What is meditation?

Meditation is such a huge subject, its difficult to know where to start, but start I will!

Everyone can meditate!

I will leave that statement to settle in for a few moments.....as I know that people struggle with this concept. I often get people saying to me "I tried meditation once, but I couldn't do it". Hmmmm.

Let us rewind a little.....

Firstly, what is meditation? Its a state of mind where you can focus on one thing and allow your mind and body to switch off from everything else going on, some people refer to the "monkey mind" and that is such a good analogy, your mind tends to flit from one thing to another, multi-tasking and overthinking and allowing busyness to rule the day. By making the decision to focus on one thing, helps the brain to focus rather than jumping around, a great way of thinking about this is imagining your brain is a spotlight, and it can only shine on one thing at a time.

How to meditate? Sit quietly for a few moments, on a chair, lying down, kneeling, sitting on the floor cross legged or legs out infront. You do not need to sit in the lotus position with hands in mudra to meditate. Simply sitting and being still for a while is a great way to start to allow your mind to still. Whenever mundane thoughts come into your mind such as "have I put the washing on" or "shall I have soup for lunch" then acknowledge this, allow your mind to let the thought go and bring your focus back to stillness. You do not have to sit in complete silence. You may wish to put a guided visualisation on, or play gentle music.

How long shall I do it for? How long is a piece of string? A few moments, a few minutes, a few hours....does that answer your question? However long you decide to sit in stillness is how long you will meditate for. Start with a short space of time and increase the time if it feels right.

What type of meditation should I try? All of them! We all have our own style of learning, we all have preferences and our senses can be strong in certain areas. So start with sitting in stillness and clearing your mind. Try a guided visualisation. Try a body scan. Before long you will work out what suits you.

I can't see anything in my mind when given instructions to see things, am I doing it wrong? Actually thats a big fat no! You see some people have a strong sense of visualisation and others have none, its a condition called aphantasia, and it means you have no mind's eye so being told to see something is not possible. Try a body scan or a counting meditation.

In this online community we cover 12 guided visualisations. However, in extra resources found in the library, you will see other meditations to try.

Want to learn more? Ann has written a book to be released June 2024 called Meditation collective. Or sign up to the next month on here to experience another meditation.

Check out Ann's podcast on meditation.