Day 1 of #30DaysofMeditation: Form & Function

Meditations for VillainsThis month, I'll be writing a series of blog posts about meditation for #30DaysofMeditation; mainly about my own experiences with mediation and what I've learned from them.
It will be less boring than that sounds, though. 

I'll also be including a little mediation exercise in each post. These will help you both build up from a meditation newbie to a pro, as well as open you up to new meditation methods and practices.
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First things first: Let's talk about the stuff that holds some of us back and gets us stuck when we first try out this whole mediation shiz. 

And I'm talkin' about form and function. 
First, let's rap about function by clearing up one popular misconception: There is a difference between relaxing/zoning out and meditation. In the past year, I've heard a ton of people say stuff like, "Knitting is my meditation." or "running is my meditation" etc. No. It's not. Knitting is your way to relax. Running is a way to clear your mind. Meditation is something much deeper than either of those things:

An actual meditation practice - such as going through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles or doing Transcendental Mediation, Buddhist meditation, or other spiritual, religious, or even secular forms of meditation - includes a technique through which words or sounds instruct the mind to move into deeper regions. These regions hold the key not only to stress reduction but to much, much more. Greater insight, deeper understanding, expanded perspective, more whole-system knowing, and deeper peace, forgiveness, and love - all of these arise more easily from the meditative mind. The rational mind alone cannot cause these things to occur. 
- Marianne Williamson

Sorry if Williamson just blew your damn mind.

So that's the function: to move the mind into deeper regions. 

Now, for the form...

When I first started getting into meditation, I - probably just like many others - found myself Googling the "right" way to do meditation to make sure I was doing it right. 
What I didn't really know yet was this: There really isn't a totally wrong way or a totally right way to do meditation. The only real right way(s) is what works for you.

The following is a sort of "Beginners Guide" I put together for a friend when they were first starting out with meditation. As #30DaysofMeditation progresses, we'll talk about some different methods and techniques that will call for different things, but for now, the purpose of this list is help you get started with feeling out meditation on your own and figuring out how to do your own thing. It will also hopefully help you get past some of the misconceptions and the weirdo stuff you might have heard before when it comes to meditation.
SittingLet me get real for a second: That whole pose where you sit with one leg resting on top of the other, hands resting on your knees with forefingers and thumbs touching, back straight? Fucking HARD, yo! First of all, unless you're a daily yoga kid, the one leg on top of the other thing is hard to duplicate. Second, if you have a weak core like me, you're going to be focusing more on keeping your back straight and sitting up through the pain than you are on the meditation - aka, more thoughts to distract you, which is exactly what we don't want. Third, if touching your pointer fingers to your thumbs feels dumb to you? Don't do it.
See? Simple.
Meditation can be done lying on your back, sitting up in a chair with your feet planted on the ground, sitting up in butterfly position (bottoms of feet pressed against each other), or even while doing a headstand. It doesn't matter how you arrange your body, just do it in a way that feels comfortable to you, leaves your mind free to concentrate on meditating, and won't cause you to fall asleep right as you're getting to the sweet spot.

The only really important things to incorporate are these three guidelines:
1) Try not to cross or criss-cross your legs2) Don't wear hair bindings, or clothing that feel restrictive3) Keep your palms up and open
The first two are to ensure that you're not blocking energy from your body. The last keeps you open to "receiving" positive energy while you're meditating.
Some of you, though, won't feel like you're really meditating unless you're assuming the Official Pose of Meditation, and that's totally cool, too - I get it. Just keep practicing the pose for as long as it feels comfortable. When it starts to feel awkward or painful, or when thoughts of your body positioning start to intrude on your meditation, simply ease out of that pose into a more comfortable and receptive one.
Breathing
This is the part of meditation that can be so easy that others will sometimes make it harder than it has to be. 
The important thing about breathing during meditation? Is that you do it.
But that you do it in a way that feels good.
The traditional breathing method of meditation is to breathe in your nose and out your mouth. However, I have found that this can actually sometimes be difficult and distracting. In order to do this, you typically have to move your tongue to the roof of your mouth to take a breath in your nose, and then move your tongue down to let the breath out of your mouth. This reflexive movement can then become a conscious action, taking your mind away from the meditative state (the one exception I've found is when you're chanting, which we'll talk about more later).
So it either works for you, or it doesn't. Try breathing in the traditional "meditational" way first...if it doesn't work for you, then just breath in and out of your nose. This is what I do, and I find I start vibing with the meditative state much faster this way than if I'm concentrating on breathing in my nose and out of my mouth.

Once you've found the way that works for you, take some deep, long, cleansing breaths. Something that can really surprise some people once they start meditating is how good it feels to breath deeply, and this is typically because their everyday breathing patterns tend to be short and shallow. Others are so used to shallow breathing that they breathe so deeply that they start to feel faint. Don't do that. Just breath slowly and deep, getting used to the sensation of the breath filling your body all the way to the bottom of your stomach, and then easing gently back out of your body. I even like to think of it as a sort of inner massage...it can literally feel that good.
Chanting
There's a big misconception that meditation must = chanting.

It's true that chanting is the main focus and feature of different meditational practices such as transcendental meditation, and it can lend your practice to a pretty powerful experience. For instance, "OM" is a combination of all the syllables of the world, and "AH" is a combination of all the sounds in the world. Many meditation kids use "OM" for gratitude meditations and "AH" for meditations for manifestation of intentions, or both of them together ("OM" while breathing in, and "AH" while breathing out). I've done it for some of my meditations, and it can be pretty freaking cool. It can help when it comes to better focus and getting into the right headspace.

Some can find chanting a detriment to a regular practice, especially if you live with someone and don't get much free time to be alone and chant without feeling self-conscious. Others find that chanting actually distracts from quieting the mind.

Bottom line? If you want to try it, do. But if it's not your gig, don't sweat it.

Eyes
Most people, including me, find it most helpful to keep your eyes closed during meditation. Which is why I've always found those pictures of people sitting on a beach at sunrise or on top of mountain while meditating so strange...who cares about a freaking sunrise when you're keeping your eyes closed the whole time?

But others find it helpful to focus on something during their practice, be it a candle flame, a blade of grass, or a flower. The key there is to find a single thing to focus on. It's going to be difficult enough, going in, to not get distracted by the stuff in your environment, so make it easy on yourself.

Day 1 of #30DaysofMeditation meditation exercise:

Sit comfortably: sit in a comfortable chair, with your feet planted on the floor, or in butterfly pose, your back and neck straight, and palms open.

Set a timer for 5-10 minutes. Keep it in your mind that this is space and time that you are carving out for yourself - there is nowhere else you need to be, nothing else that you need to be doing in this moment. Close your eyes, and concentrate on breathing deeply, in and out. As thoughts drift in, acknowledge them and then just let them drift back out. Don't dwell on them, but don't judge yourself and stress too much on "clearing your mind." Just focus on your breath, and remaining present in the moment. That's it. That's all you have to think about for the next 5-10 minutes...on your breath, and the immediate presence of your body.

When your timer goes off, open your eyes and return slowly to your surroundings, keeping your breath deep and slow, and continue on with the rest of your day.
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