Here and Now: Practice Mindfulness Meditation and Connect with the Universe

What is mindfulness?

Most people don't live their lives, they just go with the flow. It is difficult for them to find a goal, to understand whether they are making the right choice. All their actions are subject to spontaneous decisions, which leads to big mistakes. A special mental state—awareness—helps to avoid this.

Mindfulness is the principle in which every action is subordinated to consciousness. Each subsequent step is thought out, comprehended as a separate action and part of a larger plan. Mindfulness helps you notice and correctly understand everything that happens around you: from weather changes to changes in the mood of your interlocutor.

Awareness is impossible without the correct functioning of mental processes:

• thinking;
• attention;
• memory;
• perception.

A person in whom they are well developed already in childhood shows concentration and purposefulness that is atypical for a child. He knows what he wants to do when he grows up and confidently moves towards his dream. Not all people are lucky enough to have this level of awareness from childhood. Fortunately, you can learn techniques to help you achieve mindfulness at any age. After just a few sessions, a person practicing meditation understands that it is easier for him to control emotions and avoid rash decisions.

How to develop awareness?

Those wishing to achieve awareness should remember the main rule: practice diligently, but do not overdo it. Excessive zeal leads to the fact that a person begins to focus on every little thing and loses his sense of reality. This is very harmful: if you constantly overexert your consciousness, neurosis and other diseases of the nervous system can develop. It is difficult to get rid of it, so it is better to avoid overload and stop exercising at the first sign of fatigue.

Developing mindfulness is similar to preparing an athlete for competition. Many people exercise, run or swim, but they will not become Olympic champions. To win a medal, you need to constantly practice and follow a clear training system. To develop mental stability and meditation skills, there are several types of practices: fixation of attention, conscious relaxation, direction of thinking.

Typical beginner mistakes

Those who have just begun to practice mindfulness meditation are faced with two common mistakes that can interfere with the correct mastery of the technique.

Mistake #1 – disappointment in yourself

Monitoring and managing your thoughts is difficult. Aggressive, disturbing outbursts of emotions, doubts, and worries arise in the mind involuntarily. To master this process, you need to practice long and hard.

Beginners who strive for awareness quickly become disillusioned and give up practice. But a person cannot immediately learn to consciously regulate the thought process. To learn to walk, you must first learn to stand firmly on your feet. Therefore, you cannot blame yourself for your inability to develop, you just need to keep trying.

Mistake #2 – artificial suppression

When a person catches himself thinking negatively, he tries to suppress these thoughts. But they still appear again. The more actively a person resists, the more obsessive thoughts overcome him. To control the thinking process, you need to do the opposite: allow thoughts to pass through your consciousness. But you can’t focus your attention on them, you just need to observe them without evaluating or developing them.

Gradually, the thinking process will become autonomous: during conscious meditation, a person will be able to observe his thoughts as a separate process. It is necessary to select from the general stream of thoughts those that are really necessary, and weed out the rest.

How to prepare for and conduct a meditation exercise

A person should have a straight back, but it is not at all necessary to take a lotus position. The spine and surface are at right angles, and it is quite possible to sit on a chair. Then it will become easy to breathe, and air will enter the lungs unhindered.

Meditation is designed to observe your mind, and therefore it is undesirable to take a lying position. Attention and concentration must be maintained, and in a lying position you can fall asleep. The main thing is not to strain your back.

You need to direct your attention to your breathing. You should think in advance which mantra to choose. You should not be afraid of this word, it is just a text, and any prayer that does not contradict your beliefs and views can be used as it.

By observing one's own breathing, a person no longer pays attention to thoughts, and they begin to wander to the sides. At first, he will still be distracted, because the ability to concentrate on a mantra or breathing will not come immediately. You need to understand that meditation is a rather ambiguous process, it is a state of a certain balance between action and complete calm, effort and relaxation, control and complete emancipation.

Those who begin classes will be able to understand and grasp this line. After all, it is impossible to explain to a person who has no idea how to ride a bicycle why he will not fall while moving, and why the bicycle will remain stable, only in words. He will be able to comprehend this only if he tries to do it in practice.

