Namaste! I have been doing a lot of research and practice into the world of meditation, and I am excited to share my progress. This week in CEP 810 our assignment was to post about the progress we are making with our network learning project. During week 2, I chose that I was going to learn about meditation So far in my learning, I have to say I am feeling very zen, and I have found many resources to guide me through the relaxing art of meditation.
Wanting to know how to meditate I turned my attention to WikiHow for my first steps on where to start. Some of these things I knew like choosing a peaceful spot (which ended up being hard to find), and to wear comfy clothes. WikiHow introduced me to some new things to think about though too, one of them ended up being my biggest challenge. They mentioned figuring out how much time you wanted to meditate, and stretching to sit correctly. After reading the wikiHow I turned on my first guided meditation which was from the How to Meditate- 30 Day Meditation for Beginners and I thought I was ready to go, which is when I reached my first obstacle…stamina. I was under the impression that with the right mindset and instruction meditation would be simple and something I could do for a while, this was
a huge misunderstanding on my part. I have a mind that is always go go going, thinking about teaching, and life, this made sitting down and clearing my mind for more than 5 minutes very hard. Some of the distractions I had was getting comfortable and sitting still, and just relaxing. I thought maybe my living room was not the most relaxing place , and that maybe I was not sitting correctly so I sought out further information and help to guide me.
When googling meditation poses I stumbled upon a Huffington Post article titled, Where To Meditate: 11 Surprising Places To Find Some Zen. This article lists some very interesting places where people meditate, ranging from the airport to the subway train and the most bizarre one, to me was the dentist office. When trying to make sense of this list I realized that place does not matter, what matter is where ever you can find peace. That article though, linked me to another Huffington Post slideshow collection of apps that can be used for Meditation. This slideshow introduced me to Walking Meditation. During the first week of my meditation exploration I used the guided meditations that the Walking Meditation app provided. I live right on a river so the scenery for my walk was so nice and I was able to clear my head easier and just breathe. I included a picture of my first guided meditation walk.
First peaceful walk using the Walking Meditation App.
Knowing this was not the traditional meditation I had embarked on learning, I decided to use this to start, with a goal of working towards stationary meditation. After a week of using the Walking Meditation App, I returned to my resources to see how I could get my body and mind into a more restful stationary position. Returning to my WikiHow, I remembered stretching was super important so I decided to try doing 10 minute yoga sessions before engaging in meditation. I used the 3 Week Yoga Retreat program through Beachbody On demand. They have a 10 minute inner peace session that was perfect for getting my muscles loose to feel more comfortable while sitting. Another pre meditation yoga session I found was called, “Yoga for Self Care,” from Yoga with Adriene on youtube. She also has guided meditations that I used after yoga which was super relaxing.
With my new tools and working on clearing my head, I was ready to put it all together to engage in stationary meditation. I picked a beautiful place on my dock and between my two go to youtube channels, Adriene’s and Meditation for Beginners, I engaged in guided meditation. The video of steps I took to successfully meditate can be found here. I started small at 10 minutes and now I am able to clear my head and meditate for 23 minutes. I still will throw a Walking Meditation session in 1-2 times per week, but my stamina for actually sitting and taking a minute for me has increased tremendously. To wrap up my progress I have always been a rather calm individual, but just today my Husband said to me that I seem very relaxed a level headed (back story, I was texting my sister who I was upset with at the time), so I would like to think that my meditation is beginning to positively affect my mood and energy. As you enter the hustle of the work week I challenge you to take a minute for yourself, clear your head, and Namaste!
Finally found my Zen!
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