Developing a Meditation Practice
Developing a Meditation Practice – just for the health of it
Meditation is an ancient art, a rich practice with potential benefits for happiness, health, and sleep.
Perhaps you already mediate, perhaps for years, or perhaps, like me you’ve found it difficult to develop.
Over the years, people have suggested that I might benefit from a meditation practice.
I’ve tried but the incessant busyness of my monkey mind always made me give up.
I use somatic exercise for Awareness practice
When I exercise somatically, my focus is in my body – a continually new and expanding world of exploration.
Exciting. Satisfying. Rejuvenating.
My body holds center stage.
I’m not mired in emotions or thoughts – like planning the day.
My monkey mind is at rest.
All fine and good – very good, however …
… as the joke goes; there is more to meditation than what you think.
To quote Albert Einstein “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
What we normally experience are the sensory, emotional, physical and thought patterns we’ve habituated over our lifetime, a “persistent illusion,” rather than the ultimate truth of existence.
In the meditation style I now practice, I’ve found a centered still point from which to observe those patterns.
The key that opens the door is to notice our whole body breathing and allow it to slow and deepen.
I dis-identify with the myriad and constant swirling world within and around me.
I have sensations. I am not my sensations.
I have emotions. I am not my emotions.
I have thoughts. I am not my thoughts.
I am a center of conscious awareness and will.
(To which Russell adds – “I am capable of harmonizing and directing all of my psychological processes and my physical body.”)
Why I love my mediation practice
I feel called to meditate every morning.
I experience greater peace through the day. Greater clarity and detachment. I’m more content and accepting of aging. Less pain in my body. Easier to fall into sleep, or back to sleep.
I use the meditation app
Insight Timer, free to begin, easy to use, and rich with many options to dive deeper.
You can begin with any amount time, 5 minutes, 20 minutes, to get a taste.
You can’t go wrong. That, too, is only a judgment to observe, not carry around.
On that site, I suggest Jack Cornfield’s short guided mediation Open Awareness.
Russell and I add meditation, visualization, affirmation and many contemplative awareness practices in our classes.
