Basic Meditation Exercises

1. While the basic meditation exercise presented is simple, you should practice regularly. Practicing at least once a day for 15-20 minutes is recommended. You can either meditate in the morning or in the afternoon. I usually do my meditation in the afternoon, after 5 pm, when I have most of the work behind me and I can catch up on a few minutes of quality time with myself. I can't stress this enough. To see improvements from your meditation (regardless of which meditation techniques you use), you need to do it every day and not stop after one week.
    
2. Also you need to have a quiet space on your own where you can be yourself. We all know that we are a bit 'different' when we have others around us. It is a mask that we wear all the time, and the mask is changing depending on whom we are with. To truly let go of our ego, our daily mask, we need to be alone for a while. We need to know that nobody will disturb us during our meditation session so we can fully relax and go with the program.

    
   So make sure that you find a comfy place, you are alone and you will use that particular place every day for meditation. Avoid changing the place where you meditate as this will create more confusion than routine and it will be counter intuitive.
    

3. If you like to be around people, however, you can join a meditation class that has like minded people, who understand you and want the same as you. There you can be yourself and morever, the collective energy of the people in the room will truly create a great experience for your spiritual growth.
    
4. Remember the meditation postures even when you are practicing basic meditation exercises. Regardless of which posture you select, you need to follow the basic guidelines for the best practice.

   
   You should be comfortable, but not too comfortable as to be slouched over the chair or on the floor. If you are not yet confident in the lotus position, by all means, sit in a chair in the right position. Many people start their meditation practice sitting in a meditation chair or even an office chair that they have at home.

This is a basic meditation exercise that you can try from the comfort of your own home. I have practiced this with success several times, so I know it works.

If you have a meditation timer, set it for 20 minutes. Otherwise use any regular alarm clock that doesn't have a very strong and loud noise.

Between each step allow a few seconds to pass, so that your mind can absorb and follow the instructions in the meditation script.

Make sure you are alone and rested. Don't meditate if you feel ill or in a bad mood, as it won't work and you will just get frustrated.

If you have any thoughts entering your mind during the meditation, it is ok. All you simply need to do is turn your inner gaze and your focus towards your body. Simply let those thoughts fade away.

The Meditation Steps

1. Sit in your favorite meditation position, using the posture that you are most comfortable with.
2. Close your eyes.
3. Take a few deep breaths and after that simply continue breathing naturally. Don't force your breath to be deep or shallow.
4. Focus your attention to the top of your head. Imagine that you are looking from outside of yourself to the top of your head and your shoulders.
5. Feel your head relax.
6. Focus on your forehead. Feel it relax.
7. Focus your attention on your eyes: your eyebrows, your eyelids and your eye muscles. Sense how they are also relaxing along.
8. Now move gently your inner eyes to your cheecks and let the cheeks relax.
9. Next travel to your nose, feel it relax. Feel how you inhale the fresh air through your nostrils. Let the nostrils do your work while they relax as well.
10. Focus on your mouth, feel your upper lips and your lower lips relax. Let just a tiny space open between your lips. Keep the tongue either behind the lower teeth or touching lightly the upper palate. Let your entire mouth relax.
11. Now travel down to your neck and shoulder muscles. Let them gently relax.
12. Focus your attention on your upper arms, on your lower arms, on your hands, palms and fingers one at a time. As you travel your focus to each of these parts, give each the command to relax, to sleep.
13. Let your inner eye wander over your upper back, your lower back and your hips. Feel them relax with the easy gaze of your eyes traveling along them.
14. Now focus on your chest, your lungs, your stomach and your belly area. Feel each one at a time and then let them relax.
15. Feel your thighs and then let them relax as well.
16. Travel with your mind' eyes down on your legs, starting with the upper legs, your knees, your lower legs, your ankles, your feet and your toes. Feel each part relax gently under the caress of your inner eyes.
17. Once you have reached each spot on your body and let it relax, scan again briefly your entire body for tension spots. If you find any, release those tension spots. Allow them to relax.

    Maybe you have a tense muscle in one of your legs. Contract those muscles and then release them to relax. The tension should leave with this fast movement followed by the relaxation instruction.

18. Now simply sit for a few moments in this relaxing position and enjoy the feeling of not having any tension in your body. Feel how your mind is also calm, relaxed.
19. If you have used a meditation alarm clock or timer then simply sit in this comfortable position until the sounding of the alarm.
20. When it's time to end your meditation, with the eyes still closed, come back to the now by remembering something that you did just prior to starting the meditation. This will anchor you back in the present and will ground you.
21. Now open your eyes and enjoy the new calm that you are experiencing. 

image credits: purchased at istockphotos.com

What is grounding? I have first learned about grounding years ago when I was still interested in the Wiccan practices. I bought a lot of books and started to research spells and everything I could about them. This is where I first came across grounding and grounding meditation.

