mindful meditation Tag Archive

Tips for Consistent Meditation

Here’s how I was able to consistently meditate daily.

  • The best time to start meditation is now. Start with the basic 10 minute guided meditation (Headspace if you chose to)  It’s free!
  • Be clear about your goals on why you are meditating. Is it for personal, career, relationships, relaxation or any other reason?
  • Do guided meditation in areas full of distractions (too much noise, movements)
  • If you have tinnitus, a low non destructive sound should help negate it. Surprisingly, I can meditate now without sounds even if I have tinnitus.
  • A familiar, silent place for meditation is desirable for starters but is not necessary. I do meditate on the bus or inside my parked car.
  • Comfy but not slouchy chair is recommended.
  • The most comfortable sitting posture for you is recommended. You don’t need complex sitting postures to meditate.
  • Don’t fret when you are distracted, because you will be, often and a lot. The most important thing is, you bring back yourself to meditation as soon as you notice you’ve been distracted.
  • Practice meditation as consistently as possible preferably on a regular time schedule. I do mine consistently in the morning and set alarms for this.
  • Practice “breathing in meditation” for a minute or two in situations you’re really stressed out. Mind you it works wonders!

That’s it! I hope you will start and enjoy the benefits of meditation yourself! 

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Meditation for Busy People (Like Me)

If you want a simple, actionable meditation practice to jumpstart your own meditation here’s my ridiculously simple guide for busy, upstart professional like me.

I once thought meditation is for people who have hours to spare doing some weird postures on rubber mat. Well, I don’t think I would be able to do those postures and I don’t have hours for mediation. I was dead wrong. You don’t need those bone stretching bends nor hours just to reap the benefits of meditation.

Before anything though, let me clarify something about my meditation practice:

  • I’m always searching for ways to optimize my time, effort and finances to achieve life goals. I read “optimisation’ books and resources online, snatched a few ideas, tried a method or tool onto myself or tweak it to my context. Meditation is one on these optimisation tools (termed mindful tools in this site) I’m currently learning. Thus, I can only attest to the result of my own experimentation.  
  • I’m not a meditation expert, nor I teach meditation in any form.  I’m not prescribing a particular meditation technique for you and your lifestyle. You have to find that out for yourself.
  • You might be tempted to ask but no, my meditation does not have any religious dimension to it.  I,  as well as many well meaning practitioners ( Tara Brach, Sam Harris, Tim Ferriss ) shy away from such undertones because no single denomination has the monopoly of meditation and its benefits. There are more similarities than differences you can find in meditation that cuts across beliefs and religious denominations.
  • The benefits of meditation are also not confined to a single method or the level of meditative practice you’re in!   Case in point, me!  I had all those benefits even if I only allotted 20 minutes of my time each day!

Having said that, I enumerated the benefits of meditation in this post. After experiencing some of the benefits I listed, I decided to include meditation in my must do tools daily.

Most meditative practice I’ve tried contained 3 basic foundational elements:

  1. The first element is on body posturing and finding an anchor to focus your attention. This rely on the body’s contact to environment and breathing.
  2. Second element is about collecting the mind, called “coming back” when one is distracted during meditation.
  3. The practice of “being here”, the practice of being mindful, recognizing and allowing  non-judgmental presence completes the third part . 

Let’s jump to my current meditation practice. This is a guided meditation based on Headspace Take 20.

  1. 5 minutes to 0 minutes : This is me settling on my meditation area. I often fidget so I make sure I’m well seated upright, free from distractions. 
  2. 0- 5 minutes : With eyes open and sitting comfortably on a chair, hands/arms on my lap, feet on the ground, back on the chair support, I familiarize with my environment. Then I start deep breathing.  After 5- 6 deep breathes,  I close my eyes with the last out take of a deep breath.
  3. ~5-10 minutes : I return  to my normal, regular breathing. I use the five senses to be “aware” of my surroundings- the feet on the floor, my back on the chair, those smells in the air, the sounds I hear. Then I go on identifying my present emotional state and feelings, doing a quick head to toe scan for any discomforts. The idea is to acknowledge these stimulus but not being judgmental about it. It is in this part also where I clarify my goals on why I am meditating.
  4. ~10-15 minutes: All about breathing- taking note of the intake and out take, how regular or irregular it is and where is breathing felt on my body. Then I start counting my breaths from 1- 5, then going back to 1 and start counting again. If I’m distracted, I just going back to one and start counting again. The “bringing back” exercise is very important here. Some practitioners consider meditation a success if you are able to “come back” from distractions !
  5. ~15-17 minutes : I let go any control of my thoughts. I just let my mind to do what it wants to do or what it wants to think.
  6. 17-20 minutes: I bring back my mind to my anchor points– breathing, environmental stimuli etc, making sure I am aware again of my environment. Once I do, I open my eyes, blink and remain seated while focusing on what I’d be doing next. After that, I’d do a bit of upper body stretch then get on with my daily activity.

