When I first started practicing yoga, one of the things I heard people talk about was the “zen” moments they experienced from meditation. As someone who was feeling chronically, secretly stressed, like non-stop, and was “supposed to be” a happy, soon-to-be married with a solid career and big new house mid-twenty-something, I was very intrigued by this notion of “zen”. It was in fact what drew me to practicing yoga and kept me going, and showing up 10-30 minutes late, to a yoga class on Saturdays. There was this idea of finding some peace and some calm and breath, but I usually felt boredom, anxiety and the undercurrents of my stress still lingering.
But then one day, my yoga practice changed, I went to a studio that pushed me and challenged me and showed me there was so much more to learn and do and grow within. I was in love. Eventually, I decided to sign up for yoga teacher training.
I loved the physical practice. The creativity, the challenge, the breath. The physical practice was challenging, so much so that at times it wore me out. But it also gave me something to focus on, solely, for an hour at a time. An hour when I did not have a moment to do anything other than breathe and try not to fall over, nevermind think about my career and the stress that was growing and if I had made a huge mistake. I dove into the physical practice day in and day out.
But not so much with meditation. Sitting still to do “nothing” for even 5 minutes seemed like a waste of already precious and fleeting time. I would rather be sleeping or moving or prepping for the day ahead, or searching for a new job, than sitting to “clear my mind”. My mind was not clear and was increasingly getting more crowded as my stress and discontent with my work grew.
During yoga teacher training, one of our homework practices was to meditate. We were instructed to sit for 5 minutes (set a timer) and count down from 75. If your mind wandered, start over again or make a mental note. I dreaded this practice and rarely did it. My mind wandered constantly. I felt as if I could count AND list out all the things I still had left to do in my day at the same time. It was not helping me feel “zen” or peaceful. It was not helping me with much of anything. At least, that is how I felt.
Eventually, when I quit being an SLP for nearly 5 years, I taught yoga and helped run yoga studios. I taught the physical practice for about 10-12 classes a week, wrote numerous articles and blog posts about it, ran workshops, and helped grow the community in the town I lived in. The practice I taught was more physically demanding, to help people get into their bodies and out of their heads. And I often talked about meditation, but rarely took a moment to fully include it in my teaching, or in my own practice. I understood the “idea” of it – that people felt really, really great after – but I didn’t understand why it was so great or what was really going on.
After I came back into the SLP field, I started looking into resources to help with burnout and stress, and found meditation popping up time and time again.
So I researched all the ways that it had been studied, and learned about how it helps reduce stress, affects the ways the brain responds to stress, and how it can help to build resilience to stress in your body and brain.
After that, it became more about “how the heck do I make this a reality” and less about, “what is this really doing”. I started practicing regularly, as much as I could, but often had difficulty sticking with it.
I wanted to start meditating regularly, but there was a lot of things that made it more difficult:
- Full time job
- Other hobbies
- The physical practice of yoga
- Pressure and perfectionism
- Time with family vs self-care time
- Finding good practices
- No job
- Young kids
- Young kids at home full time
- Pandemic….
Eventually, I found a few things that worked for me and that helped me to incorporate meditation into my regular routine, or to get back to it more easily when I noticed I had gone astray.
They were things like:
- Having a conversation with my family about my mediation practice
- Becoming aware of what I felt like when I was meditating regularly, and when I wasn’t
- Figuring out which pocket of tie in my day worked best
- Having some apps and site to use
- Guidance – I did NOT like meditating on my own, “freestyle”. I wanted some support and structure.
After doing this, and giving myself some compassion, permission and acceptance, I was able to incorporate a more consistent and regular meditation practice into my day, and start meditating regularly. It is not perfect, and meditation is never about being perfect, but it does allow me to meditate on most days, notice when I have been falling out of my habit, and easy ways to jump right back into it.
Here are 5 Ways to Start Meditating Regularly:
- Use an app:
- This makes it so much easier. Having an app or a site that you can access easily, and from nearly anywhere, means that you can meditate and take your practice with you, no matter where or when you need it.
- Plus, it offers a very simple, structured spot for the meditation itself to be. You don’t have to come up with as much of a game plan, because it is already there for you, by clicking open your app or logging into a site.
- Find a style you like:
- It is important to actually like or look forward to the meditation practice. It doesn’t mean it won’t be challenging or should be easy, superficial self-care, but it does help to somewhat like the experience.
- Look for a style that fits your style and personality, or what holds your attention the best.
- Here are a few options: guided audio or self-guided, explanatory style or actual practice, mantra-focused or breath awareness, better sleep or stress relief, compassion or gratitude as the topic.
- Set a realistic time of day (and stick to it):
- If you are going to do it consistently, make it easy to be consistent.
- Find a time of day that is easy for you to sit down and meditate. Not a morning person? Maybe waking up 5 minutes earlier isn’t going to work for you. Evenings packed and stressful? Maybe you already have enough on your plate then.
- Choose a time of day that already has an opening or that you are craving this type of moment – quiet, peace, ease, breath.
- Set a realistic time limit:
- I recently read a book that was amazing and said to meditate for 20 minutes a day – not going to happen. My days, and your days, are already packed enough and 20 minutes seems like very precious and hard to come by time.
- Choose an amount of time that is realistic, and then, if you ever want, you can do more. If 1-5 minutes is ideal, that is perfect.
- It is better to have a time you can do, than to feel let down when you can’t do more or to give up because the time is too much of a commitment in your already packed day.
- Accountability:
- Find a way to stay connected and feel like you are part of a community, a member, or have someone that you are “in it” with – even if they are not actually doing it, but can respect and help you as you are in it.
- Join a community online or FB group, find an app that feels like a community, have an accountability partner, or text with a friend or have them text you.
- You can also go about this solo, but hold yourself accountable. Set a reminder in your phone. Have your app ready to go when you wake up (if you meditate first thing). Mark it in your calendar, so it is part of your day already.
It is often not the meditation itself that keeps you from sticking to the practice (although it can be challenging at times too), but the idea of finding time to do it, how to do it, and what it will be, that keep you from diving in. With these new tools, you’ll be more likely to start and stick to your practice, gaining all the benefits that come with a long term meditation practice, as well as the ones that happen immediately.
If you are looking for some resources, check out the SLP Toolbox, a free resource library full of tools to help SLPs, like you and me, manage and reduce stress.
And while you are at it, hit “play” on one of the many meditation audios and give it a try. You’ll have everything you need to get started and keep going.
You can access it by signing up below:
Need one more push to start meditating regularly? Download the “Self-Care tracker ” from the SLP Stress Management Shop, to keep printed out and in your office, on your nightstand, in your meditation corner, or download it to your phone or tablet, so you have these reminders to keep you going once you get started.
Much Love,
Jessi