When conducting meditation classes, you should:

• concentrate yourself on breathing. It may slow down, but this is quite normal. You just have to watch him;
• repeat the mantra to yourself. As was written above, this text does not carry any semantic load; you can take an excerpt from a prayer, because these are simply repeated words and phrases that allow you to maintain attention and relax;
• present different images. These can be abstract concepts, such as fire, or a speculative environment in which a person will feel calm and peaceful.

Thinking and awareness

Some people confuse intentional thinking with mindfulness, but they are opposite concepts. Thinking is based on a logical process: a person evaluates every thought, builds logical chains and, as a result of reflection, comes to certain conclusions.

However, true inner wisdom cannot come to a person who does not know how to abstract from the thinking process and perceive his thoughts as a tool, and not an end result. To do this, it is important to learn how to meditate correctly.

Meditation awakens intuition - the inner ability to hear clues from the subconscious. When a person learns to control his consciousness, the subconscious ceases to be an unidentified, uncontrollable part of the psyche. It obeys the decisions of the individual, and does not lead it. This is exactly what mindfulness helps to achieve: the ability to hear your intuition, to trust yourself. A conscious lifestyle allows you to notice the secret signals that the Universe sends.

Features of sitting meditation

Mindfulness meditation should be done while sitting. You can't lie down on the floor. In the process of relaxation, you can fall asleep, and sleep is not meditation. Therefore, you need to prepare a comfortable chair or a soft rug that can be laid on the floor for studying. At the initial stage of training, it does not matter how you sit: straight, with your feet in front of you, in the lotus position. It is much more important to learn to control your breathing.

Sitting quietly in one position helps relieve internal tension. The immobility of the body shifts attention from physical processes to the work of the mind. There will be a feeling of lightness, the ability to observe yourself from the outside. This state precedes meditative trance.

To achieve the maximum level of relaxation, you need to take a comfortable position. If an injury or illness prevents you from sitting straight, it’s okay. You can place a pillow between the back of the chair and your back to support it in an upright position. You cannot interrupt and get up during meditation, so you need to immediately take a comfortable position in which your back and legs will not become numb. If this does happen, you need to interrupt the meditation and take a different pose next time.

How to choose a time and place to meditate

Many people who have achieved good results recommend meditating twice a day, morning and evening. This activity will not take much time, just fifteen to twenty minutes a day. The peculiarity of morning classes is that they charge you with a positive mood and energy, and evening classes relieve daytime tension, relax and calm, banishing destructive thoughts from your head.

You should practice in a calm and comfortable environment, preferably at home. Some people do not advise conducting meditation classes in the room in which a person usually sleeps, but there is nothing categorical or unambiguous about this.

Meditation technique

For proper meditation and mindfulness, you need to follow a practical guide compiled by yoga masters. Standard meditation practice includes four main points:

1. Relieving tension. You need to take deep breaths several times, holding the air for 5–10 seconds. As you exhale, relax the muscles of your face and neck, imagining how your head becomes light and thoughts disappear.
2. Fixation on the tongue. You need to press the tip of your tongue to the palate, feel how it touches the upper front teeth.
3. Fixation on the stomach. Just below the navel is an area where energy is concentrated. Releasing this energy helps you feel confident. When you exhale, you need to imagine how the air moves down, and when you inhale, it goes up.
4. Rooting. Focusing on your breathing will help you fully experience your surroundings. Feel the seat of the chair, feel the floor under your feet. Once these feelings become stable, you need to imagine the movement of energy penetrating through the feet and spreading throughout the body.

You need to be in the rooting position for no longer than 10 minutes. It is difficult for beginners to maintain concentration for a long time. But over time, any person will be able to achieve a level of enlightenment at which they can remain in a state of fixation for an hour or longer.

When the first physical stage of meditation is completed, you can move directly to the development of awareness. To simplify the process, visualization should be used in the first lessons. You need to imagine a large box or dish in front of you. Every thought that appears must be imagined in the form of a luminous ball. He calmly floats nearby, without affecting the mood in any way and without attracting attention to himself. As soon as the ball is too close, you need to mentally place it in the box. This should be done with every thought that will try to distract the film from self-contemplation.

If so many balls accumulate in the box that they no longer fit in it, it’s time to stop meditation. You need to come out of the state of detachment slowly. First, feel how your body is preparing to return to active movements. Each cell, filled with fresh energy, works faster and better. Body and mind are in harmony. Having felt the unity of consciousness and mind, you need to take one last deep breath and exhale slowly and open your eyes. Now you can return to your normal breathing rhythm and get up from your chair.

Mindfulness to relieve stress

Stressful situations negatively affect the functioning of the body. They reduce performance, worsen mood and reduce the feeling of satisfaction with life. The main signs of stress are considered to be:

• increased irritability;
• restless sleep, insomnia;
• constant fatigue, excessive fatigue;
• restless mind;
• excessive criticism of oneself and others;
• boredom;
• inability to concentrate;
• the appearance of skin rashes, dryness;
• muscle tension;
• headaches, migraines.

As stress accumulates, it leads to the development of more serious problems, such as diseases of the internal organs. Psycho-emotional disorders also appear. A person does not have enough energy to do even simple things. He loses enthusiasm and inspiration.

In the course of research, scientists have found that the use of meditation techniques and mindfulness, among other things, helps cope with stress. This is a great opportunity to unload your brain. By concentrating on your inner sensations, you enter a state of relaxation. Changes occur in the body and mind, thanks to which the body quickly returns to normal after the most severe stressful situations. What else will the relaxation response do for you?

1. Improves brain function.
2. Strengthens the body's defenses.
3. Will lower blood pressure.
4. Normalizes heart rhythm.
5. Improves attention.
6. Increases clarity of thinking.
7. Reduces anxiety.

And, most importantly, you will feel inner harmony and peace.

Environment

Entering a meditative state is a complex process. A person needs to completely withdraw into himself, and for this he must remove all irritants. It is important to be in an environment that promotes relaxation and does not distract from your concentration.

When choosing a room for meditation, you need to pay attention to the following factors:

1. Sounds. Loud, unpleasant sounds are annoying and distracting. It is important to ensure that they do not interfere with meditation. You cannot leave your phone in the room or turn on the TV. The only acceptable sounds are audio recordings that help you tune in to meditation. These include: birds singing, the murmur of water, the rustling of leaves.
2. Lighting. In the instructions describing methods of preparation for meditation, particular importance is given to lighting. It is impossible to concentrate and relax in an environment that irritates your vision with bright light. Therefore, it is advisable to practice during the day, in natural light. If the sun shines directly into the window, you need to sit away from it, or curtain it with thick curtains.
3. Colors. Bright spots are another distracting factor. You should not study in a room with multi-colored wallpaper, especially if it is dominated by red, orange or yellow. According to psychologists, the most calming color is green. If you don't have a room in your home with green walls, you can use green fabric. During classes you need to mount it on the wall. If possible, it is better to go out to meditate in a garden or park.

To meditate at home, it is important to remain completely alone. You cannot interrupt, otherwise there will be no benefit from such meditation.

Mindfulness in creativity

Creativity is rightfully considered a natural way of applying mindfulness. For example, when drawing a picture, you focus on the colors, shades, textures that surround you at the present moment in time. The same goes for music lessons.

Meditation experts recommend not to worry about the lack of any skills or abilities. When it comes to creativity, you need to follow the example of young children - create with passion, without embarrassment and without regard for those around you.

Proper preparation

In the meditation guide, it is imperative to include the point of psychological preparation. You cannot start meditation without clearing your mind. Psychological preparation includes:

• attention focusing exercise;
• warming up the muscles;
• body relaxation.

Exercises for developing attention help you quickly enter a meditative state and maintain the desired psychological mood. You can use techniques for memorizing objects, repeating a series of numbers, listening and repeating phrases.

Muscles, like the mind, require mandatory preparation. If they are constrained or pinched (especially in the neck and pelvis), you will not be able to relax in the correct position. To relieve tension, you need to feel every muscle. Mentally imagine how they get rid of accumulated fatigue and become elastic and pliable. The feeling of lightness that appears after the mental images will persist after performing the psychological warm-up and will help you get ready for meditation.