Tiny Leaps, Big Changes 602 - Tips for Better Meditation
In this episode, I share 3 tips to help you get better at meditation. Get excited because this is Tiny Leaps, Big Changes.
Welcome to another episode of Tiny Leaps, Big Changes where I share simple strategies you can use to get more out of your life. My name is Gregg Clunis and in this episode I’m sharing 3 tips to help you get better at meditation and get more from your sessions.
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Speaking of meditation, have you started out October Meditation challenge yet? To celebrate episode 600 of the podcast I’m challenging you to meditate for as many days as possible in the month of October. And to make it even more interesting, each week I’ll be giving away $150 to a random participant.
To enter all you have to do is do a meditation session and post to Instagram as a post or a story. You can post a video, a quick message, a picture of your meditation space...whatever you want. The post must tag the podcast @tinyleaps and it must be about your meditation session.
Then each Friday I’ll be drawing a winner at random from that week’s entries and sending them $150. Easy right? For more details find the podcast over on instagram and check the full post in my highlights.
The Problem
We know the value of meditation, it’s been proven over and over again. In fact I’ve talked about this a lot over the 600 episodes of this podcast so far. But yet even with knowing how good it can be, it’s still hard as hell for most people to pick up as a habit.
On the other hand, the people who DO start and stick to it will regularly sing its praises for creating direct results in their lives.
The Solution
1) Meditation is about making an effort
So the first thing I want to say is that meditation isn’t about sitting perfectly still and finding some inner nirvana. That state is something life long practitioners are working towards but it certainly isn’t their daily experience.
Meditation is actually just about making an effort to be still. It’s about trying, even if it’s in vain, to calm the inner voice and allow thoughts to drift away without you jumping on them.
2) Thoughts will happen, let them pass
The goal isn’t to get rid of thoughts, anxieties, or stresses. Instead if you can create an unattached attitude towards your thoughts and anxiety as they drift by you then you can control your reaction or non-reaction to certain things.
3) Give yourself a center
The final piece of advice is to give yourself some kind of center to return to. The purpose here is to give yourself some kind of anchor so that when your thoughts inevitably pull you in you can find your way back to the middle.
A lot of people recommend the breath for this. By focusing on your breath you give yourself permission to ignore the drifting thoughts. It also is easy to find when you drift.