Meditating is easy:
1. Choose a time to sit.
2. Be comfortable.
3. Select something to focus on (a mantra, your breath, a recording).
4. Make it your intention to draw your mind’s attention back to your chosen focus every time it wanders off. Your mind will wander off. Over & over again. That’s ok.

Meditating is difficult:
1. You have so many things to do.
2. It is hard to keep faith with the knowledge that everyone you admire says meditation is good for your soul, good for your mental health, good for your body when your mind is telling you that you are certainly THE ONLY PERSON WHO CANNOT DO IT!!!
3. Wow, you have a wildly oscillating mind! All of its memories, resentments, distractions, to do lists & plans are whizzing around in there.

So it’s a simple principle, but hard to do.

You will have seen the happy monks, the ones who have had electric cables attached to their heads so that science might quantify by computer what we have already seen on their faces: they are full of joy.

What you have not seen is the years of practice & sitting quietly with their own pain & disfunction that each monk will have been through to get to that peaceful, smiling state. More than this: pain & disfunction is permanently recurring, which is why it is called a practice, which is why you have to do it every day, which is why a happy monk continues to meditate every day, sometimes multiple times.

This is why it is so important to commit to your practice. Life sometimes feels pretty bad. In the course of a lifetime you will experience loss as well as gain, sorrow as well as joy. Your meditation practice has to be something that you can be with through all of life’s vicissitudes. Trust me when I tell you that if you can be there on your happy days, meditation will save you on your saddest.

As with any skill worth having, it is daily practice that brings accomplishment.

Nobody has the time and yet they do it. Really busy people that you admire do it. Thinking that you don’t have time is an excuse and nothing more. Everybody has time; how you choose to use your time what matters.

Find a mentor who can support you, help you find answers to your questions and offer guidance; or join a meditation group in which you feel at home.

Sit quietly …
Set a timer …
Breathe calmly …
Settle your mind to the best of today’s ability on your chosen focus or the voice of your teacher.

Forgive yourself when you find yourself distracted, or ruminating, or planning, or doubting.
You are human; it happens.

Then let it be.
No expectations. No judgement (these are yet more habits of mind that you might wish to watch, accept & let go of).

Sarah x

You will find several free guided meditations on my website here.
There are more on the way.
Let me know how you get on.