Whether you are a beginner or an advanced meditator, be sure to get the most out of your meditation using the following meditation steps that will enhance your self-awareness, expand your consciousness and help you achieve your meditation goals.
Meditation Steps to Enhance and Refine Your Practice
Use specific meditation steps to enhance your practice
1. Relax
Many experienced meditators are able to enter their meditation already in a relaxed physical and mental state. Some may still need a few minutes to get into this frame of mind once they have taken their meditative position. Dropping into a relaxed meditative state is easier and will require less of your concentration and mental focus if you use Omharmonics; after some time, even if you find yourself doing a meditation without brainwave entrainment, you will be able to quickly get into meditation.
Step one, then, is to enter meditation already relaxed. It’s going to be an uphill battle of you versus your mind if you are stressed or preoccupied! Suggestions for relaxing before meditation: taking a walk, doing some yoga or having some herbal tea.
If you follow the same process as you are getting ready to meditate, you will find it easier to condition yourself to become relaxed very quickly. For example: prepare where you are going to sit; light some candles or incense, if that is your preference; change into comfortable, loose-fitting clothing; get your stereo and headphones ready; choose your meditation soundtrack… if you do the same steps in the same order, you will soon find that you are training your mind to relax before you even get into meditation!
3. Breathe.
Whether or not you are using brainwave entertainment, you will want to practice mindful breathing – that is, being fully aware and engaged in the experience of breathing. Don’t try to control your breath in any way; just allow your body to breathe as it needs to. The more you focus on the breath itself, the faster your mind and body will relax. Then, your breath will become slow, deep and steady.
Be sure not to over-think the breathing process. This will make you more tense and will make it hard to relax.
4. Become Aware. Once your mind and body have settled, you can bring your attention to your thoughts. Take note of all thoughts that move through your mind; positive and negative. Simply be a witness to the thoughts traveling through your mind, without becoming interested or involved in any of them.
What are your thoughts about? Are you excited about something that is coming up? Is something make you nervous or apprehensive? Which of your thoughts help you and which ones hinder you?
This is the time where you look deeply at yourself and your mental thought processes. Are you allowing your negative thoughts to outweigh the positive? Are your positive thoughts strong enough to dominate your thought processes?
5. Channel your mind. Whether you are focusing on an empty mind (no-thought) or singularity of focus (one-thought) this is the time to focus your mind and not allow it to stray from your point of focus. For example, if you want to develop and advance the thoughts that are positive and helpful, you will have to be very vigilant and very firm in redirecting your mind back to the desired thoughts because the negative ones will intrude.
Whatever you intuitively need to master, is right for you!
This is also the time to repeat positive affirmations such as: “I am capable.” “I am positive.” “I am relaxed.” “I can do it.” Embody that positive energy! Allow it to permeate you and radiate from you!
And, this is where most people get frustrated. Outside distractions and inner distractions can be very persistent. If you allow yourself to be frustrated, you will have a harder time mastering your mind. The best ‘defense’ against distractions is simply to be aware of them in an amused sort of way – “there goes the neighbor’s dog again” – if you don’t allow the dog’s barking to upset you, you will soon forget about it! In fact, you might even find that to be a great point of focus if you are trying to silence your mind!
It’s important to acknowledge your strayed concentration, then pull yourself gently back to the task at hand. Distractions are a part of life and the more emotional energy you give them, the more noticeable they are. Think about a clock ticking in a room. If you allow it to capture your attention, it’s almost deafening. But if you acknowledge it and focus on something else, it disappears from your awareness. It’s still there – you just don’t notice it. This is when you know you have mastered your focus!
Gently bring your attention back, again and again
6. Expand your consciousness:
- Focus on the subtle vibrations of your mind and body; use your imagination to feel the movements in your body down to the energy that makes up your being
- Focus on your consciousness: what does it feel like to be aware of being aware? Focus not only on the object of your awareness, but the experience of awareness.
- Focus on your mind as though you are a third party observer: step back and watch your mind work. Approach your mind as though you do not know what thoughts it will put out next. Let yourself be surprised.
- Focus on your “third eye” area, the area just between your eyes on your forehead. It is a direct link to the central most part of your brain.
Strive for mental clarity by moving through these meditation steps while practicing singular focus. You can choose to focus on any particular thing, feeling or area that will help you most in your practice and in your life. Whatever you intuitively need to focus on at the time, is right for you!
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