Try this:  set your phone timer for 1 minute and think of nothing.  Just empty your mind.  After a minute come back and read the rest of this post.

How’d you do?  Were you able to clear your mind or did you mentally pick up your dry cleaning or figure out what you were making for dinner?  If you had a little ‘trouble’ keeping your thoughts from straying, you aren’t alone.  It’s why meditation can be so powerful.  My friend, Kristin, shared with me that Parade Magazine called meditation the hottest well-being trend of 2015.  Even the Seattle Seahawks meditate after Coach Pete Carroll introduced the practice in 2011.  I thought I’d write a quick post about some of the tips that helped me to get to that special mental state where everything feels amazingly right with the world.  Who of us couldn’t use a little more of that?

Meditation is an opportunity to connect with our inner wisdom.  In an early post, I shared how we are all radio transmitters and receivers to the Universe.  All day long we are pinging out requests and all day long the Universe is responding.  It seems to me though, that we are so focused on being heard (transmitting) that we often fail to listen for the reply (receive).  Meditation is an opportunity to connect with our inner wisdom and to turn up the volume on the receiver end of the equation. Or as I think of it:  an opportunity to silence our over-active, worried, stressed and not-at-all-present-in-the-moment monkey brains.  We all have this great wisdom inside of us yet most of us move so quickly in life, from one task to the next, that we are more likely to steam roll over our intuitive wisdom in our drive to do more, get more, and achieve more.   When we get present, focusing on this moment, not on what came before or what is coming next, the harried quality of our life changes.

There is a small subset of the population for whom mediation comes easily.  And then there’s the rest of us.  No matter how noble our intentions, getting Zen is almost as hard getting our kids to bed on time.  Those of us who have tried meditation and have not yet been successful give up when we find our thoughts straying.  We say it doesn’t ‘work’ for us.  Yes, it does.  You can meditate, I assure you, but you have to be patient – and therein lies the rub.  We are a society of antsy, impatient, has-to-get-done-yesterday doers.  That is why we NEED this centering time!   Meditation has been so worth the effort for me as I have received valuable intuitive insights (being shown images of DNA strands, hearing the word “telomerase”, and other words that led me to supportive supplements, experiencing extreme peace, and expanded consciousness where I feel out of my body –yes, yes lots of ‘wooh wooh’ stuff –I used to be so normal), it’s all happened to me, but it didn’t happen overnight.  It took patience and practice.

In meditation, we are moving our brainwaves to the theta state.  Theta is a state of deep receptivity.  Most of us spend most of our time giving out our energy and our attention.   Meditation is a state of being receptive, of receiving.  The theta state is something all of us experience momentarily before we drift off to deep sleep.  As young children, we spend a great deal of time in the theta brainwave state –as we are sponges of receptivity, learning about the new world around us.  The first time I reached theta in meditation, I was immediately reminded of how I used to feel as a young child but could never quite describe it to others.  Although it is natural for young children and natural for all of us as we drift off to sleep, getting there intentionally isn’t as easy for everybody –including me.  In fact, my brain was always in such a vicious cycle of worried chatter that my body created a brain tumor and positioned it right in the center of my logical left- brained frontal lobe just to shut me up.  The tumor was positioned in an area that made me less concerned with complying with rules – and some people still think it was random…!

It can be challenging to shut off the incessant chatter going on in our noggins.  But if I can learn, I know that you can.  Just because your mind wanders the 1st, 10th or 30th time you try mediating doesn’t mean you won’t be able to do it.  Until you achieve what you are seeking, why not enjoy the quiet practice time on your journey to a deeper experience of who you are, or as my grandmother used to say “just resting the eyes”?  Challenge yourself to stick with it just as you would any other goal.

Here are 5 tips that helped me to get to my Zen place.

• Use a Guided Meditation or Music
  • I can meditate now without any help but when I first started I needed support. You don’t need to buy anything.  Youtube has so many to choose from.  My favorites du jour are: DNA Repair, a 13 minute powerhouse, Theta – a very effective 20 minute theta brainwave entrainment,  or 528 Hz River, a stellar hour long journey that I often listen to as I am going to bed.  There are also guided meditations on Youtube and apps that you can purchase.
• Picture Yourself as a Strainer
  • Take 2 or 3 slow deep breaths and begin to imagine you are an empty vessel.  Feel that everything washes through you.  Once you have that image in your mind, say aloud “I am open to receive”.  This signals your energy to move from transmitting to receiving.  Feel yourself as being hollow. Allow the feelings and wisdom to come like water, washing over and through you.
• Hold Your Tongue Against the Roof of Your Mouth.
  • We have 12 meridians (channels) that carry energy throughout our bodies. There are two meridians, the Central Vessel and Governing Vessel,  that are in charge of all the rest.  Both start at the perineum.  The Central Vessel ends at the tip of the tongue while the Governing Vessel ends at the roof of the mouth.  When you connect the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth, you create a powerful circuit and encourage the flow of energy.  My experience has been that this simple step dramatically increases my ability to get to the theta brainwave state.
• Try Different Positions and Use Props 
  • Get your mind out of the gutter!  Sometimes I have success lying flat on my bed with a snuggly blanket but my deepest meditations occur when I am sitting upright in a chair. Experiment with it.  Be sure to dress comfortably, discreetly unbutton your pants if they are constricting and be sure you are warm enough.  I love using Young Living Grounding Oil to deepen my meditation. Although grounding seems counter-intuitive to reaching a heightened state of awareness, the process of grounding actually energetically connects us with the Earth and its powerful energy.  Many essential oils support the meditation process because they relax the body and the mind.  Inhaling them is great, placing a small amount on the thumb and sucking it (only Young Living oils that are safe to ingest) against the roof of the mouth is awesome, as is rubbing them on the bottom of your feet (especially the bottom of big toe which is connected to the brain).  Beyond essential oils, lighting a candle, setting the intention to ‘connect with my higher self’, or rosary beads all support the process.  This is deeply personal so when possible set yourself the right ambience and consider this sacred ‘you’ time, even if it’s only 15 minutes.
• Feel Your Body
  • It can be very hard to not focus on ANYTHING! That’s why I like to focus on my body, moving from the feet up and just feeling how they feel and relaxing any tension I encounter.  Some people focus on their breath.  I often focus on the sounds I am hearing in the meditation music and the way they reverberate through my head.

You can’t stop your thoughts…I’ve tried.  Don’t fight it.  Let your thoughts come and go as they wish.   Just don’t attach to them and take them for a ride.  Remember you are an empty vessel, there is no need to control anything.  If 5 minutes into your practice you remember that you have to sign up your son for the basketball clinic, don’t kick yourself or abandon the exercise, just silently acknowledge that you’ll remember to do it after your done and bring your attention back to your body, your breath or the music.  Often, I am not in the ‘zone’ for the entire meditation.  I pop out, but I don’t kick myself for it, I just double down and pop back in.  If you get even 2 minutes of mindfulness, where you aren’t thinking about anything that you have to get done, you have succeeded.  You are building muscle memory which means the next time it will be that much easier.

Don’t judge yourself and don’t beat yourself up for what you think you aren’t achieving.  It took me nearly a year to get there.  Just keep at it. Hopefully, my tips will help to shave some of that time off for you.  No matter how long it takes, don’t you deserve it?  Regular mindfulness; being in the present moment, not in the past or the future, is a powerful stress reliever.  Let the waters of your inner wisdom wash over you.

 

As this is a far from an exhaustive list, please feel free to share your meditation tips in the comments so that others may benefit from your experience!