GOOGLE ADSENSE For years I've been associating grounding with Wicca, however at some point I came across it in a completely other context as well, so this is when I discovered that while Wiccans are using grounding for becoming connected to the Earth and basically 'return' from a meditation session by bringing the awareness back to the body, others are using the exact same procedures as well.

There are many meditation types that are using grounding before and after the session. Even various guided meditations let you return easily from the session and help you ground using various techniques. So here are a few techniques that you can use during meditation or after to ground yourself to the earth.

Symptoms Of Not Being Grounded

But before that, let me tell you a few of the symptoms you might feel when you are not grounded. I'm sure you have felt a few of these at least during your meditation sessions or otherwise.

• You feel lightly dizzy and disoriented
• You might have a clumsiness about you that is not characteristical of you
• People say that you are still 'in the clouds'
• You are forgetting basic things
• Your energy levels are very low and you feel low overall

You need to ground yourself not only for meditation but also any other energy work, such as yoga, massage therapy, visualization, doing tai chi, reiki and any kind of psychic work.

Here is a small grounding meditation exercise that you can do at any time you feel any of the symptoms above.

Sit in a quiet and peaceful place. Make sure that you are not disturbed for at least 10 minutes. Getting disturbed from any meditation can really un-ground you quite bad.

This type of meditation will use visualization as its main tool.

1. Start by taking a few slow and deep breaths in and out. Simply breath in, hold it for 2-3 counts (seconds) and then breath out. Then hold it for 2-3 counts as well.Do this routine for a few times.
2. With your eyes closed, focus on your feet. Feel each toe, the arch and the heels.
3. Now imagine way below you, in the core of the Earth a small tree growing bigger and bigger. This tree starts to rapidly grow, knowing that it is needed by you. It branches out and the branches are becoming bigger and bigger, longer and longer, until they reach the bottom of your feet.

   They enter your body through your feet in the form of a bright, pure light. Physically you don't feel the branches, all you feel is a warm and healing energy going through your body.

4. This bright white light goes up your body, enters your nerve cells, your body cells and reaches the top of your head, where it exits and goes up to the sky.
5. From the core of the earth, the white light brings you grounding energy which permeats your body. Through the top of your head you let go of any negative energy, any black spots that you have in your body. The universe above will purify these black spots and return them clear and white to the core of the earth.
6. Throughout this grounding meditation breath slowly in and out as you've learned at the beginning of this technique and make sure your eyes are kept close at all times.
7. Now open your eyes, take a deep cleansing breath and you are ready to go.

• You feel totally relaxed, not only physically but also emotionally and mentally. When you are not properly grounded you might feel instead restless, nervous, irritated, full of anxiety and might even experience a lack of sleep and insomnia. Headaches and migraines are many times a direct result of not being grounded enough.
   
• You feel much more alert and conscious of the things around you. The opposite of this is feeling dreamy, 'airy' or 'spacy' and you can experience a lack of focus. You can't pay proper attention to anything around you.
   
• There is a strong connection felt between you and the rest of the world and the people around you. You are usually more positive about people in general than when you are not grounded. If you've heard of 'energy vampires', these are people who drain one of energy and create lots of negativity around them.

  
  If you are properly grounded, these energy drainers can't even touch you. But if you haven't done a grounding meditation recently, you might feel in a constant lack of energy when surrounded by other people, when you are in a crowd.

When you need to quickly ground and have no 10 minutes to sit quietly on your own for grounding meditation, you can also use these tips:

• Drink plenty of water - actually it is recommended that you drink water right after your regular meditation session. This helps additionally to ground you properly.
   
• If you're outdoors and you are sure nobody sees you, go ahead and hug a tree. This is akin to the meditation above. The tree will connect you to the earth right away. This is why you will find many grounding meditations with a visualization exercise of a tree - either a tree branch or a tree root, or even tree leaves.
   
• If you have crystals at home, take one that is not too big and have it with you all the time. Many times all you need is hold it on your hands for a few minutes to let go of any negative energy and ground yourself back in the now.  

When you are just starting with meditation through basic meditation exercises such as the ones described above, these periods of calm and relaxation that you experience right after the session will be relatively brief. Soon after, once 'real life' gets in the way, you will go back to the 'prior you'. Don't despair however, this is natural. Afterall, you have just started your meditation practice.

Allow a few weeks of regular practice of this basic meditation exercise to start noticing that your periods of calm, relaxation and even joy will last longer.

You will soon notice that you are now not so easy to bring out of your good mood that slowly takes over your bad temper and anxious moments.

So while the short term advantages are immediately visible, don't discount the great overall benefits that you will receive by regularly practicing basic meditating exercises and making meditation part of your daily routine.