How I Meditate

First, I find a comfortable but firm and supportive chair. Those new ergonomic office chairs feel best for me, which is why I like to meditate first thing in the morning when I get in to work. I make sure I’m in a private room with no audible or visual distractions. The empty conference room at 7:45 am is perfect for me. So, I sit down and for a minute I get all the itches and twitches out of my body and I’m ready to start.

I sit with my back flush against the chair so that my spine and head are perpendicular to the floor. This is actually a very comfortable position, though sometimes I find myself leaning forward too much if I get drowsy. My hips are slightly higher than my legs, which I stretch out slightly past perpendicular to the ground. If it’s possible, I take off my shoes. My hands rest in my lap, palms up, my right fingers gently atop my left fingers, my left thumb resting lightly on my right. I know I’m in a deep meditative state when I can no longer feel my hands touching.

Thus relaxed and rested and comfortable, I close my eyes. Breathing through my nose, normally, quietly, not rushed, I start counting down, slowly from 99 to 0. Each count is about two seconds or so. I envision myself on one of those freight elevators, slowly descending down a shaft, and as I count off the numbers I watch the numbered floors go past. As I descend, I find it gets progressively darker and quieter, and I discover myself more and more relaxed the deeper I go. I can hear my heartbeat, I think, and it’s slowing down, and a sense of well-being permeates me.

After a couple of minutes, I’m at the ground level, fully rested. I’d guess that I’m only about half-way towards a true meditative state. Also, though my mind is quieted and I feel relaxed, there’s still tension in my body. So I spend another few minutes scanning my body sequentially to release any traces of negative energy. I start at my toes, and I mentally think, slowly, in no hurry whatsoever: my toes are completely relaxed … my toes are free from tension. Then I do my soles, then ankles, then the whole foot. I move upwards to my calves, then knees, then quads and hamstrings, et cetera, all the way up to the top of my head. I hit every major muscle group and joint. After a large part of my body’s done, such as my legs, torso, or arms, I say: my legs are completely relaxed … my legs are free from all tension. Once I’ve completed this part of the exercise, about seven or eight minutes into my session, I am in a fully relaxed state, and I’d venture to say my brain waves are predominantly alpha.

I still have five or six minutes left in my routine, but I’m unhurried, and I want to enjoy this state as far as I can take it. With classical meditation, one would now turn to one’s thoughts, or rather, try to focus all thought on a single sound (mantra) or even try to eliminate thinking altogether. I’ve never had much success with this (I’m a hopper!) so I decided to put this time to an alternate use. I think about how I would like to be, the type of man I want to be, what I want to be doing, what I want to have in my life. Just a series of pictures, visualizations, scenes of what I want to become reality for me. If my mind starts wandering, which it will eventually do, sooner rather than later, I turn to repeating some affirmations linking to the visualizations. It’s not a methodical, thinking system; my left brain is not engaged during this meditation; I just want to utilize the alpha state I’m in to program myself to think better thoughts once I’m out. And even if this fails, at least I can enjoy the five or six minutes or pure relaxation perusing a better life than the one I’m currently experiencing.

Soon I’ll get some urging that too much time is going by (which is never really the truth). I’ll take a couple of slow, deep breaths, preparing myself to come out of the meditative state. Counting backwards from 5 to 1, I speed my breath up, speed my counting up, and once I reach 1 I open my eyes and do a couple of deep stretches. My mood is one hundred percent better than it was fifteen minutes ago, I’m refreshed, relaxed, and there’s a smile on my face. I’m ready to do battle with the world.

I’ve come to the conclusion that meditation functions on the same major principle as exercise: you have to do it consistently to derive true, lasting benefits. When I do it for more than three or four days in a row, I notice the calm and peace last longer into the day and spills over into other activities. Perhaps if I was to do it twice daily, twenty minutes each session, as is most commonly recommended, I could remain serene most of the day through all the unnecessary crises that pull me in and circle me like sharks in the water. And who knows – perhaps I could reap other benefits, too, such as greater clarity of thought, better physical health, an inclination to eat better, a more positive outlook towards life.

Worth a try, right?