Are you still putting off your meditation practice?

Starting a meditation practice can feel a bit daunting. What is meditation exactly? Am I doing it right? How long do I do it? What am I supposed to get from it exactly? What type of meditation should I do? Wait, there are types?

Meditation is simply letting go of controlling your experience.

It is your natural state when your thoughts stop flowing. That can include a transcendental experience, various feelings of love and compassion, peace and a feeling of connection, and perfection.

Little secret for you here…

Most of these “types of meditations” are not meditations. They are mindfulness practices. Everyone has their take on it and their thoughts about it.

Aaannd, that’s not really the important part, so for simplification, they are meditations, whatever. The only actual meditation practice on this list is #6, Transcendental, although several of these mindfulness practices will result in an actual meditation experience.

Ok, let’s move on.

So where do you start? No worries, I got you.

What matters is what you’re looking for at the given time. Healing, mindfulness, cultivating feelings of love, nothing at all, or clarity. Perfect. Any of those are great.

Think of meditation as a toolset. Or a menu at the cosmic universal cafe.

You can always combine or switch it up. And if you get stuck shoot me a comment.

What’ll it be today?

1. Metta Meditation

• Purpose: Cultivate and practice feelings of Loving-kindness.
• Origin: Buddhist
• A.K.A: Loving-kindness meditation
• Summary: Sending, love, kindness and positive energy to yourself and others.
• Keep in mind: to feel the loving-kindness.
• How To:

1. Close your eyes. Center and relax.
2. Start by thinking of something or someone that you feel love and goodwill for. It could be your partner, your family, your pet, a memory, situation or a stranger.
3. Sink into the feeling of love inside your heart and visualize that it has a glow of light. Visualize the color of the light as pink, gold, white or any color/colors that you choose.
4. Select a phrase to express and share your love such as:
   1. May I be happy and grateful
   2. May I be healthy and peaceful
   3. May I be safe
5. As you grow this love in your heart, focus on directing this love towards yourself and enjoy the feeling of being immersed in the glow of your love.
6. Direct your love energy towards someone close to you. Imagine the light and keep repeating your selected phrase. This time direct the phrase at the object of your energy. May you be happy and grateful. May you be healthy and peaceful. May you be safe.
7. Continue this process by directing love at those in your circle. Friends, colleagues. Then continue to those in your community, your city, your state, country, then the world, the far reaches of the universe and beyond, as you choose.
8. Finish by bringing your love and focus back to yourself, fill yourself up with love and open your eyes.

2. Clearing Meditation

• Purpose: Clear heavy or unserving energy.
• Origin: Various
• A.K.A: Energy alchemy
• Summary: Focusing your attention and energy on clearing out any unwanted energy from yourself.
• Keep in mind: Energy is energy. There is no BAD or GOOD. Just useful in the now and not. When you clear energy it is about moving energy like water. Stagnant water tends to create imbalance due to lack of flow. The old, unserving energy will flow and move back into the universe. Do not judge.
• How To:

1. Close your eyes. Center and relax.
2. Imagine your spine as a conduit for energy (which it is). Visualize the flow of your energy from the bottom of your spine to the top of your head. Give it a brightness, a light. Give it a color.
3. Imagine energy traveling down from your spine into the earth and the energy of the earth traveling up to meet and join with your internal energy. Give it a color and a brightness. I like to imagine earth energy as a vibrant green. You can see your energy flow as bright water, light, or even tree roots that connect to the earth.
4. Observe as your energy connects with the energy of the earth.
5. Connect your energy with universal energy from above. Give the universal energy a brightness and a color. You can imagine the energy coming down into the top of your head (crown chakra) and your energy traveling up from your spine out the top of your head to meet with the universal energy.
6. You are now connected to earth and universal energy. Watch and enjoy the flow. Watch the colors blend and swirl, bright and beautiful.
7. Observe your body. Look for any areas that are black, dirty, stuck, dusty dark, black, sludgy, oily, painful.
8. Now you can use various techniques. You can imagine that energy flowing down and out the bottom of your spine into the earth or up into the universe, where it is renewed and transmuted. You can imagine the universal energy coming into your body from the top of your head and washing away/dissolving the energy that is no longer useful to you. I like to imagine a marshmallow foamy cleaner filling up all the areas within my body and clinging to the dark, dirty energy. Then it all washes away. Sometimes I visualize a sphere outside of me where I exhale all the old energy. The sphere then contains the energy and it flies out and gets absorbed into the golden energy of the universe. I watch it meld and transmute.
9. You can use breathing to your advantage in this meditation. Breathe into the stuck areas then collect that energy and breathe it out.
10. IMPORTANT: Finish by filling up all areas of your body with positive, clean energy of your choice. Love energy, gratitude, peace, compassion, or goodness. Do not clear our old energy from your body then forget to fill it. Otherwise, you will have empty space that is filled with anything in your field or attention, including other people’s stuck energies.
11. Finish, center into your body and open your eyes.

