It depends on if you are
It depends on if you are a morning person or someone who wakes up slowly.
If you wake up slowly it could be better to meditate later in the day or evening...or at least wait until you're fully feeling awake.
I had started meditating shortly after finishing high school because of a feeling that there has to be something more to life than this, which I suspect most of us feel at some point in our lives.
You
We choose how to interpret what were experiencing, then decide how to react to our own interpretations. We do this over and over and call it thinking.
Making better decisions for happier outcomes only takes getting better at making these two choices. So practicing paying attention to them is practicing at being happier.
How to:
Subconscious:
Wash your hands, feel the temperature and wetness on your hands. Feel the texture and slipperiness of the soap, let your fingers dangle in the water for a second after rinsing. Notice how calm your mind is.
This works by taking up your full attention and temporarily distracting you from your auto-pilot mental habits.
If you have difficulties when paying attention to breathing such as a lack of breath or feel a heaviness on your chest, common with people who have asthma, instead of paying attention to breathing, silently count down 3,2,1 then start over at 3 again.
The first step is to learn what goes on subconsciously, see:
Then practice being mindful of your of your subconscious in your normal daily activities. There is a great self-awareness practice to help with this at:
Probably because you're using a meditation that doesn't address both the thinking mind and your awareness. If we don't occupy both the we're easily distracted.
:
Quickly breathe in, taking a deep breath. Hold it for 5 seconds, then slowly exhale for a count of 10. Notice how your mind has slowed and calmed.
This works by using principals of subconscious awareness where the mind going from fast to slow energizes and then calms down leaving us with a calm energetic mind. Its the same process we often use with walking meditation to achieve a calm energized mind.
Kicking myself for calling by its former name in my dream last night. My has a lot to answer for.
It's pretty easy to look at people and see who were the in their previous - people doesn't solve anything. doesn't necessarily solve anything. Killing people just throws the unresolved issues into the of the collective to rear the of cause and effect into the unsuspecting, experientially unconscious, next generation.
:
For 30 seconds listen very carefully to everything you can hear without focusing on any one sound. Notice your calm mind.
This works by taking up your full attention and temporarily distracting you from your auto-pilot mental habits.
Purposely distracting ourselves from our normal auto-pilot mental habits and changing them, along with creating a new mental association, gives us an easy, highly effective, and more permanent stress and anxiety relief solution.
Details:
: Close your eyes and slowly count down 3, 2, 1, and relax the muscles in your neck and shoulders. Repeat this three times.
We tend to tense up our shoulders and neck when we feel stressed or anxious. Purposely relaxing those muscles releases tension and stress or anxiety that caused us to tense up. Counting down slowly slows the mind, making it easier to relax.
It can seem like we make an endless number of choices, but we really only ever make the same two choices over and over againand call it thinking.
1. We choose how to interpret a situation, and then
2. Decide how to react to our own interpretation.
Although it can seem that we react to others or external forces, we only ever react to ourselves.
from:
: Take a deep cleansing breath and hold it for a few seconds then slowly exhale.
Taking a deep breath to refresh and refocus is a natural meditation most of us do already. We can get further the benefits by doing it more often as a stress preventative.
We can create brand new helpful mental associations. A great example is the Stress And Anxiety Relief and Nature-Based Meditation programs.
: Expand your visual focus to include peripheral vision on both left and right sides and maintain your awareness over the full 180 degrees for 10 seconds. Stop and notice how calm your mind is.
This works by saturating our awareness and eliminating distraction, including thinking.
We form both conscious and subconscious habits for everything we do on a regular basis, including thinking and meditating.
Mental habits are our time and energy saving auto-pilot way of navigating daily life.
Meditation is distracting ourselves from our normal auto-pilot thinking habits, and it works by replacing our current habits with new ones through repetition.
It's the space in between concentration and distraction where insight happens, it's called insight meditation and almost any meditation can become insight meditation if we notice when we're being distracted and ask yourself how and why it's happening.
