Today I have no voice – this cold is awful! -so I’m posting here. Meditation has changed my life. It has allowed me to get feelings to the surface I hadn’t dealt with. It has given me a space to be present without judging myself. It has helped me concentrate in other areas of my life. It also lets me focus on gratitude.
I started by using guided meditations on the completely FREE app, Insight Timer. My five favorite meditations there are:
Mindfulness for Releasing Anxiety by Glenn Harold
Relax into Sleep Guided Meditation by Mary Maddox (She literally coaxed me to sleep for about three months until I got my anxiety under control)
Guided Meditation for Achieving Your Goals by Ken Wells
Meditation for Self Love by Tatum Fjerstad
Developing Lovingkindness by Bodhipaksa
Meditation has helped me stop anxiety before it becomes a full blown panic attack. I often have to use it when flying because panic attacks on airplanes are a special kind of hell.
Quick tips:
If you bring to mind a time you felt gratitude, happiness, or love and secure that feeling in your body and focus on it and the memory for a few minutes at a time, you’ll find it can change how you feel for longer than the time it takes to meditate.
Try working out without music. Just focus on what you are doing and how your body feels. I often find running to be a moving meditation.
Using your breath to meditate is time tested. Just focusing on how the breath feels in your body for five minutes at a time can rework your brain’s neural pathways and help you concentrate better in daily life.
If you get frustrated because distractions keep creeping in during meditation, don’t let it stop you! Even practiced meditators get distracted every four breaths or so! The point is being willing to begin again.
You can find a full tutorial on meditation in the free workbook here.