3. Healing Meditation

• Purpose: Heal yourself or others
• Origin: Various
• Summary: Focusing your attention and energy on healing yourself or others.
• Keep in mind: It’s good practice to only heal others if you have their permission first. All humans are healers. Some just have more practice and a natural tendency towards it.
• How To:

1. Close your eyes. Center and relax.
2. Do a clearing meditation. Your body should be clean first before using it to heal. See the meditation above, #2.
3. There are several ways to heal. You can use your own energy which I don’t recommend, because it will deplete your energy. You can use the energy of nature, as is practiced in shamanism. Or you can use the energy of source. I recommend using source energy because it is an infinite reserve.
4. Once you are calm and connected to earth and source energy and your energy is clean, you can begin.
5. Focus on the area to be healed. You can put your hands there to help you bring your attention to the area.
6. Channel the universal energy of source into the area. Breathe into the area to be healed and imagine the old, stagnant energy being cleared, washed away, transmuted or dissolved into the pure bright light of the universe. I like to imagine it as golden light.
7. Bonus tip: If you’re working on an area that you have 2 of – let’s say you hurt one of your ankles – ask that the injured ankle copy the energetic blueprint of perfect health from the ankle that is uninjured. It will copy the correct information.
8. Imagine the healing taking place. You can repeat affirmations such as. Perfect health is my default birthright. I now welcome perfect health into this area of my body, all my body. It is normal and natural for me to be healthy. It is my body’s natural state. Etc.
9. Fill all areas of your body with good energy. Center and open your eyes.

4. Mantra Meditation

• Purpose: Help your mind stop racing through concentration. Affirmation technique to embody the meaning of the mantra.
• Origin: Various
• Summary: Focusing your attention and energy on repeating a specific phrase or sound. Common mantras are in Sanskrit language and one of the most common mantras is “om” believed to be the first sound originated on earth.
• Keep in mind: The vibrations of the sounds you make in the Sanskrit language correlate to the intention or meaning of the word. (That is something that makes Sanskrit so special).
• How To:

1. Select a mantra. You can use a common Sanskrit mantra, Hindu mantra, or use one from your own language. You can use mantras from each of the chakras such as, “I am”, “I feel”, “I Do” etc. or choose a mantra that speaks to you.
2. Relax, center and close your eyes.
3. Begin by saying your mantra out loud or just repeat it in your mind.
4. Repeat it for the duration of the meditation. A common practice is to repeat it 108 times, as it is a sacred number in harmony with nature.
5. Optional: You can use mala beads to help you count the mantras.
6. When you are finished, center yourself and open your eyes.

5. Mindfulness

• Purpose: To bring awareness to your current experience. Help change old habits. Bring autonomous, thoughts actions and behaviors into your awareness. Enjoy the moment. Be present.
• Origin: Various
• Summary: Focusing your attention and energy into the present moment.
• Keep in mind: This is a sensory-based experience. You can do this anytime, eyes-open preferably.
• How To:

1. Consciously bring your attention into the present moment.
2. Observe your thoughts, emotions, environment, and actions.
3. Observe the present moment with the 5 senses. What does it feel like? Taste like? Look like? Sound like? Smell like?
4. That’s it.