Of our three mental resources, speculating deserves some extra attention. It's where our human innovation comes from, and is responsible for much of our reasoning ability.
On the other hand, our memories include an endless number of thoughts with speculation mixed in, which means a lot of what we think we know isn't necessarily right. This can be a hard pill to swallow.
: Gently and quickly shake or tremble all the fingers on both hands for a count of 10, then suddenly stop. Notice your calm mind.
This is a simple form of somatic shaking or therapeutic shaking that involves intentionally inducing and allowing the body to shake or tremble as a way to release stored tension and trauma from the nervous system. For best results shake/vibrate your whole body.
When we speculate we're just guessing to fill in the blanks of missing information based on how we feel and what we know about a situation.
It might not seem that how we interpret a situation is a choice but it really is. Think of it like this when we're in a good mood pretty much anything anyone says to us is fine. When we're in a bad mood we easily take exception to someone saying the very same things.
If you'd like a free copy of my book " " in exchange for your input just private message me your email address and I'll add you to the final version thank you page.
Thank you,
Todd
: Count 1,2,3 very quickly 10 times, counting on your fingers. Then count down 3,2,1 very very slowly 3 times. Notice how your mind has slowed and calmed.
This works by using principals of subconscious awareness where the mind going from fast to slow energizes and calms down leaving us with a calm energetic mind. Its the same process we often use with walking meditation to achieve a calm energized mind.
We were taught the choreography to Nasty by Janet Jackson. The group was not professional but focused. The high E string on my guitar was held together with medical tape, I closed my eyes to listen while tuning. Then the wire began to unravel, I held the instrument away from my chest as the taut wire snapped. I looked up a guitar store on Google. Strangers helped me put away my other instrument (Grandpas Martin) into a case that fit perfectly.
By definition, Marine Corps drill is meditation. My definition of meditation is anything we do to distract ourselves from our normal auto-pilot mental habits, and works by replacing our current habits with new ones through repetition.
Let me know if you need help selecting a meditation technique that helps you reach your specific goals.
: Look around you and notice the space in the room and be the space.
Notice how the space is there no matter what furniture and other items might be in itthe space is still there, unaffected. Be the space.
You are the space and our thoughts are like items in the space. They exist, but dont effect the space which goes endlessly beyond the room in all directions. Be the space.
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: place the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth like you were going to make a T sound and remain aware of the feeling of the tongue on the roof of your mouth for 10-15 seconds. Then notice how quiet your mind is.
This works sort of like a switch, putting our dialog on pause, which also pauses our internal dialog. You may notice that as soon as you release your tongue from the roof of your mouth that your internal dialog resumes.
Over the 25+ years learning how the subconscious mind works I've concluded that it's not possible to truly understand meditation without understanding our subconscious so we can grasp what's really going on.
Worth listening: How to Your
Being and Living in the Present Moment
We can work with our mental associations to help with our mental health. For example, if weve been feeling depressed for more than a couple of days we run the risk of starting to associate our surroundings with the feeling of being depressed, making it that much harder to pull ourselves out of it. Going to places we associate with happier times can help get us back on track sooner.
From:
: Close your eyes and slowly count down 3, 2, 1, and relax the muscles in your neck and shoulders. Repeat this three times.
We tend to tense up our shoulders and neck when we feel stressed or anxious. Purposely relaxing those muscles releases tension and stress or anxiety that caused us to tense up. Counting down slowly slows the mind, making it easier to relax.
: Take a deep cleansing breath and hold it for a few seconds then slowly exhale.
Taking a deep breath to refresh and refocus is a natural meditation most of us do already. We can get further the benefits by doing it more often as a stress preventative.
Karma Explained
: Gently and quickly shake or tremble all the fingers on both hands for a count of 10, then suddenly stop. Notice your calm mind.
This is a simple form of somatic shaking or therapeutic shaking that involves intentionally inducing and allowing the body to shake or tremble as a way to release stored tension and trauma from the nervous system. For best results shake/vibrate your whole body.