Lockdown has provided us with ample free time. I’ve used my free time already and done a home photoshoot and a home workout. But this week I’m going to look within and focus on myself.
Meditation can be many things to each individual person as they use a different technique of meditation. This can include mindfulness, focusing on a particular object or activity. However, every technique shares one goal to achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state.
For many people meditation is used as an escape from our busy lives. To find an escape and to observe oneself. Meditation also had many health benefits. These include reduces stress, improves sleep, controls anxiety and can even decrease blood pressure.
One of the reasons meditation has become so popular in recent years is the fact that it is so easy to do and can be done anywhere and at any time. There are numerous hashtags, social media posts and videos all dedicated to promoting and teaching mediation.
I searched these up, as I had already done some meditation but wanted to learn more. I looked at YouTube and found various videos, these included meditation how to’s and meditation music. I also looked on Instagram and the #meditation hashtag which has over 30,000,000 posts all comprising of photos and videos.
Now that I’ve done some research, found some music and found some space at home, I thought I would be ready to give meditation a go.
At first, I sat there in an upright position with my legs crossed, otherwise known as the lotus position. I sat there and tried to clear my mind and focus but it wasn’t working. I turned the music a little lower just to see if that would help. I kept trying to just clear my mind and focus. But it still didn’t work.
Then I remembered reading the Headspace website,
“Learning to meditate is like any other skill, it takes consistent practice to get comfortable. There’s no perfect meditation and Sometimes your focus will wander or you’ll forget to follow your breath.”
So, with that in mind, I continued to try and practice meditation. I tried to clear my mind once again and it was working but it was short-lived. Trying to clear my mind was impossible, my mind kept racing and I didn’t know how to stop.
Instead of giving up, I tried a different technique, I tried a guided meditation I found on YouTube. And yet again it didn’t work for me. So, I tried an alternative technique. I tried to focus on an object. I looked around the room, I got a house plant.
I placed it in front of me and tried to focus on it. It felt silly to begin with, just staring at this plant. I felt and I probably looked a bit crazy. But the more I looked at this plant, the calmer I got. It was slowly working; I could feel myself breathing slower and getting comfortable.
So, I did meditation this week and I think it went well after a couple of tries. The past 3 weeks have helped me try and gain a more open-minded approach. And I feel better after doing something productive with my free time.
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