Start
1. Start with 10 mins a day. You can build on this but it is more important to introduce a practice that is sustainable
Prepare
2. Enter into the meditation without expectation, without the striving that weaves itself into the action parts of your day. Your experience of meditation has no right and wrong.
3. Sally Kempton asks us to enter meditation with a beginners mind, a mind that understands there is much to learn – this is a request for openness
Move
4. Move: Allow your body some physical movement, these may be asanas, but whatever movement comes to you: dance, touch your toes, flex each muscle in the body and let it go, stretch your arms and release.
Connect to and acknowledge the body.
5. Sit: Then sit on a chair with feet to the earth, cross legged on the floor or in a meditative position and relax your hands, eyes…soften into the seated posture. Yes, the back should be steady but your back has it’s own unique curves – respect how your own back supports you
Breathe
6. Breathe: Observe how your breath flows, in through the nostrils and out. Watch the breath with your full attention – how does it move my body, what do I feel…
Mantra
7. Repeat: Offer the mind a mantra, or any word for repetition. As your mind distracts you bring it back to the mantra or word…again and again. Smile to yourself as you notice your mind took you off on a tangent to solve the worlds, your friend’s, family problems. Smile and play, explore again and again.
8. Stillness: may be found in a fraction of a millisecond between an inhale and an exhale, it may be longer. The magic is in the offering of stillness to your self. The magic is in simply stopping to consciously remove the necessity for perpetual stimulus. The magic revives the whole of you.
Time
9. Time: You may have set a timer, you may have an inner alert. When the time is up keep the eyes soft, gently release the mantra or word. Connect mentally back into the sense of the physical body. Take a deep conscious breath. Imagine the room in your mind before you open the eyes and consciously reenter the external world.
Returning to the external world
10. Return to the external world: You may choose to get up and walk, complete the next task at hand or reflect on how your meditation felt…you may want to keep a meditation journal – all or none of these things. This is your experience of meditation, be empowered to explore the best method for you without getting sabotaged by the need to follow precisely these 10 steps or any others!
Permission as a gift
The only requirement is to give yourself the permission for timeless time.