Helping You Love Yourself into Success and Less Stress! Helpful Hints for Meditation Part III: Meaningful Meditation by Ilenya Marrin, DSS HOME FREE NEWSLETTER PRODUCTS SERVICES ABOUT ME TESTIMONIALS RESOURCES CONTACT Meditation Part III: Meaningful Meditation Here are some additional meditation hints to help you build good habits and enjoy a more meaningful time during meditation. While each experience of meditation may be a little different -- some days you'll hardly know the time has passed, and some you may find your head full of thoughts and images -- you may find it valuable to use one of more of the following techniques to help "anchor" your experience. What happens in a meditation session is so unique and personal and often so ephemeral that five minutes later you may be hard pressed to remember what took place. You'll still gain the benefits in terms of physical, mental and emotional rest and relaxation, but you may want more than that. The techniques below can help you to capture your experiences for further reflection and personal growth. Journal Writing: Over the years, I've used beautiful leather journals, plain typing paper on my clipboard, bound sketchbooks, and (mostly) cheap notebooks of varying sizes. My current favorite is a 9 X 6 inch spiral bound notebook which is small enough to fit beside my pillow. It doubles as a dream journal and I often scribble in it in the dark. If having a lovely bound journal makes you love to write in it, by all means get something special. If an expensive notebook makes you freeze up for fear of writing "incorrectly," get any old kind of notebook, and just plunge into making some notations. Make brief journal notes of any significant experiences during meditation and any awareness you have later that seems related to your practice of meditation. If you want to give yourself a lovely learning experience, keep these notes and refer back to them in a few months. Tracking: For some people, it can be fun and help you stay on purpose if you track the number of minutes you spend in meditation daily. Just make a note in your daily planner or PDA, or on the kitchen calendar, or anywhere else consistently handy for you. If you're really into it, you can create a simple spreadsheet to notate your tracking. Rating: Again, applying an objective, somewhat scientifice perspective, you may want to rate the quality of your meditation. You may use the generic rating scale below or one of your own devising. I suggest this practice because taking a moment to become objective and assign a score to your experience helps you to be a neutral observer of your life. Observing your whole process neutrally and objectively will reinforce the experience of peace in your meditation and eventually can transfer over into more areas of your life. You can add this note of your rating to the number of minutes you completed. For instance, if I meditated for 22 minutes and rated my experience during meditation as a 6, I would write on my calendar or spreadsheet 22/6. If the thought of keeping track of minutes or rating your meditation horrifies you, or leaves you apathetic, don't bother! There is absolutely no right or wrong about your meditation. Assigning a rating is simply a way to help you observe any changes you experience related to your meditation over time. Generic Rating Scale 10 Fantastic, magnificent! Total attunement. Peak experience. 9 Excellence. Attunement much of the time. 8 Pretty darn good. Experiencing ease and grace with this. 7 Doing well. This is getting to be fun. 6 A little better than 5. 5 Moderately, somewhat, about half the time. 4 Struggling, but making progress. 3 Intention present, but it's difficult. 2 Glimmers; bits and pieces of success. 1 Virtually no progress or didn't do it at all. What's the difference that makes a difference? Begin to notice and jot down what makes a positive difference for you when you are doing meditation. Is it having the house to your self with no interruptions? Is it using earplugs and an eye mask? Using a particular form of meditation? Meditating early in the morning when you are refreshed? After work or on your lunch break? Is it meditating in a group? Doing a guided meditation with someone to talk you through a visualization process? Sitting down? Lying down? Walking? What are the factors that make your meditation most peaceful and regenerating for you? Try to repeat these factors as often as you can. Go to Part IV: Meditation and Intention Back to Welcome Page and List of Recent Articles Meditation

Loving Your Success Blog
Phone: 802-658-2921