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Meditating: Get Started – Part 1

Karl Palachuk

Karl W. Palachuk
January 12, 2015

Relaxed Girl At Peace Smelling A FlowerI have recently talked to several people who are trying to figure out how to get started with “quiet time” or meditation. So I thought I’d give you my recommendations. There are no hard, fast rules here, so relax and enjoy.

I plan to have several posts on this. So go slow and check back often. Your comments and questions are certainly welcome.

The first thing to keep in mind, if you are new to meditation, is that it’s a skill like anything else. If you haven’t done it before, you need to start somewhere. You need to learn how it feel to sit and do nothing. You need to learn how to listen and stop talking.

If you’re one of those people who always has the TV on, or the iPod, iPad, MP3 player, or some other device that requires you to have ear buds in your ears all the time, you will be particularly challenged.

 

Lesson one is: Be patient with yourself.

You may have heard people say “you can’t do it wrong.” That’s true if you are sincerely trying.

If you are really, truly trying meditation for the first time, I recommend you have get yourself a timer. It can be a kitchen timer or an app on your phone. Set it for one minute. I know that’s not much. But it will seem like forever if you haven’t experienced it before.

Simply sit quietly in a chair, relax, close your eyes, and wait for the minute to pass.

When the timer rings, be aware of your reaction to it. Do you say to yourself, “It’s about time!”? If you do, keep repeating the exercise every day for one minute.

When your reaction becomes “What? Already? I wonder if I set the timer wrong.” – then you are ready to set the timer for two minutes or even three.

 

Next time we’ll look inside your head and talk about some of those thoughts that come up in meditation.

Enjoy!

🙂

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