You may be someone who feels ready to devote more formal dedicated time to meditation practice and set up a home practice. If so, here are some brief tips for you in doing so:
- In terms of time spent, it is often helpful to start small and then work one’s way up from there. Just like when trying to get into a physical exercise routine, it helps to set goals that are realistic to how much time you have, what your level of experience is, and, fundamentally, what is realistic for what you will actually do. Meditating for even just two minutes once a week can provide some tangible positive results. After starting small, you can of course move up from there in both duration and frequency whenever you feel ready.
- It is helpful to have a routine to your meditation practice and to meditate at the same time of day, in the same place. This will help you to develop a habit, making it easier to start doing the meditation without a lot of mental negotiations and also to drop into a meditative mind state once you start.
- It is also helpful to stay flexible and to be willing to get some meditation in even when not able to meditate in one’s customary time and place.
- If you are able to sit cross-legged on a cushion on the floor, that’s great – it’s a stable way to sit when meditating. But it is also perfectly appropriate to sit in a chair, something a large percentage of American meditators do. For posture tips for sitting in a chair and how to pick a chair that is ideal for meditating in, please see this blog post.
- You may already know how to do a meditation technique that you enjoy and find value from doing. If not, there are plenty of techniques that are relatively easy for new practitioners. If interested, you can check out scripts for two popular beginner’s techniques, simple mindfulness of breath and body, on Adam’s site. You may also want to explore one of the popular guided meditation phone apps, like Headspace, Calm, Brightmind, or Insight Timer.
- It’s common knowledge that a physical workout may feel good or may feel bad on any particular day, but it usually has some positive value either way. Similarly, “the sign of a good meditation is that you did one.” If you make formal meditation part of your life, you will probably have up days and down days, but if you stick with it in the long term, you’ll see positive progress.
- Finally, also just like with physical exercise, it can sometimes help to get social support to work meditation into one’s life. This can look like finding a family member or friend to sit with or simply tell or text when starting a sitting. You can also get support by sitting with a group; since the pandemic, there have been many groups that now meet online (including my own). In the past, there have been many in-person groups, some of which are still going, and some of which will probably come back when the time is right.