How to Meditate Like a Pro

Since I started to give more importance to my mental health and how to take care not only of my body but my mind as well, I noticed that almost everywhere I looked there was talk about meditation. Until a few years ago, I believed that meditation was purely spiritual or religious, and therefore I never really learned about its uses and benefits. I used to think that it was a practice for only a select group of the population, those capable of silencing the voices in their head. Being someone highly anxious, I didn’t think it possible to silence the voices in mine that only seem to scream AAAAHHHHHHHHHH until I go to sleep. So I gave up on meditation before even trying.

As I learned more and more about the mind, wellness, and meditation, I understood that we really can all do it, that there are many aspects of meditation and that different cultures give it various uses and meanings. I started seeing meditation in a non-religious way, the world’s most hard-core atheist could be a world-class meditator if they wanted. So I started giving meditation a try.

Sadly, I couldn’t completely shut out the AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH’s in my head.

After many attempts, changes of place, apps, music, and essences, I found the solution: a cushion. Yes, I know, but it is not just any cushion.

Meditation 101

One of the main reasons meditation may not seem very prevalent to you yet is because it’s seen as an ‘oriental’ or ‘exotic’ whimsical thing, without any real substance of benefit to it. Fortunately, this mindset is slowly eroding, and mediation has started to become more popular in western countries, but we still have a lot to learn and a long way to Ohm.

Maybe you were like me and thought that meditation worked to transfer your spirit to other astral planes and to go through walls which would be PRETTY COOL, all kidding aside, meditation has numerous health benefits.

Helps us manage stress

It is beneficial for people with anxiety (like your dear author)

Promotes attention and creativity

Helps us regulate emotions

Increase pain tolerance

If you came here looking for a way to achieve astral projection, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but these benefits are great too.

What are the tips that they give us to start meditating? Find a quiet place, wear comfortable clothes, sit in a good position, help you with music or guided meditation, in addition to using essences or aromas that help us relax. All that being, I know how difficult it can be for anxious people to shut out the voices in our heads, and you can’t simply tell them not to think, we are anxious, that’s what we do: think too much.

Meditation For The Anxious

Relaxing music didn’t help me because it was too distracting. “ Those cellos are very relaxing, I wonder who is playing it, it must be hard to hold, surely his parents paid very expensive classes for him to learn to play like that, my parents never enrolled me in cello classes … “ and I completely forgot that I was meditating.

Guided meditation helped a little, but I still couldn’t get into the zone. I was always too aware of everything that was happening. You know that feeling when you are reading a book and you forget to focus on what you are reading because your brain starts to focus on the fact that you are reading? That happens to me with meditation.

- Deep and relaxing guided meditation voice: empty your mind, focus only on my voice.

- My internal monologue: wow I’m meditating, I’m really doing it! maybe I look silly in this pose. I wonder what my cat is doing right now, did I leave the stove on?”

At the end of the day, the solution was where I was sitting. I underestimated the importance of sitting correctly, as a bad pose can completely prevent you from being able to relax.

Using a cushion helped me a lot. There are quite a few options on the internet that will help you keep your back straight and the correct posture.

The place is also very important. I wanted to be one of those cool people who meditate on the terrace, but there is a lot of noise coming from the street. Meditating in a corner of my room works perfectly for me.

Everything is in practice. Start with 5 minutes and little by little you will reach sessions of 10 and 20 minutes. It's like any other exercise.

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