Meditation for beginners

The best meditation for beginners advice is on how to deal with the main obstacles that start to show up as one closes their eyes and sets upon traveling within.

We sit down to meditate, and we start to experience unwanted feelings like physical pain, sleepiness and irritation. We find ourselves thinking all of the time and on top of it we are wondering if we are practicing correctly. We start to wonder if the practice is worth the effort and if it has any real benefits.

Filled with obstacles of all kinds, people often give up on meditation or find themselves in a perpetual “stop and start” mode.

In order to succeed you only need one quality!

That is the quality to NEVER GIVE UP! If you don't give up, you will succeed.

The following 5 points are there for you to help you to NEVER GIVE UP & SUCCEED.

1.  A Meditation Coach

A skillful meditation teacher can help you as a coach and offers the needed guidance and encouragement to help you face obstacles and helps you to take your meditations to deeper and deeper levels.

Meditation for beginners looks simple to do, yet when one sits down to practice it, the challenges of the unknown start knocking on your door. Sure, you can learn a lot from books and CD's but imagine how much more you can learn and faster you can go when working with a meditation coach or teacher who has a lifetime of experience of going within and guiding others. The dynamic of sharing your meditation experiences and receiving outside feedback is needed when we are learning something new.

So the best meditation for beginners advice we can give is to study with a meditation teacher or coach. A meditation coach can save you valuable time.

There are other significant benefits that can come from studying with a meditation coach or teacher. The meditation teacher is able to 'model' how to meditate. Being in the presence of a gifted teacher, you develop a feeling for the practice that is difficult to develop on your own. Imagine, for example, that you want to learn to play the piano. You can listen to recordings of wonderful piano concertos, but imagine how much more you would learn sitting on the bench next to a master pianist? You would feel their energy and passion, and could watch up close the movements of his or her hands across the keyboard. In this scenario, the inner experience of the pianist is being communicated in addition to their outer hand movements across the keys. There is a sort of 'ignition', a handing over of the experience from one person to another. This is why the exchange between a meditation teacher and a student is sometimes described as 'the gift of fire or passing wisdom 'candle to candle'.

So my piece of meditation for beginners advice is:

Find yourself a meditation coach or teacher that fits you, one that you can trust.

2. Have an open mind

An open mind is gold in the world of meditation. Any concepts about what meditation is, any preconceived ideas of how to go within or expectations on what we will find when we go within, stops us from receiving the true and complete benefits of our endeavors of meditating.

Read the following stories about 'Shells on a beach' and the 'Master and a Disciple' to illustrate the power of an open mind powerfully.

"The mind is like a parachute...It does not work if it is not open"

3. Meditation for beginners time line approach

How long do I need to meditate for? There is no correct answer really to this question. Any moment you go within and meditate is one moment closer to gaining the benefits of meditation. So even if you have only 5 minutes, you can still nurture yourself with meditation. And...

Practicing on a regular basis is the secret to learning meditation.

Most of us usually go through an initial restless period in the first part of our meditations when our bodies are fidgeting and our minds are the busiest. If this happens and you start to become discouraged you can try using a time plan approach.

As best you can, when you’re meditating

1. try to determine if you have an average time for going through a restlessness period.
   
2. Then, take that time and double it.
   

That is a good basic way to approach finding an adequate time period for you to practice your meditations.

For example; if for one week you notice that when you sit down you can’t settle down for approximately 5 to 15 minutes. Then your average meditation time could be somewhere between 10 to 30 minutes.

The idea is to make sure that you give yourself the best chance to feel some advancement in learning how to go within. It helps your overall level of self confidence in being able to go within if you feel at least a portion of the time you’re not just sitting there, wanting to stop, and trying not to want to stop.

This meditation for beginners advice is crucial as it keeps you on a learning curve where you are experiencing the benefits and changes from your practice and are motivated to practice on a regular basis.

"If you have not succeeded ever, yet, on an inward journey, be gentle with yourself.

Give yourself time. Gently let yourself go deeper.

Whatever experience comes to you, let it take you over.

Welcome it. Relish it.”

4. Prepare Yourself

The more you prepare yourself for your meditation, you will notice it will start to pay off in your meditation work. Imagine yourself being a painter and your job is to paint a house. In preparation you think through what tools and supplies you need for the job, you clean the house, you prep the walls etc. etc. A painter can tell you, the more prepared he is the faster and better he gets the job done. The same is true for meditation. The more prepared and focused you are at the start of your meditation the more you will gain benefit from your meditation.

Preparing yourself for meditation can be many different things like; preparing a quiet and beautiful space, preparing your mind, focusing on your intent for the meditation during the day.

Did you know that people that have created a space specifically for meditation tend to hold to their commitment to meditate 80% more of the time then people who do not have a dedicated space available.

To be inspired and get some great ideas on how to create yourself a beautiful corner to meditate in or if you have the luxury to dedicate a room in your house for the purpose of meditating please read: 'How to create a meditation room'

If you like to know more about how to best prepare yourself for meditation then read more in:  7 Steps to best prepare yourself for meditation.
This is a piece of meditation for beginners advice that can pay off very quickly.

5. A good way to Start

A good way to begin your journey within is by starting to explore the reasons why you want to meditate. Being in touch with your reason(s) to meditate, and then taking this as a focus into your meditation work is a very important key. I call your reasons and intent our spiritual desire.

This spiritual desire is to meditation what the sun is to human life: We need the sun to keep our life forces going, and we need spiritual desire to sustain our focus and endeavors in each second of meditation. Everything stems from your spiritual desire. You do not have to see it as “spiritual desire” if that does not resonate with you. You can see it as your motivation, your intention, or your drive to improve and evolve. Whatever you call it, this kind of desire is a feeling within, and is what sustains your focus as you meditate.

Your spiritual desire is the best travel guide you will ever have. To learn more about this meditation for beginners advice please read up the awareness exercise on "Why Meditate".