Basically like myself I was turned off to meditaion because i heard that it takes alot of time and practice to get it right and feel like you have succeeded to reach new levels of deep meditaion. but its really not about reaching new levels of meditation as i have learned. Even from doing it the first time, I felt very very relaxed and chilled out. And when you become more experienced the meditation becames stronger as you fall into a deeper relaxation.
Im going to explain how i do it, my methods may not be correct by textbook but they work.
First, find a calm, quiet and relaxing place because peace is essential while doing this or you wont be able to focus correctly. Find something to lean on while sitting indian style because even i find it hard to sit up for such a long peroid of time. How can you relax your muscles and focus on relaxing them if your trying to hold your back up the entire time. Make sure that your not sitting/leaning on anything uncomfortable or that may obstruct your focus.

Ok, now sit indian stle on the floor with your hand laying on your legs. And breath in deeply through your nose and out of your mouth slowly. and do that for the entire meditaion. it will eventually slow your heart rate. Sometimes I even try breathing very shallow(short inhales/exhales) because it aids the meditation a little better. Now during this whole thing DONT MOVE A MUSCLE. not your fingers, toes, eyelids. Dont twitch, dont spasm, dont even scratch an itch. Just sit there completely motionless(this took me sometime to master). As i saifd about the focus earlier in the topic, well heres where it comes in. After your heart has signifigantly slowed begin to focus on your legs, or your hands(staying motionless is critical if your going to make it work). As you focus or think about that body part, (i usually do my legs because it seems to work the best and easiest)it will eventully go numb. This also took me a while to get right. Feeling the numbness and relaxation in this deep meditation.

Thats it. Sometimes you may be sitting in one spot for an hour and not even realizing it. As I said before, it may take alot of practice to get the numbing relaxation right. I took me about 2 weeks. One time i even managed to make my whole body numb and i couldnt feel ANYTHING. It kinda scared me a little because i couldnt feel my heart beating in my chest because my chest was numb so i stopped it. However i now know what to expect and hope to someday reach that level of meditation again. Supposubly some people have reached a level of meditation that they physically become deff of anythiung around them. im not too sure if that is true but i sure hope it is.

The meditation technigue seems a little complicated and it is at first but even if your not trying to reach high levels of relaxation trough meditation and the technioques that i mentioned, you can still become very chilled out after just a few minutes of deep breathingor slow breathing and consentrate your thoguths on something relaxing.


//escape

i think anything is worth a try

I'll see if i can get my fiance to try this and i'll definatley try it my self


momx3boys

Good post, Escape, and I agree it's worth a try.

Meditation has been helpful for my depression as it clears my head of the bad thoughts that feed the downward spiral. Early on, I tried praying intensely, but the intensity of thought just added to my problem. My bad thoughts kept stabbing at me, even as I prayed. I was stuck in an awful negative feedback loop.

Extreme relaxation was the way to go - clearing my head of all thoughts. I get that only from meditation. It has even made prayer possible for me again.

- Penguin


Oh - it's easier for me to reach the meditative state when lying down. Stiff old bones...

This post has been edited by Penguin: Jan 8 2007, 11:16 AM

Not all of us can do that "don't move a muscle" thing, because as soon as you start to worry about twitching or scratching an itch, you're distracted and out of the meditative state. I think if you need to twitch or scratch, just do it. Keep your eyes closed and then immediately re-focus. Thoughts invariably come into your mind and you shouldn't worry about these either. One of the things I do is put the thoughts into a bubble (as if I'm "submerged" in meditation) and let it escape to the surface. Also it's good to try counting the breaths to help you keep focussed. Counting to four and then starting again is recommended, though others like to count to ten. I was once in a group where the meditation leader told us, after we'd been "under" a while, to visualise going into a walled garden and walking around it until we found a perfect rose made of light. And then we were told to pick that rose and put the light into our souls. It sounds maybe a bit daft, but I've used the "walled garden" quite a lot and found it really helpful. But, everybody's different. After a while you just find out what works for you.

I also tried meditation for my depression, but also for the times when my thoughts are all over the place or I'm really angry at anything. I find the deep breathing really helps, but for me I like to lie stretched out on the floor with my spine as straight and stretched as I can get it and I put on one of my nature sounds cds (thunderstorm or loons) and concentrate entirely on the sounds. I find I'm able to clear my mind for a while and focus completely. I find it very relaxing and it helps with my moods most of the time. I like having the cd on because I find that by concentrating on those peaceful sounds it blocks out any other sounds.

I do deep breathing alot as well was doing yoga too the yoga was really nice i didn't notice the benifits of it till the next day though it helps. There is alot of sites that offer free medations if you google them i like switching it up as far as breathing tehnique some work better for some people ,so it may take pratice some trial and errror it's worth the effort though.

This post has been edited by mccoffee: Jan 13 2007, 11:19 PM

I practice yoga regularly and have started to work on meditation. In yoga, we learn about alternate nostril breathing This helps to slow our breathing but also helps you to concentrate on it and gives your mind a place to focus.

Block off the right nostril with the right thumb, inhale through the left nostril. Release the right nostril and block the left nostril with your right ring finger, exhale through the right nostril. Inhale right nostril, exhale left, inhale left and continue this alternate nostril breath. You may keep this pattern going for as long as you like, finishing with an exhale through the left nostril.

I have also learned to do this without the hand, more of mind thing.

Good luck with what ever method you chose.

Thanks for the tip about the alternate nostril breathing. I tried it and also found it very relaxing and mind clearing. It's something different.

The slowed breathing does serve as purpose as opposed to deep breathing. Deep breathing is a different excercise then the one i explained. The slow/ shallow breathing works to relax you in a physical way. The shallow slow breathing and small inhales and exhales changes the transfer rate between oxygen and carbon dioxide cauing the relaxed feeling and perhaps is the reson for the enventual nuimbing sensation throughout your body as time goes into deeper meditation. it may sound unsave but it is practiced my milions of people in many different cultures.