For years I’ve been saying “I can’t meditate!” It’s just not possible, my mind is too busy – I can never just be. Well, I’m giving it a real try and guess what, it is possible, and if I can do it you can do it.

So I started out very small, just spending 5 minutes being aware of my surroundings, my breathing, and my thoughts. I think the real key is not to beat yourself up when your mind starts to wander. Just being aware of your thoughts is a good start (I think!).

Then I stepped it up to guided meditation, the key is that you need to find the right voice – for example the first CD I tried was this lady that talked really funny and it made me laugh, she was trying way to hard to be soothing. I finally settled on Jon Kabat-Zinn who is a world famous professor and mindfulness guru – he has a very nice calm voice. I’ve been doing just 15 minutes per day usually at night. At first it felt weird, but once I let go of my self consciousness and “type A” mentality of “I will be excellent at this immediately!” it was really nice!
I literally could tell the next morning when I woke up that I felt less stress and had fewer negative thoughts. And I’m becoming much more aware of my ruminating – I can cut it off at the pass before it affects my mood.

I was a total skeptic and now I’m a believer! Mindfulness is where it’s at, try it and feel more at peace with yourself. Also, look for our December workshop on mindfulness practice!

Resource: http://www.mindfullivingprograms.com/whatMBSR.php
Amanda Kearney-Smith

Meditation – You Can Do It!
Tagged on: