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Writer's pictureAddison

Harnessing Silence. Meditation

Updated: Jul 26, 2022

Self Care Tool No. 1: Meditation


Sitting upright on a rock overlooking a valley
The best things in life are free. Sit, Breathe, Heal.

Simplicity is beauty, and it has power. This simple tool gains value and versatility the more relentless and unforgiving your life gets, so let's get started with the bare essentials. When you first begin meditating, take just ten minutes to sit down and breathe. You'll notice that ten minutes feels more like fourteen. That's because it's not easy at first, but when you get back up, some inner part of you feels like it just got a workout! Problems you carried going in seem weightless or are even followed by a solution coming out! Muscles are no longer tense and your senses are just a little more alive within your body. In no other investment will you find more consistent returns than what you get with meditation, and the best part is that it's totally free!!


Access to the best your body and mind have to offer isn't as mysterious as Hollywood movies make it out to be. All you have to do is reach out and take it.


How? Sit and allow:

  • Get comfortable

  • Focus on your breath (most important)

  • Observe your thoughts

and...

  • do not interfere (most underrated)

Many people talk about "clearing the mind," but this is not something you need to actively "do." It just happens on its own. Like an hourglass once flipped, the noise in your head gradually drains out. The longer you've been doing this, the faster the quiet settles in.


As soon as you catch your thoughts wandering from the breath, make a brief mental note, and return to your breath: ("debt...," breath... "argument...," breath... "squirrel..." breath... etc.).


Side view of a seated posture where the lower back is moderately rounded.
Having a rounded back makes staying seated difficult for extended periods.

Sit so the discs in your back are stacked like coins.

Truthfully there are no limits. Ten minutes... two minutes, or whatever just feels right. You don't even have to count! I started off doing it whenever I couldn't sleep and it lasted for however long it would take to feel tired enough to sleep (note: *if you're following my example, do it before you develop the habit of tossing and turning in your bed). Now, I can set time minimums and can go for as long as an hour and a half on a sunny day! Be patient with progress.

Why? Growth and care:

When your muscles relax, blood circulates freely. As you simply breathe, your blood grows rich with oxygen and the body can heal. Allowing stray thoughts to pass without judgement or interference gives the mind space to recover from the demands of life. To heal or grow, we must be able to relax and exit Fight or Flight, which I talk more about here. No tool capable of calming us is more readily available to every human being than sitting down and breathing.


That's it!


For the bare essentials anyway. There's more still!

  • Sitting,

  • Standing,

  • Moving,

  • Lying down,

  • Group sessions,

  • Visualizations,

  • Affirmations... etc.

The iceberg goes waaay down on this and we've only poked the surface.


A man with arms rounded forward, palms both facing down to the ground.
Tai Chi breath for settling into the body and the moment

We have many other basic tools and principles to catch up on before I return to this topic, but if you're interested in more sooner rather than later leave a comment on what you'd like me to cover next below.


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