A Beginner's Guide to Meditation: Health, Serenity, and Joy by Lucas River

Author:Lucas River
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: A Beginners Guide to Meditation: Health, and Joy, Fitness & Dieting, New Age, Health, Serenity, Alternative Medicine, Meditation, Religion & Spirituality
Published: 2015-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5 Getting Started: 10 Beginning Exercises

When you begin your own meditation journey, the beginning may be quite chaotic as you receive information from your thoughts that you have previously ignored and stuffed inside. You may feel overwhelmed with feelings and thoughts. You may not know where to even begin to regulate your lightning fast brain impulses. Here is a good way to begin:

Exercise 1 Find a comfortable chair.

Sit comfortably. Do not worry about posture at this time, think instead relaxing comfort.

Close your eyes but do not go to sleep. (Often this is hard to do because we are used to collapsing from exertion at the end of the day.)

Listen to yourself breathe. Your breath goes in and out. Feel the movement of your body. Your lungs compress and then expand. Your heart begins to slow.

You can feel your body relax.

Your mind will begin to wander. Gently pull it back to your breathing. In and Out. Up and down. Try to keep this position for three to five minutes.

Stand up. Stretch. You have now completed your first meditation exercise.

Exercise 2

Try the body scan today.

Lay comfortably on a couch or bed.

Close your eyes.

Feel your toes, just your toes. Stretch them. Now relax them.

Do you feel how limp they are?

Now move to your calves. Stretch. Relax. Wiggle. Relax.

Now to your thighs. Stretch. Relax. Relax.

Your mid torso. Squeeze buttocks. Now relax.

Stomach. Tense, hold it in. Relax.

Feel your breath, in and out.

Fill your chest with air. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Do this five times. Now relax your chest.

Roll your shoulders up and down. Up is tense, down is relaxed. Rest.

Stretch your arms, out and in. out and up, in and down. relax.

Roll your neck. Move your head in circles. Move clockwise, now counterclockwise. Relax.

Bend your chin to touch your chest. Stretch. Lean back and relax. Do this five times.

Feel the tension leave your entire body.

You have completed your second meditation.

Exercise 3

Practice a mantra. Mantra breaks down to man and tra, which in Sanskrit means mind instrument. If "om" doesn't appeal to you, pick a one-syllable word that does.

Say the mantra slowly, very slowly.

Feel the vibration of sound move through your body.

Say the mantra even slower. Can you feel it in your toes? Are your eyes closed?

Slowly make the mantra into a five-syllable word.

Now try to make it ten syllables.

Repeat.

You have completed your third meditation exercise.

Exercise 4

In this exercise it is best to choose soothing music for which there are no lyrics. Do not pick music with a heavy beat, or something familiar, because your mind memory will go to the beat or the lyrics and kidnap your meditation time.

Listen to the music carefully. Lay down with your eyes closed. Put the volume very low, just loud enough to hear, but not quite loud enough to distinguish or follow the tune.

Try to slow your breathing to match the tempo of the music. Breathe outward with the upbeat and inward with the downbeat. See if you can slow your heartbeat to match the slow tempo.

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