trees. The clouds… oh, that did it! Okay, so not perfect ‘meditation’, but definitely a calming session, watching the white/grey fluff drift across the sky :)

Okay, again with the disclaimer that I know I’m not doing it ‘properly’ to begin with.

After much hoo-haaing over setting this up as a ‘Happiness Habit’, yesterday I wrote that it WAS day 1, meaning I’d better live up to it! I had a relatively quiet day, which helped, and there were several occassions when I almost moved to a quiet spot to close my eyes and breath for a while. Of course, I ended up leaving it to before bedtime, but wasn’t so shattered I fell asleep instead!

I always moisturise (feet, elbows, hands) before bed, so I started with that, adding in a self-shoulder rub and an attempt at a bit of scalp massage, just to put myself in that relaxed frame of mind. Then I just closed my eyes and tried to quiet my thoughts, focusing on my breathing. I only managed 5 minutes, but hey – good start! :)

Intrigued to see how things might be different at the end of the three week ‘habit-forming’ period.

I’ve been interested in the idea of meditation for a very long time; certainly since the time I had an aromatherapy massage, and the therapist led me through some relaxation visualisation and announced I could be good at meditating! I’ve also done a lot of yoga and pilates classes over the years, which again introduces similar ideas.

However, I’ve found it a really tough thing to get into. What IS meditation, how do you do it?

I plan to do some more research [is it wrong that these days ‘research’ = ‘googling’, 90% of the time!?] on the theory and maybe find some hints and tips. In the meantime, it’s finally dawned on me to stop being obsessed with doing it right – and just get on with doing it!

This is my new Happiness Project habit, then: every day, find some time to do some ‘meditation’ – even if I’m doing it wrong (there has to be a Lolcat for that, doesn’t there?!) it will at the very least get me into the habit of finding even a few minutes every day, for deep breathing, clearing my mind, getting my shoulders out of my ears, relaxing, reconnecting, or just visualising how I’d like my day/evening/life (!) to go.

It applies to so much, doesn’t it: just start. You can figure out what you’re actually doing as you’re doing it! :)