The practice of meditation often brings up feelings of frustration and doubt, wondering if you’re doing it right…
This article will show you how to get the maximum effect from meditation, despite the busyness of your life (and your thoughts).
Gone are the days when you needed to spend hours, or even days, to learn how to meditate.
10 minutes a day is quite enough if you focus on quality, not quantity.
1. Lotus Pose
The traditional meditation posture — the lotus pose — has several advantages.
- The lotus pose allows you to easily maintain balance and stability, promoting the free flow of energy through your 7 main chakras.
- Your spine stays straight. Your lungs open fully, and your breathing depth increases. Nothing restricts your blood flow.
- If pain or tension arises in the lotus pose, you can meditate while sitting with your feet flat on the floor.
Make sure your spine remains straight in this position.
Your goal is to find the most comfortable position for your meditation practice, so you won’t be distracted by any possible pain reactions in your “still” body.
Can you meditate lying down?
You can, but it’s not recommended… in a lying position, it’s easy to fall into a drowsy state, or even fall asleep completely. Although a good night’s sleep has never hurt anyone )
How to meditate correctly
2. Intention
Meditation is a process of self-discovery.
During meditation, you learn to concentrate on what is happening inside you, learn to shift your attention away from external distractions, hustle, and worries, and dive inside yourself.
Intention in meditations for beginners
At the initial stage, you will have to face an uncontrollable inner dialogue, especially if your mind is overflowing with thoughts.
Before starting your meditation practice, set the intention that you will simply observe what happens during the process.
Don’t try to control your breathing. Don’t scold yourself for the thoughts racing through your head.
Observe, allow, and accept all the processes happening inside you. Allow yourself to feel how your body responds to the meditation practice.
Don’t place any expectations on it; be open to everything that unfolds in your consciousness. Just observe. That’s all.
What is meant to happen will happen.
Don’t scold yourself, don’t worry about how correctly you are performing the practice.
You are meditating correctly if you are aware of what is happening inside you!
Intention in visualization meditations
The second most common and sought-after meditation technique, after meditation for stopping the inner dialogue (the classic Eastern version), is guided meditation.
During a guided meditation, you typically follow the voice of the guide, using the power of visualization.
The main difference is that guided meditation leads you toward a specific goal that you wish to achieve through meditation.
Let me remind you that during meditation, your brain switches to an alpha frequency, the work of both hemispheres synchronizes, an expanded level of consciousness opens up to you, and you can easily set an INTENTION.
It is your intention that determines what you will get as a result of the meditation.
The stronger your intention, the more effective the result will be.
Because your intention creates a specific field, gathering around you the energy necessary to realize the goal you have set.
A guided meditation should include an intention:
- To learn to value and respect yourself,
- To remove limiting beliefs,
- To heal a past trauma,
- To raise your vibration and level of awareness,
- To free yourself from guilt or forgive yourself.
That is why in guided meditation, the explanations given BEFORE the meditation are so important.
You are not just blindly following the fantasy of the person conducting the meditation.
You must clearly formulate your intention: what you want to achieve during your visualization process.
See also Why it is important to be able to express intentions and understand your desires
3. Focus
In order to maintain concentration of attention during meditation, it is advisable to choose a point of focus.
This could be a mantra, an object (real or virtual), music, or the rhythm of your breath.
A point of focus will help you cut off the flow of chaotic thoughts in your head.
That is precisely why in all my meditations I first suggest focusing on heart breathing, where you breathe through the center of your chest, where your spiritual heart is located.
You will find more detailed instructions on heart breathing here: How to Make Your Heart Work for You.
A simple but effective technique to deal with the inner dialogue:
If your mind is overly burdened, during meditation dozens, or even hundreds, of thoughts will flash through your head, distracting you from the process and breaking your focus.
Use the technique of letting go of thoughts.
You cannot control the thoughts that arise in your mind, but you can choose which one to focus on.
Observe the flow of your thoughts as if from the outside: you see them, you are aware of them, but you do not cling to them…
You simply observe, but you DO NOT REACT to them.
According to many participants in my meditations, this phrase works well:
I’ve already thought that thought!
Your mind is cunningly clever — it will look for any opportunity to distract you from diving into yourself:
- Neighbors talking through the wall,
- A cat meowing outside,
- A restless child demanding your attention at that very moment…
Even if you get distracted during meditation, extinguish the wave of irritation inside — it’s not their fault that you couldn’t hold your focus.
It’s you who needs more practice to stop reacting to external stimuli.
Your inner world is far richer than what’s happening outside of you!
4. Practice
The best way to get the maximum effect from meditation is to practice daily.
Set aside 10 minutes in the morning to sit in silence and be still.
Just 10 minutes, but you’ll set a harmonious tone for the whole day.
It’s good to meditate in nature, during a walk, or even while doing routine household chores.
I don’t recommend doing guided meditations every day.
You’ll need time to process and integrate the new experience… to track the result and understand whether it’s worth repeating the practice, or if one meditation is enough.
And also time to take ACTION.
You understand that any practice is followed by a stage of APPLICATION in real life.
You could meditate on self-love several times a day, but until you start showing love to yourself in life situations where you used to deny it, little will change.
Thus, the formula for successful meditation looks like this:
INTENTION + FOCUS + PRACTICE + ACTION = EFFECTIVENESS
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