I wrote on an earlier blog about meditation in general, but here are some more detailed techniques that will get your creative juices flowing to get you started on a good method of meditating regularly.
- Meditating on words, phrases, quotes, scripture
- Meditating on a single thought or visual place from your mind
- Meditating through physical breathing techniques or other physical techniques.
- Meditating with the aid of an audio or video
Here's further description of these
Meditation on scripture is known as Lectio Divina, a technique used by monks for ages, however expanding it a little and using it for quotes or affirmations is equally enriching process. There is a video, Be Still, which describes this process very well. The tecnique involves relaxing and usually reading a passage, or whole thought, then concentrating on a word or phrase. Allowing your mind to relax, let the word or phrase guide you into more thoughts about this word or phrase. This process can take from 10 to 30 mintues, depending upon how deep the words are that you are meditating.
Visualization meditation can also be a valuable tool. Imagine a place, it can be made of parts of places you know, or of none you know or only something you may have seen or something you like. But make it a beautiful place for you - beside a brook, near a lake, a view over an ocean at sunset or a sunrise walk on a beach, a meadow or glade, on top of a mountain - any place that you like that brings a calmness to yourself. This usually involves relaxing with breathing, then going to your place, and taking a trip (maybe through your body, if you're trying to heal a part of your body; or working through another problem and visiting that problem area), which is imaginary, but still valid for you. Then working through the problems or cleaning up a situation then relaxing Most of the time visualization techniques like this have a specific purpose, and even though they can be used for general meditation, are best when there is a specific purpose for the meditation. For general use, the "favorite place" can be a place of relaxation and breathing and no need to take the imaginary trip.
There are various physical methods of meditating, by using specific physical techniques. Rolfing is an excellent introduction to this type of meditation, even though there is more interaction between the client and the Rolfer than in normal body massage. Another interesting technique is Radix therapy, which is based on some of the early work by Wilhem Reich. This is based on Reich's early work with the connection between the psyche of the mind it's relationship to certain similar ways these feelings were held in the body. The Radix therapy session usually starts with a position or action that is meant to provoke anger, fear, or other emotions, and the ending usually is a more meditative state. It is done with a practitioner who encourages and prevents any physical blocking of emotion. This is an extremely valid technique as the client can often change from practitioner to practitioner without having to establish a history of discussion that would have to occur in a more Jungian method of therapy. Radix is a form of therapy, however involves extensive meditation techniques which are extremely valuable and very effective.
There are a lot of meditative audio and video aids that are excellent. Kelly Howell & Steven Halpern are two audio aids I have used and like them. You naturally want to be fully aware of what you are getting before listening to it. It's wise to do research on the composer or author so that you know where they are coming from. Kelly Howell can be found through The Secret network. She has a variety of audio CD's for specific or general purposes. I used some Steven Halpern CD's for creative and general relaxing work. I found both of these to be excellent. I also have a couple of meditation audios from a psychiatrist who I visited when I had my cancer diagnosis. He made me several tapes, one for healing, one for cessation of smoking, another for traveling across the Pacific Ocean (without getting too anxious), and a general audio that I still use today.
Being an artist, although I don't believe you have to be an artist to do this, you can make your own videos with Windows Movie Maker (you can download it here for free) and using Irfran and make your own pictures, put them to music (Movie Make uses mp3, wav but not iTunes audio), and voila - you have your very own video....what a treat! I do this all the time, and love the features in the Movie Maker software. You can even make yourself a "video Vision Board"!!!
I recommend that you try all of these, to see which one works best for you. You might even want to switch on and off of some to keep your mind on point so that you don't become used to one technique and your mind switches off.
The important part of meditation is that it is crucial for keeping your mind balanced. While you are going through tough times, no matter what the cause (health, financial, personal, relational), your mind and soul are constantly being baraged by external forces who can cause you to loose focus, discourage you and zap you of your spiritual energy. Meditation can return that spiritual energy if done on a regular basis. This can be one of the major weapons in your portfolio to battle your demons.
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