6. Transendential

• Purpose: Expand your awareness beyond the self.
• Origin: Various
• Summary: Clearing your mind and just being. Eventually, the thoughts will stop and you will experience a shift in awareness.
• Keep in mind: Normally it will take several sessions to weeks of repeated practice and it can take around an hour or more per session for your mind to have stillness. Practice where you can for as long as you can. I have done it in as little as 15-20 mins after weeks of daily practice. No matter what happens, it is the right experience for you.
• How To:

1. Close your eyes. Center and relax.
2. You can do a mantra meditation as a vehicle to help you center your mind.
3. Observe thoughts and watch them as they drift in and out of your awareness.
4. Focus back on your mantra and/or the stillness of your mind.
5. When finished, center and open your eyes.

7. Visualization

• Purpose: Visualize whatever you want and create that reality in your mind. Useful in manifesting your ideal reality. Evolving your character. Practicing skills in your imagination.
• Origin: Various
• Summary: Visualizing a reality of your choice for various purposes.
• Keep in mind: Visualization is a powerful tool for manifestation. What you create in your mind exists. Bringing it into matter is just the next step. Repeat for optimal results.
• How To:

1. Close your eyes. Center and relax.
2. Visualize a screen where you will project and watch your visualizations. The screen is slightly higher than eye level and you will place it comfortably away from you as though you are setting up your perfect movie theatre.
3. Visualize a scene of whatever you wish. Incorporate your 5 senses into the description.
4. Feel the feelings associated with that scene.
5. Watch yourself experiencing this scene for as long as you desire.
6. When finished, center and open your eyes.
   

8. Vipassana

• Purpose: To gain insight on the self and see things as they really are. Usually through gaining acute awareness of the body, mind and emotions. It is a process of self-transformation through self-observation.
• Origin: Buddhist
• Summary: Sitting in meditation, usually for days at a time with breaks for sleeping and eating. Observing your body, observing the moment.
• Keep in mind: It is common to experience pain or discomfort and many times, it’s part of the process. Proceed with caution and regard for your wellbeing. Meditate responsibly. 😛
• How To:
  

1. Close your eyes. Center and relax.
2. Observe the moment. Observe your body, observe your thoughts and feelings.
3. It can be useful to do a body scan where you direct your attention to various areas of your body, usually starting from the top and working your way towards the bottom. It can be useful to progressively relax as you do the body scan.
4. Once you have reached the end of your body scan, work your way back up your body and then down again.
5. You may begin to feel discomfort, pain, agitation or pleasure, which is another part of the observational process.
6. Continue for at least an hour.
7. When finished, center and open your eyes.

9. Mahasati (Dynamic) Meditation

• Purpose: To bring awareness to the present moment and bring attention to your body in movement. It helps to calm and center the mind.
• Origin: Buddhist
• A.K.A: Movement meditation or active meditation.
• Summary: Mahasati meditation is a form of mindfulness practice that incorporates a large range of movements, such as walking, tai chi, dancing, yoga, intuitive movement, running and more.
• Keep in mind: Slowing down your movement and keeping a consistent rhythm allow for easier awareness in the moment.
• How To:

1. Center and relax.
2. Begin moving as you’d like. Observe the moment. Observe your body, your breath, observe your thoughts and feelings.
3. Observe the changes in interaction as you move through the world. Observe details like the way the ground feels when your foot touches it, the way the sunlight or the wind feels, the flexibility of your body, your breathing etc.
4. Continue for as long as you’d like.
5. That’s it.

10. Chakra Meditation

• Purpose: To balance, open and align the chakras and allow the free flow of lifeforce energy that enhances vitality and wellbeing.
• Origin: Various
• Summary: This meditation brings awareness to the 7 main body chakras (energy centers) to open and rebalance their flow along your spinal channel. This affects your physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.
• Keep in mind: Each of the 7 main chakras has it’s a specific location on the body and a purpose associated with a color, sound/mantra, symbol, mudra and more. ALSO, it’s common to experience a sudden outpour or emotions or thoughts as you do this meditation.

• Protips:
• Your chakras have a front and back. Keep that in mind when doing the meditation.
• Allow enough time to go through the entire sequence with the 7 chakras. It is not recommended to leave it half-finished. Alternately, you can do work on a specific chakra if you feel the need.

