Today we are calling it in. We are calling in a calm, serene, uncluttered mind. How? By becoming fully present in the moment and focusing in or dialing in, on our mindset. Perhaps if I use the word meditation, a subset of mindset, visions of a guru sitting on the ground, cross legged, with palms facing up, and channeling or chanting “ommmmm” might, come to your mind. That certainly doesn't seem practical to me in this busy day and age. And it is probably the reason I hear people say, “I can't meditate. My mind is too active to sit still, or to be still! I am too busy, I've tried!”
And you know what? I agree with them. Because as humans, we have somewhere between 70 to 80,000 thoughts in a day and if the only technique we try is to sit still, and be quiet and clear our mind that certainly doesn't work very often. But let me ask you this. Do you enjoy listening to music? Losing yourself in the rhythm of dancing or singing? Perhaps you enjoy walking or running? How about swimming? Or any other exercise? Maybe you like to paint, write, and draw or doodle? Any of these things become a form of meditation. If they're calming, relaxing, and especially if they unclutter the busy mind!
With a few simple hacks, you can meditate. You can apply something that you already enjoy doing and add one of these hacks (for lack of a better term):
Hack number one, set a clear intention to release fears, worries and especially your current” to do list” for the length of the activity. Every time one of these thoughts creeps in, don't judge it. Just pretend it's encapsulated in a ping pong ball and just bat it out of your brain. Picture a little white, fuzzy ball of a thought and bat it out of your brain. If it comes back, just bat it out again.
The second hack is to use counting or a chant or some type of saying, for most types of exercise counting can just be part of the program, right? You can count to 10 while walking and then count to 10 again, to help clear the mind. You can do sets of 10 depending on the exercise, you can also use an affirmation like “I am strong I am worthy” or an affirmation that appeals to you. In my case, I like to breathe in “happiness, healthiness and peacefulness within” and I like to breathe out “negativity, toxins and debris”! When I'm busy saying those words and thinking about my in and my outbreath I don't have time to think about my “to do list”.
Hack number three, is that you can tune in to white noise. You could tune into something like the sound of a ceiling fan, the sound of the wind, any repetitive relaxing music, waterfall, water running, or an actual sound machine.
And the final hack, hack number four. You can use an app. You can use technology designed to guide you through a meditation in apps like Calm, Headspace or perhaps one from YouTube or Spotify you might also have noticed that right here on the Call It In podcast, I put in periodic guided visualizations that could be used for this as well.
So, meditation doesn't need to be a still seated experience. You don't even need to hum or chant Ommmm, although you could! I would love to hear how these hacks work for you. So please let me know on the show notes page where you can ask questions and you can leave comments. There are many reasons to participate in meditation for a positive mindset, and some of those include reducing stress, anxiety, fear and anger. A great big reason is the alchemy actually makes a chemical change from stress chemistry, like adrenaline and producing epinephrine to the calming chemical reactions of dopamine and serotonin. Perhaps you've heard the experts say that fear and calm cannot physically inhabit our brain simultaneously and our emotion needs to be one or the other. So why not have it be dopamine and serotonin to call in calm and relaxation?
Another benefit is building concentration and focus, another improving sleep, balancing your energy and even achieving goals. This is a very common practice among top athletes to improve their performance with meditation and visualization. The opposite end of that spectrum, it can be used for breaking bad habits and last but very, very important is that there are a large number of research studies that states support of improved cognitive function One particular study of meditators over 50 years of age when compared to a test group that was similar, found 70% enhancement in the brain function of meditators versus the brain function of non-meditators. Wow, hmm? That alone should be reason enough to convince me to keep on with my meditation practice... though you know that I will... What about you?