Day two of Calm Meditation!

When I first started meditating, it was difficult to get the hang of it. I had to sit still for ten minutes and focus on nothing but my breathing. The first session was like a trial run, and afterwards I didn't feel very confident in it. My mind was wondering constantly and it was a battle between the thoughts that cloud my mind and my longing to find this feeling of pure nothingness, but I wasn't going to give up just yet. Good things take time, am I right?

Day two is a process called, "returning to the here and now," and like the first session it made me focus on my breathing and nothing more. I was instructed to sit in a position with my back straight, arms comfortably by my side and to close my eyes. She then says to pay attention to my normal breathing pattern and focus on the inhale and the exhale. At first, this was difficult for me because I started forcing my breathing, and had a moment of anxiety within the meditation. I quickly relaxed, started to breathe normally and continued on with the video. After a few minutes the instructor in the video told me to mentally note that I was breathing in, and breathing out. The purpose of this was to help my mind concentrate, or in other words, "help to still the thinking mind." I did this for ten minutes, and at the end felt nothing. My focusing had gotten better I noticed, but within meditation there is a sensation that is unexplainable (I will try to explain it in my future blogs as best I can, but patience young padawans, more posts on the way), and yes I have felt this but not until later and deep into my week of meditation.

This technique of mentally noting your breathing is a useful way to calm the incessant flow of chatter that fogs the mind every day. Speaking for myself it's hard for me to focus in on one thing for a period of time. My mind is constantly thinking about something that either happened in the past or what I need to get done to be successful in the future. Before starting this journey, I spent such little time in the present moment. I would carry out my day to day routine, and completely disregard the here and now. Since I, we, he, she lives in the present we don't realize that life is happening all around us. My mind is so concerned with future pretense that I am completely missing the fact that I am writing a page in my story everyday.

*Que the song Unwritten, by Natasha Bedingfield*

There are a lot of stressors in this world, and we cannot let ourselves be one of them. I feel as though that most of the time the thing that is holding us back from genuine happiness is our own minds. If we learn to control our thoughts, focus on the positive, be in the here and now, and take it one day at a time there will be nothing that we as individuals can't handle!

Until next time, this is Mindful Mads saying, take it easy and keep on keeping' on!

Have a great week everyone!

P.S.

Check out the Ted Talk I have posted to my page or click on the link below to get a better idea of what Mindfulness/Meditation is and an introduction to what my next blog post will be about!

https://www.ted.com/talks/andy_puddicombe_all_it_takes_is_10_mindful_minutes

Picture from canva.com!