• How To:

1. We will start from the base of the spine and work our way up.
2. Sit in an upright position. You can sit crosslegged, lotus pose, in a chair or however you like as long as your spine is straight and you’re not leaning on anything.
3. Close your eyes. Center and relax.
4. Imagine the energy channel that runs along your spine. Imagine your own energy connecting with the energy of the earth through the root chakra at the base of your spine.
5. Continue to focus your attention on your root chakra, located at the base of your spine. Imagine the chakra as a wheel of energy and visualize the color red. Observe your chakra. Is the red color bright, dull? How fast is it spinning? How smooth is it spinning? Do you see any darkness or stuckness in the color or flow?
6. You can choose to do the mudra associated with the chakra if you’d like.
7. If you are sensitive to feeling energy, you can also place your hand in the area, and guide the flow and movement of the energy in a circle.
8. Begin chanting the associated mantra, either out loud or in your mind.
9. Allow clean, revitalizing, healing energy from the earth to flow into the chakra to clear any stuck or nonserving energy.
10. Notice as the color red brightens and grows in vitality. Continue until you feel complete and there is no more stuck or blocked energy. Allow any stuck energy to flow back into the earth for renewal and transmutation.
11. Work your way up to the next chakra, the sacral chakra located 1-2 inches below your belly button. Repeat the process and continue until you reach the crown chakra.
12. After balancing your crown chakra, imagine the energy from your spinal channel coming up out of your head and connecting to the pure white/golden energy of the universe. (You can select other colors for the universe energy if you wish.)
13. IMPORTANT: Ensure that your 7 main chakras are clear and balanced before you wrap up. You can imagine a clean clear energetic flow from your crown chakra to the universe coming back down into the earth, through it, and back up your spinal channel through your root chakra. The flow is toroidal and looks like this:

14. When you’re ready, open your eyes.

11. Kundalini Meditation

• Purpose: To stimulate and awaken the kundalini lifeforce energy present at the base of the spine for the expansion of consciousness.
• Origin: Unknown origin, practiced in various cultures.
• A.K.A: Spiritual birth, when the kundalini energy flows from the root chakra through all the rest and reaches the crown chakra.
• Summary: Also, known as shakti energy, Kundalini energy is the divine feminine creative force. It usually lies latent at the base of the spine like a coiled serpent. When you awaken your kundalini, you allow this energy to travel up through your spine, through your chakras and up and out your crown chakra where it connects to universal lifeforce energy. This usually shows up as expanded consciousness or expanded awareness and perception. Many times, when this happens you will see a thousand petal lotus flower (the symbol of your crown chakra) with your third eye.
• Keep in mind: Maintain caution with the stimulation/ awakening of kundalini energy. It is a very powerful energy that may cause illness or psychosis if directed in a nonserving way. Learning from an experienced master is recommended.
• How To:

1. Sit in an upright position. You can sit crosslegged, lotus pose, in a chair or however you like as long as your spine is straight and you’re not leaning on anything.
2. Center and relax.
3. This meditation uses a combination of techniques including pranayama, mudras, mantras and optional movements (yoga).
4. Imagine your spine as a conduit for energy (which it is). Visualize the flow of your energy along it. You can do a chakra meditation to help the energy is flow freely.
5. Bring your attention to your 3rd eye chakra located at the space between your eyebrows. If you’d like, turn your gaze to that area while keeping your eyes closed.
6. Repeat a mantra. You can choose one that resonates with you, or select a common Kundalini mantra.
7. Place your hands into a mudra to facilitate proper energetic flow. the gyan mudra is a common one to use. The gyan mudra consists of the thumb and forefinger touching and the rest of the fingers extended naturally. (Pictured below)

8. Focus on your breathing, (pranayama). Breathe in for 20 seconds, hold for 20 seconds, breathe out for 20 seconds, hold for 20 seconds, then breathe in again for 20 seconds. You can shorten the number of seconds as long as it’s consistent in the inhale, hold and exhale.

9. Imagine the energy traveling up your spinal cord from your root chakra through your crown chakra. Don’t try to bring it up through your spine. Just allow it to happen. If it doesn’t happen, allow that as well. Don’t force it.

The energy flows up like this (the little serpent energy traveling up the spine):

10. You may choose to connect with the earth and cosmic energy, then back through your own body. (See #2 clearing meditation for how to connect with earth and universal energy)

11. Continue for as long as you’d like.

12. When finished, center and open your eyes.

Want extra help with any of these, have questions or want to share your story? Get in touch with me or leave a comment below. I’m happy to support and would love to hear your story!