So You Want to Start a Meditation Practice?
I love to hear it!
If there is one thing I swear by as one of the key elements of going on a healing or wellness journey of any kind, it’s meditation. Just like journaling, meditation can offer you a sense of calm, inner peace, and balance that will benefit your overall health and wellness. You can use meditation to cope, relax and destress, or even do internal work, tapping into your subconscious mind for information about yourself, just like journaling. I swear by meditation because it grounds me, and helps me find safety within myself.
There are several types of meditation you could explore:
Mindfulness Meditation: This is the most common form of meditation, and what people usually think of when they hear the word “meditation.” Mindful meditation practice combines concentration with awareness. You may find it most useful to focus on your breath when doing this practice, as well as any bodily sensations or feelings. During mindfulness meditation, you allow your thoughts to come, and go, without judgment, simply observing the thoughts, without lingering on them. This can allow you to notice any thought patterns that might emerge, giving you insight into your internal world.
Spiritual Meditation: This type of meditation revolves around communication with a higher power of your own understanding. This looks like prayer.
Focused Meditation: This type of meditation involves concentration using any of the five senses. You might focus on your breath alone, or your body in a seat. You could also focus on something external, for example, you could count mala beads, listen to meditative music, or gaze at an object like a gazing ball.
Movement Meditation: This kind of meditation usually takes the form of walking outdoors, but it could also look like dancing, gardening, tai chi, or using other gentle forms of movement to clear the mind and focus on the body. This practice is meant to guide you into your body, and into the present moment.
Mantra Meditation: This type of meditation uses repetitive sound to clear the mind, such as ‘OM’. During this practice you take a deep inhale through the nose, and on the exhale (through your mouth), you repeat a mantra, or create a vocal sound. Producing sound like this also stimulates the vagus nerve, aka your parasympathetic nervous system, by sending gentle vibration from your throat/the sound you’re making, throughout your body, via the vagus nerve. There are so many mantras you could use, like the ‘om’, but I also like ‘voo’, and ‘sat nam.’
Progressive Relaxation: This is an excellent type of meditation often used to help the practitioner go to sleep. During this type of meditation, you do what is called a “body scan”, focusing first on your toes, then the soles of your feet, your ankles, your calves… all the way up your body, to the top of your head, part by part, relaxing each part individually as you go. When I use this practice, I like to take three deep, relaxing breaths, per body part.
Visualization Meditation: This is another favorite of mine! This type of meditation is used in two ways. One way is to visualize yourself in a calm and serene environment, in order to relax, and cultivate a sense of inner peace. The other way is to use visualization to focus on a future version of yourself, as an aide to achieving your biggest goals and dreams. By doing this, you raise your vibration to that of the version of yourself you want to become, “being as if” you were already that person. This can help keep your goals in focus, and improve your belief in the possibility of achieving them.
Internal Family Systems Meditation: This one is most often practiced with the guidance of a therapist, but if you’ve been there, and done that, you can easily do this practice on your own. (I do not recommend starting Exile work, without consulting a thearpist) During this type of meditation you relax with eyes closed, envisioning and communing with your Parts: Protectors (managers, as well as firefighters), and your Exiles. This is an amazing way to more deeply understand yourself, and maintain a sense of Self energy. If you want to learn more about IFS or IFS meditation, check out the podcast episode I recorded on the topic here.
Everyone is different. You may want to try some or all of these meditation techniques to discover which one works the best for you! There is no wrong answer. If you want to get to know yourself better, if you want to do internal work, if you want to start healing… getting into a solid, daily meditation practice is one of the best ways I know how! While it might feel uncomfortable at first, you will certainly lean into it over time and learn to use it as a form of cultivating some of the deepest inner peace you will ever come to know.
Be well,
L
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