How Meditation Works

Welcome to another Mindfulness Moment.

If you are following this series, you’ve already learned What Meditation Is (a practice of focusing your attention on a set intention and continually drawing your wandering mind back to that intention). Now let’s talk about How Meditation Works.

So, how does it work? Well, there are a few different methods. Personally, I've have practiced many different methods over the dozen or so years I’ve been meditating. Some people say one is the best or another one is better. Let’s leave them to have that argument.

What really matters for you today is that you start making the time and showing up daily. Your practice can start as little as seven to eight minutes a day. Eventually, you’ll work your way up to 20 or 25 minutes (or even longer)!

Here are some of the various methods of meditation that I have worked with:

Breath Awareness Meditations: Any guess what the focus is here? In the yoga world this method is known as ānāpānasati meaning "mindfulness of breathing" ("sati" means mindfulness; "ānāpāna" refers to inhalation and exhalation). This technique is super simple: bring your awareness and focus to your breath and the sensation it creates as it passes in and out of your nostrils. And that's it. This is a great technique to start with because of its simplicity. Set a timer for several minutes and go for it.

Gratitude Meditation: Meditating on gratitude is a great way to help you shift your perspective. Exercising and developing our gratitude muscles help us to focus life through a lens of appreciation for all that shows up. During this practice, you are pondering and then feeling moments of gratitude. Starting with your imagination and then turning this thought into a feeling. Keep it simple. We can bring appreciation to anything. To the food we eat, to the beautiful blue sky and the people we meet. A “Thank you!” goes a long way inside and out.

Vipassana Meditation: Vipassanā is a very intense and rewarding technique. To learn this one you’ll need to register for one of the world-wide Vipassana Centers. The training (which is one of the hardest things I have ever done) is a 10-day practice.

The entire 10 days is done in silence. Meaning no communication whatsoever; no words, no eye contact, no gestures, no reading, and no writing. It’s an awesome experience and well worth the effort. Vipassana is broken into two parts. The first 30 hours (over three days) is an anapana meditation where the focus during each hour-long meditation (yikes!) is just the breath. The next 70 hours (over seven days) are hour-long mindful body scans, doing the best you can to feel bodily sensation from top to bottom. To make it even more challenging during part two, you are asked not to move at all during each hour sit.

I hope this one doesn’t scare you to much. The rewards are definitely worth all the efforts.

Metta Meditation: Metta is also known as Loving Kindness Meditation. This practice starts with focusing on the self then it’s directed outward to others. Done with repeated affirmations while simultaneously generating the feelings that the words describe.

Transcendental Meditation (TM) also known as Vedic meditation or Mantra Meditation is exercised by focusing on a Mantra that is internally repeated. Mantra is a Sanskrit word meaning a “sacred message or text, charm, spell, counsel.” Each Meditation here is 20 minutes and best when practiced twice daily.

So what is next? Well, I hope this satisfies your meditation curiosity and you start practicing a technique that speaks most to you. Again make the time! Meditation is a huge game-changer.

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Thank you for taking a moment and SHARING this with your friends and colleagues. Peace!