And Breathe - a short guide to the world's easiest meditation
Whilst I love the growing focus on mental health, flourishing and wellness, there is also a growing sense that you need to go to a specific hardcore yoga course, become vegan, commit to complicated daily meditations for 40 minutes a day and walk barefoot through the dew before this can be achieved. Such things might be helpful - but at the end of the day, let’s not over complicate things!
If we take it right back to basics - all we need to do is to practice tuning in to ourselves. As human BEINGS. We can practice some be-ing.
And the easiest way to do that is simply to be aware of our breath. Air flowing into our lungs, air flowing back out. We can ground ourselves, realise that all the ‘stuff’ going on isn’t actually as important as we think and gradually practice being kinder to ourselves.
It can be helpful to seek the support of others - that’s why I run a monthly mindfulness group - and sometimes a change of routine or scenery can be a good way to kick-start change. The more firmly rooted a new habit is, the more likely it is to last and the greater the chance that we will see its effects in our life. Once that happens - it becomes a virtuous cycle as you can feel the benefits so you therefore keep doing it. If you don’t do it, it won’t help. So it has to be realistic. A 40min meditation that is never done is much less powerful than a 2 minute meditation you do manage to do!
I would suggest you stick post-it notes as many places as you can with the word ‘Breathe’ on them. Make it a habit to do a mini breath meditation when you get up, when you boil the kettle, when you wait for the bus, when you walk to work, when you go to the loo, when you are in a queue, when you are waiting for a meeting to start. Soon, you will be well on your way to feeling calmer and not so reactive to all the stress factors present in modern life.
You can read more about the benefits of meditation here.
For free meditations apps, have a look at this list.