    If  you noticed all of these foundational elements (plus some) are in my meditation practice. You can copy and tweak this to your liking. Better yet, try first Headspace Take 10 before jumping deeper into meditation. I listed tips on meditation in this post. For more tips, tools and updates on meditation, do subscribe to this blog and get it right in your email.

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    Owning up a less than perfect but tremendously awesome productive week!

    “Today I escaped from the crush of circumstances, or better put, I threw them out, for the crush wasn’t from outside me but in my own assumptions” –Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.13 (  from The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday)

    Last week was perhaps my busiest and ironically, my most productive week so far. Right of the bat,  let me clear it out that “busy” is not the same as “productive” and I try to be more of latter. How? Please read my last post.

    So basically I’m updating what I’ve achieved (or not achieved) so far on my #lifedoover:

    Journaling

    I’m still doing the old school, handwritten, spring bound notebook type of journaling.  I missed two days last week, since I was on the road most of the time. Apart from that, I felt great after finishing each journal entry. Nay, I relish it. I’m beginning to focus on more important things, listing only 3 top tasks each day and actually finish 80% of it. 2 out of 3. Not bad for a beginner. I still have to work on a what not to do list each day in the coming weeks will be on . Just to fine tune my focusing attitude. I wish I can develop a format for evernote, but I’m pretty sure thats just one other distraction for me.

    Meditation

    Headspace 10 days trial. Fifteen minutes, 2x each day. I’m still on the 4th day of the app, but I meditated without my smart phone too so it wasn’t counted there. The first 3 was difficult for me but I like the effects on breathing, self awareness and most especially on my sleep. I can now induce my body to sleep with this quickie meditations. I have to get meditation into my psyche now, without my smartphone where the app is, because I’m also consuming less info nowadays.

    Low information diet

    The more chaotic part of my do over, life redesigning attempt. I got some negative feedback from people, especially on missing out sms, private messenger and emails. I explained though that I’m working on being productive and is avoiding distractions from repeatedly glancing on my phone. I also gave out schedules for people to contact me then tried some auto responders. The autoresponder failed on many occasions. My social media engagement dropped significantly by almost 60%. I’m not sure if that is good but, I also had time bringing offline conversations to real, in flesh friends. 🙂

    Book readings

    I did consume tons of audiobooks and podcasts, probably because I’m on the road often. I’m almost done with one hardcopy and is simultaneously reading half of a non fiction. Then, crap I bought 4 more new books! Now I really have to cut off some more of my “busy look” time! I’m totally orgasmic each time I finish a book. Couldn’t wait for a next one!

    Blog/Vlog/Podcast

    I’m writing this didn’t I? I also am about to publish a vlog, maybe this week after post processing. I still have to finish that book on digital interview and podcasting. I’m quite fascinated how I’m learning so much deconstructing interviews, picking out habits, tips I could use myself for my #doover. It’s pretty amazing , there’s literally so many stuff to learn from people. Oh, glad I listened to Maria Popova‘s (Brainpicking) podcast on How to start a Blog? Because she just said…”Write for yourself

    Work/Career

    A ton of opportunities exploded last week. The “good problem” still lingers in me and I have yet to get a grip on my bearing. Why I am not yet calling the shot? I don’t know. Maybe I did already. Ah, I did get a feedback I might be overdoing stuff and is just killing myself. Well, maybe thats a good way of killing one self right? Or because I’m in the habit of “overdoing” things thats why opportunities just pops out right off the hood.

    Something to work on next week. Diet, exercise and photography. Plus I really have to work on my roaster hack! For coffee!

    Now, about that quote in the first part of this post. It simply mean that everything that happened to us, it was mainly our own doing. Owning up our actions, thoughts, decisions and everything else we do. We are the only ones who has access to our mind, our freedom, our will. Not anyone else or some thing outside us. So own up, and do not blame others!

    If you guys wanted to meet me in flesh, have some coffee, or a life conversation (yup you’ll be on my vlog) or maybe just shoot landscapes, give me a call. Or comment below. 🙂

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