How Meditation is Transforming my Life
As you might recall from my "Goals for 2018" post, I wanted to get serious about committing to a meditation practice. I'm happy to say my resolution is still going strong! I took the initiative and have been meditating almost every day since the beginning of January (aside from a few hungover mornings and out of town weekends).
Surprisingly, it wasn't too hard to commit to my new habit. I began by taking 5 minutes out of my morning before getting ready. I'd prop myself up in my most ergonomic pose atop the toilet seat (lol, hey I never said it was glamorous) and focus on deep breathing in an attempt to calm my wild mind. This strategy was ok, however, I can't say I reaped too many benefits from my beginner's approach. No, the real magic began once I downloaded the Headspace app.
Headspace was an app I'd been wanting to download for a long time, but my previous phone wasn't anything fancy and had little to no storage space. So, you can imagine my excitement on the day I said, "Auf Wiedersehen" to my old block o' technology in exchange for a brand-spankin' new Motorola g5s. Upon activation, I rushed home to download a slew of apps that I'd been denied over the past few years, among these was, of course, Headspace.
So what is Headspace you ask? Headspace is a guided meditation app where you can customize your meditation experience. Each user begins with the "foundation" pack and is then granted access to the abundant Headspace library where app-patrons can explore categories such as health, happiness, bravery and more. Each of these categories is then broken down further into subcategories, for example, the "health" category focuses on things such as anxiety and stress management, sleep issues, and depression.
Alright, so now that I'm down singing the praises of Headspace (and no, I'm not getting paid to write this, lol) I can get back to my point... I've only been using the app for two weeks and I can already feel mediation beginning to change me.
First, I'm learning to take mental notes about my thoughts. The "managing anxiety" program teaches a technique known as "noting" where you simply note times you find your mind getting distracted by categorizing the thoughts as either "thinking" or "feeling". That's it. It sounds stupidly-simple, but something about it's working. Noting my thoughts almost seems like a way for my brain to say, "oh hey thought, I hear you and I acknowledge you, now let's get back to what we were doing." Noting allows me to observe my thoughts but not attach much else to them, which BTW, feels amazing after forming the bad habit of slapping emotion and overthinking into every other thought that crosses your mind for the past year or so.
Yeah, my mind was and still is kind of wack. But that's ok, who's isn't? The second most effective thing I'm putting into practice is focusing on my breath. Yeah, this is that meditation, zen mumbo-jumbo everyone and their Grandmother goes on and on about, but that's because there's something to it! Learning to focus on my breath has helped me almost effortlessly navigate through a few scenarios the past few weeks that would have otherwise sent me into a downward spiral. Things still aren't where I'd like them to be, but they're getting a heck of a lot better.
Lastly, I'm learning techniques to "stay in the now". Want to try a freakishly hard challenge? Try noticing the different transitions your body makes throughout the day. For example, going from sitting to standing, standing to walking, sitting to laying, ect. Yes, this sounds easy, but trust me, it's incredibly difficult. This has been my Headspace challenge for the past few days and it's blown my mind how infrequently I'm able to remember to actually do it. Anyways, the whole point of the exercise is to come out of your little thought-bubble for a mila-second and be in the now.
If you're looking to start a journey with meditation I can't recommend Headspace enough. It doesn't matter if you can commit 60, 10 or even just 5 minutes a day, meditation is worth a shot. Something tells me you're gonna love it.
Surprisingly, it wasn't too hard to commit to my new habit. I began by taking 5 minutes out of my morning before getting ready. I'd prop myself up in my most ergonomic pose atop the toilet seat (lol, hey I never said it was glamorous) and focus on deep breathing in an attempt to calm my wild mind. This strategy was ok, however, I can't say I reaped too many benefits from my beginner's approach. No, the real magic began once I downloaded the Headspace app.
Headspace was an app I'd been wanting to download for a long time, but my previous phone wasn't anything fancy and had little to no storage space. So, you can imagine my excitement on the day I said, "Auf Wiedersehen" to my old block o' technology in exchange for a brand-spankin' new Motorola g5s. Upon activation, I rushed home to download a slew of apps that I'd been denied over the past few years, among these was, of course, Headspace.
So what is Headspace you ask? Headspace is a guided meditation app where you can customize your meditation experience. Each user begins with the "foundation" pack and is then granted access to the abundant Headspace library where app-patrons can explore categories such as health, happiness, bravery and more. Each of these categories is then broken down further into subcategories, for example, the "health" category focuses on things such as anxiety and stress management, sleep issues, and depression.
Alright, so now that I'm down singing the praises of Headspace (and no, I'm not getting paid to write this, lol) I can get back to my point... I've only been using the app for two weeks and I can already feel mediation beginning to change me.
Yeah, my mind was and still is kind of wack. But that's ok, who's isn't? The second most effective thing I'm putting into practice is focusing on my breath. Yeah, this is that meditation, zen mumbo-jumbo everyone and their Grandmother goes on and on about, but that's because there's something to it! Learning to focus on my breath has helped me almost effortlessly navigate through a few scenarios the past few weeks that would have otherwise sent me into a downward spiral. Things still aren't where I'd like them to be, but they're getting a heck of a lot better.
Lastly, I'm learning techniques to "stay in the now". Want to try a freakishly hard challenge? Try noticing the different transitions your body makes throughout the day. For example, going from sitting to standing, standing to walking, sitting to laying, ect. Yes, this sounds easy, but trust me, it's incredibly difficult. This has been my Headspace challenge for the past few days and it's blown my mind how infrequently I'm able to remember to actually do it. Anyways, the whole point of the exercise is to come out of your little thought-bubble for a mila-second and be in the now.
If you're looking to start a journey with meditation I can't recommend Headspace enough. It doesn't matter if you can commit 60, 10 or even just 5 minutes a day, meditation is worth a shot. Something tells me you're gonna love it.
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