Mindfulness Part I: Learning to Meditate

Recently, I came across an article in Time Magazine's Feb. 3 Issue called, "the Mindful Revolution".  In it, journalist Kate Pickert explores the movement which is helping people reconnect to their center and reclaim their sanity while living in a world where constant information overload is an understatement.

Being mindful is a simple concept, but one that is very hard to understand and access for most people.  The idea of doing nothing is one that most Americans just can't wrap their heads around.

Though I've been practicing yoga for over ten years, I've never had a dedicated meditation practice until a couple of months ago.  For some reason, I woke up one day and decided that I would attempt to meditate every single day for fifteen minutes.  Without checking my email or texts, I grab my phone and command Siri, "Set timer for fifteen minutes."

At first, it was TOUGH.  I fidgeted, my thoughts were all over the place, and I thought the time would never end.  But after several sessions, I noticed something.  As the days went by, my thoughts started to slow down.  Sometimes, I begin with a question or intention; maybe a seed of something that has been troubling me.  I have the thought, but then let it go.  Next, I simply pay attention to my breathing and my body and the sensory stimulation from my environment.

When I meditate regularly, my mental beach transforms from Panama City on Spring Break to something closer to this little piece of God's country. 

After doing THAT for a several days, not always, but often, these light-bulbs would come on with great clarity, often as an answer to the question I asked at the beginning.  And sometimes, almost like clock-work, if you will, the timer would go off just afterwards.

Since I've been meditating, my life has just begun to slowly but surely streamline, and now if I don't get to meditate in the morning because I wake up late or something, I definitely feel like I'm missing out and carve out a time later in the day to make up for it.

In the Time article, Kate Pickert discusses different people, companies, and Apps that are making meditation and mindfulness more accessible to people.

My personal favorite from the bunch is an App called "Headspace", which I will discuss in Mindfulness Part II: Get Some Headspace.