How to Meditate & Visualize
17 March 2007Contrary to popular belief, meditation is very easy and it isn’t just reserved for granola eating Trader Joe’s shoppers or little bald Asian men wearing orange robes and living in grand monasteries atop the ice capped mountains of China (or what ever Asian country you visualize when you stereotypically think of meditating monks; some people go with Japan, others Korea). Meditation is so easy, you may already be doing it regularly and not even knowing it.
First, I just want to say before I begin that the form of meditation I’ll first be talking about is a very simple form of meditation that is designed to prepare your mind for clarity.
When most people think about adding a regular habit of meditation to their day they think of meditation like how instructional sex videos talk about masturbating. As they setup some exclusive space for their deep and soul inspiring meditation session they hear a soft female voice instructing them to “close the door, lock it if you can”, “burn some incense or light some candles”, “make sure you won’t be interrupted”, etc. If you don’t hear this voice, it’s O.K., I’m still betting that if you’ve tried unsuccessfully to add meditation to your daily life before, you probably made a bit more of production of it than you needed to.
Meditating in 3 Easy Steps
- Step 1: Close your eyes or stare at something. Try to stare at something if you are surrounded by people, in fact try to stare at someone if you can.
- Step 2: Focus on your breathing. It doesn’t matter how you breath. In through your nose, out through your mouth, vice versa, or in and out through your nose or mouth. Just try and relax and breath deeply and steadily. Sometimes it helps to count your breaths.
- Step 3: Clear your mind. At some point you’ll find that you are naturally not focusing on your breathing and if that realization doesn’t cause you to start thinking about your breathing again you’re mind is pretty much clear.
Once you feel like your mind is clear, stay in this state for as long as you can. 2 seconds, 2 minutes, 2 hours, what ever. At first you won’t be able to hold it for long, but with practice you’ll be able to push further.
A lot of times it helps to set a designated amount of time aside to do this and to keep at it for the duration, but I think that setting up this time can be discouraging and can also lead to procrastinating. If you find that you can’t keep meditating for too long, you may want to force yourself into expanding the duration, but make sure it is a goal that won’t frustrate you.
The most important thing is to start small. You don’t have to meditate each day at first. Just try to consciously meditate as often as possible.
Kicking It Up a Notch
Once you’ve managed to meditate consistently for a good duration it’s time to spruce up the habit. In that sexual instruction video it would be the time to start adding oils, toys, and self-massage, but for meditation it is time to add visualization.
When I used to compete in track and field events my team would all warm-up and do stretches on the football field in the middle of the track. I was allergic to grass so instead I sat on the concrete next to the track and I meditated (I saved the stretching for before and after an event). While I meditated I visualized myself preparing for an event, I envisioned the starting gun being shot and me bursting out ahead of everyone and crossing the finishing line first. At first it was hit and miss, I won some and I lost some, but after awhile it became easier and easier to prepare my mind. Eventually I started to win more events and placed higher in the events I didn’t win. By the end of the track season I had a few more folks sitting with me on the concrete instead of out on the grass field before each competition.
Visualization such as this is another form of practicing or rehearsing your experiences and it works. The more you can visualize, the better the outcome will be. Worry about running into the CEO of your company in the elevator and being put on the spot to give the classic “30 seconds” speech about who you are? Meditate and visualize the encounter. Go through every possible outcome and prepare yourself for how you’ll handle it. Rehearse the same speech over and over again. If your chance encounter with the CEO ever happens you’ll feel like it has happened several times already and you’ll be able to shine.
There are other ways to kick up your meditation too. You can add another staple; the mantra. When you do this you focus on a phrase or word during meditation. Most often the mantra is repeated over and over again in the mind. Another thing you can do that is similar to a mantra is to focus on a small passage or story. When you do so, focus on what the story means to you, what its lessons are, and what its lesson might be that you aren’t seeing.
Once you are meditating regularly and adding visualization to your meditation you’ll find that you’ll have a lot less anxiety and far more peace of mind.
Anthony
on March 17th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
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on March 30th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
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