delight: building a consistent practice
Today marks 32 days since i’ve embarked on my international voyage. At just over a month, i continue to successfully enact one of my greatest ambitions for this experience: building a consistent practice. A consistent morning routine has been my goal for as long as i can remember. As a teenager, i desperately wanted to be the organized sister who woke up at 6 a.m. and followed her exact routine. As an adult, i always want to softly wake up with the sun, workout, and meditate before jumping into my responsibilities. And for so long, this has only led to conversations with myself, discussions with my therapist, and many failed attempts to maintain a routine.
While my morning is still very flexible with no set routine, i have been meditating consistently for 32 days with an average of 20 minutes per day. Now, after gaining trust with myself, i have increased my meditation to 30 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the evening. While i have reached this milestone before, i feel more confident about my ability to maintain this as a daily healing practice because for the first time i am doing this out of absolute necessity. I rely on the moments of meditation to feel at home as the world around me consistently changes.
And each morning, i gently lie down then slowly sit up, as i pray for my safety and the safety of my friends and family. My morning meditation begins as a mindful check in with my body, then a prayer, and finally a check in with my surroundings. All in all, i am grateful for the consistency that i have shown myself and i want to give a few tips and reminders about ways to fully enjoy the mindfulness/meditation journey. Just in case, i need a little reminder. Here are a few things to remember:
Acknowledge that you already do meditate. Anything you devote 100% of your attention to is an act of meditation, so it is very important that people confront the fact that most of us are really good at meditating; it’s just that we choose to meditate on things that may not always be helpful for our mental, emotional, or physical state. For example, accidentally going on Tik Tok for 4 hours is basically placing you in a trance state. However, we can also acknowledge that a lot of us do have healthy meditative practices (i.e. working out, especially when we are conscious of our mind/body connection during the process)
Understand that meditating is the practice of directing your focus, which can be done in a variety of ways that are pleasurable to you… and also in ways that may not be pleasurable to you. Again, meditation is the practice of consciously and actively controlling the focus of mind, body, and/ spirit. Examples of Meditation:
Working Out (can be the easiest for most people)
Dancing (can be the most fun)
Lying down for 30 minutes thinking about your day/thinking about your thoughts (easy for us over-thinkers)
Also known as noting (thinking about your thinking and noting your thoughts)
Sitting in lotus thinking about nothing (tends to be the toughest for the average person)
Body Scan (checking in with your body)
Prayer
Love and Kindness Meditation (my personal favorite)
Journaling
Shower Time / Skincare / Doing Makeup
Listening to Music / Reciting a Mantra (people should remember that poetry and music were first forms of prayer)
Walking your dog
Doing your favorite activity to the point where you lose track of time and surroundings (writing, video games, etc.)
Examples of “Traditional” Meditation
Zen Meditation: sitting up right and noticing the breath move in and out of the belly while letting the mind “just be”
Mantra Meditation: focusing your attention on a phrase, syllable or word
Yoga Meditation: focusing attention on movement
Vipassana Meditation: an ancient tradition that asks us to concentrate on the true nature of reality
Sound Bath Meditation: Using bowls, gongs, and instruments to create sound vibrations that help focus the mind
Consider the ways that you already like to meditate and try to do it daily (whether it is for 5 minutes or 1 hour), just give your mind the time to do that
Be gentle with yourself! So what if you forgot to meditate for a day, pick back up the next day. So what if you spent the whole 15 minutes obsessing over an awkward moment instead of clearing your mind…Reflect on why that moment has taken up so much of your brain space
Meditate at times that are convenient for you! In the morning, it helps with a gentle wake up and at night it helps with easing into sleep. In the middle of a party in a bathroom, it helps to ground oneself and listen to one’s emotions/feelings
If you are hoping to get better at “traditional” meditation (i.e. sitting in silence and quieting your inner dialogue), here’s a tip that i use. Spend as much time as you need actively emptying thoughts that you know will come up before settling into the practice!
For example, if it’s the morning time and i know i am going to think of everything i have to do today, then I write down all of my tasks for the day in my calendar/to do list before meditating. While this doesn’t always eliminate the thoughts during my meditation, it helps me a lot. In fact, i am writing this list before my meditation this morning because it popped into my mind as i woke up and i know that i would be outlining and sketching the thoughts in my mind instead of focusing on the intention of my meditation.
Listening meditations are also an easier way into clearing the mind for me. Give yourself something to focus on. Listen to music or the sound of rain or simply listen to your surroundings in a city and see how many noises you can identify
Visualization meditations are great for people with active imaginations! Listen to someone paint a picture before you and try to visualize it in your mind’s eye
Become aware of the different hz frequencies and their effect on the body. Most of the times when i cannot bring myself to sit still, i will do an active meditation (i.e. cleaning my room, taking a shower, skincare routine, dancing, etc.). During these times, i like to play a hz frequency that can help my brain waves match a frequency that i am hoping to achieve.
