Meditation in the Car

For the first time since I began meditating, life got in the way enough that I couldn’t meditate properly. Around 5pm yesterday I was a passenger in the back seat of my cousin’s car, and the conversation had died down. Rather than wait for an hour or so before I got home, I decided to take this opportunity and meditate there and then.

Obviously meditating in a car is not ideal, but it is certainly possible. There are many more distractions, and I obviously cannot achieve a meditating posture, but it is still practice and most of all it made sure I continued to build meditating as a habit.

Although I’ve cut a couple of meditating sessions short, and I’ve run late for a few, I haven’t missed one session this whole month. And since there are less than 2 days remaining this month, I think I can safetly say I’ve installed it effectively as a habit.

No Excuse Meditation

One of the biggest reasons a new habit fails to stick is all the excuses. These can actually be legitimate, but even legitimate excuses can be combated. The trick is to predict them and work out solutions in advance.

I’ve found that since creating my early rising challenge, other new challenges are a lot easier. So far I’ve carried out my meditation twice a day without fail. I’ve been a bit off with timing a couple of times, so I need to work on that, but I’m still doing pretty well.

However, it’s only been eight days, and after the first week habit forming tends to get more difficult. It’s easy to slack off at this point, so the next week will probably be the biggest challenge. Keeping the focus for a month is the key, and to do so we have to make sure we are ready for the excuses.

This is why I predicted the following likely excuses, and have prepared solutions to combat them:

Stress

Many take up meditation to help calm them during stressful times. Yet it is precisely during these times that we often lack time, and so let meditation slip. It is important to realise that meditation will help you see your stresses with a clearer head and allow you to deal with them more effectively. Trying to rush around when we have a lot to think about, can actually slow us down. Breaks are always important, and meditation is probably the best break there is. In stressful times you will actually cost yourself time by not meditating.

Appointments

Time also interferes when we have lots of appointments that we must meet. Ideally you would make appointments for times when you don’t meditate, but this may not always be possible. I take pride in being on time for appointments so I would not turn up late in order to meditate.

One possible solution would be to fit in a shortened meditation. Maybe just a minute or so. While this perhaps won’t be that beneficial it will make sure I keep the habit ingrained.

A better solution would be to look for places where you can get some kind of meditation in – even if it isn’t ideal. For example, if I have a dentist appointment I can meditate in the waiting room, if I’m on a flight I can meditate in the plane, if I’m on a long car journey I can pull over and take a few minutes to meditate in the car.

One I’m particularly looking forward to doing is if I’m with a friend, I may ask if they mind me finding an empty room and taking a few minutes to meditate. I’m sure some people will think this strange, but who cares? You will be revealing something about your personality that a lot of people will admire and start to identify you with.If you’re confident enough, you can even encourage others to join in.

Forgetting

The other major excuse is that I simply forget. This has actually happened and so I ended up meditating a bit late. I didn’t foresee this one, but I can stop it happening in the future. One step I’ve taken is to run through a guided visualisation of the moment where I should be meditating (right after I finish revising). This should be enough, but I’ve also added a safeguard and written a note inside my revision book. There’s no way I can forget now.

I’m bound to come up with more excuses, but I think I’ve got a handle on the major ones.

Article: Developing Visualization Skills

I have a new article posted on my main site. This one describes a method for improving your visualization skills. Although I cannot always achieve this, on occassion I can close my eyes and see images from my imagination that look totally real. The method I used to achieve this is outlined in the article. You can read it here

How to Meditate to Clear Your Mind

As I said a couple of days ago, there are several types of meditation. For clarity here, I’m going to divide them into just two:

• meditation that helps you think more
• meditation that helps you think less

These categorisations aren’t perfect, but I’ll roll with it for now.

The first type is often known as visualisation and takes many different forms. This type of meditation usually has some kind of goal attached to it, and can be brilliantly effective. Today, however, I’m concerned with the other type of meditation. The type that helps you think less.

Basically the idea is to develop a pinpoint focus on one thing (such as your breath, an object or a mantra) and to clear your mind of all other thoughts. I know this is incredibly beneficial because I’ve carried out the procedure numerous times in the past. However, I’ve never successfully made it a habit, and it is when it is a habit that it will be most beneficial.

Procedure

There are many different ways of doing this, but I’m going to stick to one where I focus on my breath. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the different methods, but as with so many things it’s usually best to just pick one (even if randomly) and try it out. I’m going to stick to this for one month, and then decide if I want to change things.

The first step is to find a comfortable sitting position with a good posture. Many postures like the Lotus can take a while for the body to comfortably acclimatise to, and this can be distracting for the meditation, so I find it’s best to stay out of those postures until you can do them easily.

The main meditation postures can be found here. My posture of choice is the Burmese Pose which is described on that page. I find I can sit in this position quite comfortably for a good length of time which makes it ideal. I can get into the full lotus, but at the moment I can’t stay there long enough because I lack the flexibility.

If you find it difficult to stay still and concentrate, many people find Asana Yoga to be easier. Asana Yoga still trains the concentration, but the body is moving as well. I found this helped when I was getting started. But, as with many things, the best choice is usually individual.

The second step is very easy to describe and understand, but difficult to perform. I’ve personally chosen to focus on my breath. The idea is to focus only on the breath and nothing else. If a stray thought appears, you acknowledge it and then naturally return to thinking about the breath. This can be more difficult than it sounds – even if it sounds difficult! In this meditation the idea is not to try and control the breath, just to observe. As you become conscious of subtle changes in your body and breath, you will naturally make subtle changes to how you breathe without even realising it. These changes then spill out into your everyday life.

There are, of course, many more benefits of meditation. I shall no doubt get into these benefits in the weeks and months ahead.

New Habit: Meditation

On the 1st May my plan is to start a new habit. The habit is meditation; something I’ve unsucessfully tried to intall as a habit several times. I’ve successfully mediated in the past, but I just haven’t made it a habit.

The plan is to meditate twice a day for 30 days. 10 minutes is the minimum amount of time I will spend on each meditation.

I need to work out the best times. I’ve been working on improving my morning ritual over the past few days with great success. Somewhere I need to fit in 10 minutes of meditation; but where is best?

Do I do it as soon as I wake up?

After my revision?

Just before my shower?

Just after my shower?

I’m not sure what the best time will actually be, but rather than think about it too heavily I’m just going to follow my instinct and do it straight after revision. I can always change my mind later, but that feels right.

Now what about the evening?

My evening is less structured than my morning so it could be more difficult. Generally at the moment I am working out at about 6pm. Dinner is usually after 7pm, but is often later than 8pm. I can’t do it just before dinner, as it will be too difficult to get the timing right. My thinking is to do it around 5pm. I want to remain a bit flexible so that I can do it as soon as I finish my work. This will allow me to go straight from meditation to working out. I’m not sure if that is the best order, but I can always switch it around later if need be.

So:

• at least 10 minutes of meditation in the morning straight after revision.
• Around 5pm, at least another 10 minutes of meditation.

There are different types of meditation and tomorrow I will explain which one I’m going to do and my exact procedure.