I have a client who is busy, always bouncing along in a competitive business world and always coming up with new ideas. Finally I said to him this week, Adam, why don’t you try meditation? I’m sure it will change your life and make so much of what you do flow more easily. He dodged the comment. I raised it again this morning, and he said: “yeah I suppose maybe… I’ll have to find someone to teach me”. I suggested a yoga teacher – and he said he’d tried Yoga and hated it.
As we live in separate countries I was unable to immediately think of an alternative option, but sure that I was onto a good/big thing for him, I went myself and meditated on the idea of how to get Adam ok with this concept and trying it. I am sure we all have people like Adam in our lives, and let’s face it, many of us were also like him once too. So I came up with this – and will send it to him this evening.
Meditation for Beginners
Walk into a garden, or find a quiet place at the beach, riverside, or park. Sit where you feel like sitting – that’s out-of-the-way of others. Turn off your cellphone, and give yourself at least 30 minutes.
Sit quietly in a position that is comfortable for you – take your shoes off if you like. Loosen your tie, or belt, and just relax in a comfortable state. You don’t have to sit cross-legged and go ‘ohhhmmmm’ but you can if you wish and there are many other mantras you could use if you wish. But for now, let’s just get comfortable with relaxing your mind a little.
As you get comfortable, then close your eyes. Take several very deep breaths, and concentrate on breathing all the way in through the nose, and then slowly exhale through the mouth. Do this maybe 4-5 times, and just focus on slowing your breathing down and calming your heart rate. That is all.
Then, when you feel that you can naturally breathe slowly and fully on each breath, relax a little more and concentrate on doing that for a few minutes. Your mind may be wandering or even bouncing all over the place – but that’s ok. Every breath will help. Just let your mind wander – but like a butterfly flitting from thought to thought – not an excited puppy. Whenever you find you are thinking about something specific like a work problem or a conversation… just say calmly to your mind – next please. And move on to the next thought. Imagining of your mind as a beautiful garden with flowers everywhere – let the butterflies of thought move as they will from flower to flower – not pausing too long in any one place.
Let your other senses awaken slowly to the sounds around you. Listen to the breeze – see if you can hear it. Let your skin tingle with the feel of the air passing over it. Feel your hair resting on your scalp. Let your mind wander over your body and see if it all feels ok. That’s all. Think about your body sitting where it is, comfortably listening to the breeze, feeling the air, warming in the sun or cooling in the shade. Just sit and be. Nothing more.
Take another deep breath and smile – simply enjoying the feeling of taking 10-20 minutes out of your busy day to totally recharge your batteries in this meditative state. Keep smiling gently to yourself knowing that this 20 minutes can be easily made up in your day by being fresher at each task later after you’ve taken this valuable time out.
Take another deep breath, and ask your own self, if there is anything special you wish to give to yourself today – any thought, idea, knowledge, or inspiration. Then wait and breath slowly, allowing any answer to come to you. Just wait and see what is there inside your mind, that’s been waiting for a quiet moment to come forth. These moments of brilliance are shy, and like to wait until they can be heard in the quiet, they struggle to compete with all the other clutter in your mind during the day. So give them a moment of absolute freedom to step forth and lay themselves down before you.
Then, thank your own self for that gift of a special thought, idea, or burst of inspiration, and taking another very deep breath, think about where you are, focus on the place you sit in, open your eyes when you are ready and stretch. Remind yourself that this was your own special time with your own self and that it was necessary to just sit quietly in your stillness for a few minutes today.
That is the first part of learning to meditate.
Do this every day
Allow yourself a free 30 minutes. You may only meditate for 20 minutes or so, or maybe you’ll take the whole 30. But keep practicing at this every day until you find it easier and easier to relax and do this. Eventually you may wish to do more intense levels of mediation, but for starters, just try this – it will increase your creativity, and your awareness of yourself and others. This is the most valuable thing you can do for yourself and your business right now.
If you wish to record these instructions onto a disk you can do that too.
And don’t beat yourself up over whether or not you are doing this right – there is no right way – just do it your way. But following these simple steps will make it incredibly easy to get started.
Best wishes, and let me know how you get on.
The Blue Flames 