Week 6: Day 1 Mindful Meditation

Welcome my friends to our last week of the Mindfulness Challenge. For our final week we will be diving into the practice of meditation. Today, we will take a closer look at what meditation is, the benefits of incorporating mediation into your mindfulness practice, and explore a few of the different techniques to meditate. Throughout the week I will be providing a few short guided meditations for you to try at home! 

What is Meditation?

Meditation is an incredible old practice that stayed with us till today- and for a good reason. As we will see shortly there are countless benefits to both our emotional and physical wellbeing. Meditation means focusing on a single thing, with the aim to bring peace and calm, awareness, happiness, and insight. Meditation means we venture into the workings of the mind: we get to know ourselves and learn to direct our minds in ways that serve us better. Meditation is not something esoteric that is just for deeply spiritual people. It's a wonderful practice that can be explored by everyone! 

The Benefits of Meditation

Here are some of the benefits of bringing meditation into your mindfulness practice!

-Better clarity and focus

-Lowers blood pressure

-Strengthens the immune system

-Decreases Inflammation 

-Produces better sleep 

-Reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression

-Understanding yourself better

-More kindness with yourself and those around you

-More energy and increases creativity 

-Being more present

-Connecting to your intuition and inner knowledge

Finding a technique that is Right for you

Mediation, regardless of the type and how it's performed, opens the doors to personal transformation and mindfulness. Let's look at a few of the different types of meditation to get grounded, release stress, and support your wellbeing. Mediation is a transformative experience, It's positive, and it soothes, calms and balances us. Although usually associated with lotus position (sitting cross legged on the ground), mantras, and stillness, mediation is so much more and is truly limitless. With that being said, here are a few types of mediation.

1. Guided Meditation

Guided meditation is narrated meditation. This is where the meditation teacher steps in to help the meditation process unfold, from start to finish. The teacher guides the process by explaining the step-by-step internal process, giving meditation the needed direction. No matter if it's a live meditation session or a pre-recording, the teacher is there to guide how to position, breathe and navigate what is felt internally as meditation  unfolds. Depending on what the main focus and intention are, this meditation can be specifically directed towards awareness, self-discovery, tranquility, or insight. 

2. Body Scan Meditation

The essence of Body Scan Meditation lies in increasing awareness and feeling present in the body. This is one of the types of meditation that helps us mindfully direct focus on body parts, starting from the feet and slowly moving towards the temple. During meditation, we are internally and energetically scanning our body, and really feeling each individual part - the warmth, cold, tingling, discomfort, or comfort. This type of mediation is here to relieve tension by heling us become conscious of these different sensations. This way, we gradually release tension and stress that accumulated in the body, while working on mindfulness and calming the inner chatter at the same time. 

3. Visualization

This is a powerful tool not only for manifesting, but for calming the mind, helping us find some much-needed motivation, and releasing tension, stress, or past events. By focusing on mental images, we slowly enter into another, much more positive state of mind. Visualization meditation is nor only used for achieving that calm we need but is also a powerful manifestation and spiritual awakening tool. These envisioned images, sceneries, or symbols are positive, which helps instantly raise our vibration. The effects of this meditation vary depending on what we visualized and what our intentions are for our meditation. It can both be used to invigorate and motivate us. but can also be calming and incredibly therapeutic. 

4. Silent Meditation

Silent meditation can include a lot of different types of meditation within itself, such as Zen meditation, Transcendental meditation, Loving-Kindness meditation, Breath awareness, and others. This serves to increase mindfulness and calm the mind. Silent meditation helps us go with the flow and introduces us to the transformative power of silence, as it is done with as little sensory disturbance as possible. It is done to quiet the mind, do a spiritual deep-dive, and take a break from the noise that clouds our intuition. 

5. Focused Attention Meditation

This meditation is a real treat for those who find it difficult to stay relaxed and focused during meditation. Focused attention meditation brings the whole focus onto one thing. This can be an actual physical object, such as a healing crystal or a candle, or your own body. However, the focus can also be mental and internal and include repetition of a mantras, a specific word, an imagined object, or a sound such as with singing bowls. The more we practice, the better we become at mastering our focus. 

6. Chakra Meditation

This form of meditation is one of the most powerful practices for opening chakra centers, We can either focus on all seven chakras or direct our focus onto one specific chakra only. In the first case, which is similar to body scan meditation, the focus slowly shifts from the root chakra towards the crown chakra. The focal point of meditation can be solely on the center on the the body, but it can also include visualizing colors associated with chakras as the focus flows from one towards the other. It serves to help us with chakra imbalances, assisting the energy flow through us. This helps create a sense of inner balance. 

Take a moment today and reflect in your journal about your initial thoughts about starting a mediation practice. 

Identify when would be the best time for you to take a few minutes to yourself in a quiet space throughout this week to give yourself the opportunity to give mediation a try! (I know this can be challenging in our busy households!). 

Do you have any preconceived fears or apprehensions about mediation as a practice?

I'll see you tomorrow for our first guided meditation video! 

Much Love,

Katie 

RN, CPT, Wellness Coach