Meditation techniques allow you to achieve many different things. Meditation has been practiced around the world in nearly every known culture and religion, under different names. People use meditation to achieve different and often personal outcomes. Some use it for personal fulfillment, to achieve wellness, or relaxation. Techniques have been practiced in nearly every part of the world for thousands of years. The benefits of meditation have been documented to achieve a better state of mind (often called mindfulness), healing, and achieving clearer focus.

Meditation is a spiritual practice not associated with any one religion or culture.

Meditating brings you into a clearer focus on the present. It allows you to be fully present in the moment without dwelling on the unchangeable past or futures yet to be. The expression “meditate upon…” means you must already be in that fully present state to consider the activity. Meditation is a good setup for focusing your intent. It’s a single state of being (not mind) when you are free from constraints.

Meditation allows you to transform yourself, as within so without.

There are more than 15 different techniques and probably an infinite number of variations. Some forms of meditation practice include:

• Control of your breathing
• Listening to your heartbeat
• Repeating mantras
• Movement such as dance
• Guided meditation is listening to someone else take you into the trance state

Stillness, sometimes called Silence is a meditation based on managing your awareness. It’s the practice I was taught and one I teach. Stillness is a purely mental form of meditation that brings your mind into a state of focused intent. You are seeking a state of being where your mind rests in the silence, the spaces in-between. It is a primary exercise of your sense of self, also known as your third chakra, Manipura or ram. In this meditation, there is no explicit breath control. However, you’ll find you take fewer and more shallow breaths over time. 

Building Your Personal Meditation Routine

• Be comfortable – Sit, recline, or lie flat
• This is the notion that meditation requires you to fold up like a pretzel or hold certain poses for extended lengths of time. Those practices do exist. For those new to meditation, comfort before all 😊
• Place your tongue on the roof of your mouth
• Find or create a quiet but not silent place
• Outdoors is an awesome experience
• Soft or rhythmic music (flute, drums) – as you prefer but not required
• Dim not dark room
• Be comfortable in your surroundings
• Do it at the same time, same place each day until you build a practice
• Build up over time. Start with three to five minutes and add time over a period of weeks
• 20 minutes for each meditation session is plenty for most people
• After you awake is a very good time since your mind is freer
• 21-days or more builds a habit
• Once in your meditative state, think upon a single thought. Start with something simple
• Try a shape such as a blue square or a leaf. Let your mind's eye trace the outline
• Try different forms of meditation until it feels right to you. There are resources below
• When you’re ready to come out, open your eyes, tap your fingers from one hand on the palm of the other
• Remembering your meditation - Journaling
• Have pen and paper nearby. Anything will do, a fancy journal is great, but a notepad works equally as well
• Say what you saw or thought out loud. It reinforces the memory and this works for dreams too

Additional Resources

• National Institutes of Health Studies
• https://nccih.nih.gov/health/meditation/overview.htm
• Different types of meditation practices
• http://liveanddare.com/types-of-meditation/
• UCLA Mindfulness Practices – free mp3s of guided meditation
• http://marc.ucla.edu/mindful-meditations
• Meditation Heals Body and Mind
• http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/meditation-heals-body-and-mind#1
• Meditation Balances the Body's Systems
• http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/transcendental-meditation#1
• A Breakthrough in Personal Evolution
• https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/breakthrough-personal-evolution-deepak-chopra-md-official-/?published=t