If you want the simple meditation solution that will give you almost instant results then download this free meditation MP3 here.
Otherwise let me explain my simple meditation to clear your mind.
As a child I would lay very still in bed, relax my muscles starting from my feet working my way up through my body. I remember sometimes it felt like I was sinking into the bed, it was a nice feeling of being relaxed and comfortable. If I lost my concentration I would start again at my feet. Eventually I would fall asleep.
30 years on during a pretty rough time I was finding it increasingly difficult to sleep and using my technique which worked for many years had no effect. I had so much going on in my mind it was nearly impossible to switch off, I needed to find a new way to get to sleep.
Southern Comfort, did the trick nicely!
Even drinking didn’t work for long. I had to find something different to help me get to sleep.
As my drinking was only a couple weeks it wasn’t hard to stop. I found reading books until I fell asleep helped, but even this wasn’t much of a solution as I would spend most of the night reading. It took a lot of concentration as I hadn’t read books before, not since school anyway. I started reading mainly self-improvement books and it became abundantly obvious I had to clear my mind and meditation was the clear favourite.
So I started studying meditation, downloading guided meditation audios and watching tutorial videos on how to meditate. Who would’ve thought there is literally hundreds of ways to sit and do nothing!
It didn’t take long to realise what I did as a young boy was meditation. For many years I had already been meditating without even realising it. This is important, because to start meditating you don’t need to read books, find the perfect chant, sit in the perfect position or become a monk. I was meditating with no knowledge of meditating whatsoever, I didn’t even know the word existed when I as a young boy.
Although I spent many years using a form of meditation it wasn’t the kind to clear your mind and falling asleep is not the purpose.
Around 16 months ago I started meditating twice a day and the difference it made within weeks was incredible. The mind is just like a muscle and every thought is like a bench press to a bicep they will both grow and become better at what they do. If your mind is full of thought then it will become good at exactly that, thinking about stuff.
While meditating we use the mind muscle to focus on a single thing, normally this starts with your breathing and then a vision of some kind. This is called mindfulness or presence as Eckart Tolle[1] likes to say. My vision is sitting cross-legged on an empty beach a couple metres away from the sea, I then focus on a small wave out in the distance slowly working towards me. Others concentrate on a bubble coming up through the ocean. When we lose focus we start the process again with a new wave or a new bubble. You will be bombarded by thoughts from every angle just let them come, acknowledge them and refocus on the new wave. Even now it is very rare the wave gets to me without being interrupted.
Bench pressing in the gym it doesn’t only benefit when you are lifting weights, it spreads into the real world, like when you need to clean behind that washing machine. A clearer mind that is able to focus will mean you will worry less because your attention will be on the present moment, not be on past or future events. Living in the moment gives you the ability to respond rather than react and regret it later.
If you cannot sleep, cannot concentrate or stay focused on a task for long you should start meditating. Don’t say you haven’t got time, you have. Every successful person I read about from CEOs of massive companies to country leaders all take time out to meditate. You will achieve more in the long run.
If you want to clear your mind start meditating.
Let’s meditate.
- Find somewhere relatively quiet.
- Make yourself comfortable.
- Close your eyes and concentrate on your breath.
- After a minute or so find a nice place and be there.
Congratulations you have just meditated. Wasn’t that easy!
If you want to see some real benefits without the hard work check out this free meditation MP3 here. I started using it two weeks and I have noticed it made a big difference. I wish I had this years ago.
Sources:
[1] Eckhart Tolle Video
