My Break-through with Meditation

*Note: This was written in April of 2017. I will post the update to this next week.

I have been contributing to this non-existent blog, knowing that in due time I will actually need content for a blog. I have been trying to meditate for about 3 months now and I have found some struggles with it. I know I need to take a class and will do so likely before I actually publish this entry, but as it is I am self-guided in my meditative journey.

Three months ago I had read that just 5 minutes to start will be a good beginning. For the next week, I decided I was going to practice meditation (or what I understood as meditation) at 5 minutes a time each morning. I did it and it seemed fine, but it was hard to quiet my mind and I stopped for about a week.

I hadn’t given up, however. I was listening to a podcast and the guest explained that some find 5 minutes to be too much at first and that you can literally start with 3 breath cycles. So the next morning I opted for 5 breathing cycles to start my day and that was easy. After that I decided I was going to compromise and shoot for 3 minutes. And that’s where I am this morning as well.

Over the course of the last 3 months or so, I have been doing C work on taking the time to meditate, but I have tried to stick with it, knowing that eventually this borderline-sporadic practice will become more regular. While I have been ok at remembering to meditate, my meditations have also been hit and miss. I find thoughts drifting throughout the entire 3 minutes only to feel slightly disappointed after the exercise.

This morning was different however. I don’t know what I did differently, but I felt incredibly successful afterward. I envisioned a woman telling me to concentrate on her voice (don’t ask me). It seemed as though I was imagining my own meditative coach who kept guiding me to focus on my breathing and only hear her voice. It’s yet to be seen whether this will catch on for me, but it was by far my most satisfying attempt at meditation to date.

My goal is to, in time, actually join a meditation class a few times and I will ask whether that was successful or not, but for the moment, I will chalk it up to progress.

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