In the last post in this series:
101 Proven Tips for Powerful Meditation!
I spoke about the usefulness of formal practice, and gave several tips for making your formal practice more and more powerful.
If you haven’t taken the time to start your formal practice… then start right now!
Check out The One Minute Meditation Video…
Everybody has at least 1 minute to spare…
Watch the video, and practice the drill!
Once you’ve done that, we’re ready to move on to informal practice…
If anybody needs clarification, I’ll give you a quick explanation of the terms as I use them…
Formal practice is where you designate a time, place, length of time, etc. Most people use some variety of seated meditation… but simple activity can be used as formal practice as well (washing dishes, painting, sweeping the floor, raking leaves… anything that doesn’t require too much cognition). Most people prefer their formal practice to be undisturbed.
Informal practice is everything else. When you just decide to be a bit more mindful while going about any daily activity. When you decide to notice the sensations of relaxation in your body as well as performing your job. When you decide to be mindful and accepting of the feelings coming up in yourself while you interact with others, or just mindful of the changes in posture, speech, facial expression, etc. in others as you interact with them. Informal practice can be done anywhere, anytime you like.
Now that we have a somewhat clear distinction, I give you:
Meditation Master Key 2:
Add Informal Practice as Much as possible!
So now that you are comfortable taking time to do formal practice (preferably on a daily basis), it’s time to take meditation where it will be truly useful… into the rest of your daily life!
You will find that more and more activities can incorporate an element of meditation… a bit more mindfulness… a bit more acceptance… and you will also notice that this can make even ‘boring’ activities endlessly fascinating. Powerfully inducing higher consciousness becomes much easier, and energy oneness becomes much more common.
Before starting, allow me to observe legal necessity (it’s kind of sad really):
Only do informal (or formal) meditation when and where it is safe to do so! Never while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment!
Hopefully that wasn’t necessary for most of you… now onto the fun!
Meditation Tip 16: Practice in as many places as possible. At a bare minimum, you should be comfortable meditating informally at your home, your job, around your friends & family, and any other situations that come up on a daily basis. It doesn’t all have to happen today. Enjoy learning to be mindful and accepting in a variety of new environments. Pick one place/environment/situation for informal practice today, then move on to another tomorrow… or, if you like, you can do your informal practice in one situation until you grow deeply comfortable with it… and then move on to the next.
Meditation Tip 17: Begin to see ‘life’ as your meditation! This is going to happen eventually, anyway. But there is nothing wrong with speeding up this realization a little bit. Notice that you can become deeply focused and peaceful anywhere you go… it may only be a little bit to start with, but you can begin to notice it coming up in any number of situations throughout your life… as you learn and grow, your day to day level of awareness and acceptance will get better and better. Eventually, what was ‘deep meditation’ when you first started, will be a state that you have casual access to throughout the day…
Meditation Tip 18: Just informally focus on feelings in the body. This has long been my favorite variety of simple meditation. It’s fun to focus on the global sensations in the body… focus on keeping track of every sensation that arises… hold them all in your consciousness simultaneously. A lot of fun… but challenging to relax your focus across all body sensations at once. If you narrow the focus down to just one aspect of body sensations, it is much easier. In addition, the sensations in the body move at a speed that is much more easy to track (than internal images)… even to a beginner. I will describe some of these easier ‘body sensation’ meditations in a moment.
Meditation Tip 19: Just informally focus on internal sounds. Notice any sound that comes up inside. What does it sound like? Is it a voice, or just a tone? What is the quality of the voice or the tone? How loud is it? Does it seem to come from a certain location? There is no need to actually answer these questions out loud or internally… but this helps you to direct your awareness to the types of specifics you can notice.
Meditation Tip 20: Just informally focus on external sounds. Notice any sound that comes up outside of you. Where are they coming from? How loud are they? Can you relax into the loud ones while still being mindful of them? Can you determine the tone, tempo, and timbre of the sounds? Again, these questions are to direct and sharpen awareness, not to be answered… let go of the internal talk, and focus on the external sounds.
Meditation Tip 21: Just informally focus on internal images. What images are popping up in your minds eye? Sometimes they move very fast, and eventually you will want to watch at whatever speed they travel… but to begin with, you can consciously slow them down just enough so you can examine them before letting them go completely. How large are they? Color or black & white? Are they panoramic? Are they single images, or a continuous movie? Just be aware of the nature and quality of the pictures. Allow them to be. Let them go. Keep observing.
Meditation Tip 22: Just informally focus on external images. What can you see going on around you? What can you see better when you focus in on the specifics? What can you see better when you broaden your vision into a panorama? What’s it like when you can imagine you are looking through all the external images/objects without attaching to them? Pay attention. Relax. Let go of judgment.
Meditation Tip 23: Make sure to pay extra attention to the most enjoyable aspects of one of your favorite activities! This shouldn’t be too hard. Find something you love… or an aspect of something that you love. Then pour your awareness into it. Relax around it, and continue to bring more and more focus into it. You might notice it is extra easy to continually bring your focus back, and it is also very easy to remain relaxed. Enjoy the results!
Meditation Tip 24: Focus on the breath. Use the sensations of breath flowing through the nose, or the feelings of breath expanding the chest and the stomach. Relax. You don’t have to breathe deeply, but breathe comfortably. Pour your awareness into the sensations of the breath. The more you maintain your focus on the breath, the more you set yourself into a powerful state of alert peacefulness.
Meditation Tip 25: Focus on relaxation. Notice just how relaxed you are. Notice just how relaxed you can become… sometimes you might have to scan your body to find the relaxation, and then allow it to flow to the rest of your body… sometimes you will feel the relaxation wash over you all at once… You might notice, that with enough relaxation, almost anything can become blissful! (more tips specifically on relaxation will come in a later post in this series).
Meditation Tip 26: Focus on the flow of feelings associated with emotions. This might be the most practical informal meditation I have ever done! It is particularly useful for gaining insight into the self as well as relationships. While you are moving about the day, notice the physical component of emotions that come up. For example, after I was divorced years ago… I distinctly remember my deep anguish… I felt it as an ache and a feeling of heaviness in my face. Sometimes when I feel really happy or really connected… I notice a warmth in my face. Sometimes when I feel conflicted… or many different emotions at once… I get a tightness through my stomach. To practice this, allow the sensations to do what they will. Notice their location, their ‘type’ (warmth, tingling, sharp, cold, tightness, etc.), and their intensity. In addition, recognize that most people don’t pay attention to this… and the lack of awareness makes their emotions seem more intense. Whatever your emotions may be… accept them… allow them to flow. Acknowledge them!
Meditation Tip 27: Blend informal and formal. I know, we just clarified the difference, now we’re blending them together? Ultimately, this can’t be helped. You will notice that the more you focus on your formal and informal meditation… the more the two will begin to blend together. It’s a good thing! You will sometimes set formal time limits for your informal meditations, and you might start doing your formal practice in very informal environments. Just like Tip 17… your life becomes your meditation… and the distinctions between formal and informal don’t mean as much as they used to. Mystic moments will come to you more and more often. Enjoy!
Meditation Tip 28: Find a place where you couldn’t possibly meditate… and meditate there! You will be surprised at all the places you will begin to be able to maintain and deepen your focus. Find a place that you really don’t care for… or a place where you can’t imagine being able to remain focused… and do some informal meditation. Loud settings, situations with a lot of movement or activity, emotionally charged situations… these are the areas where you will really begin to notice just how focused you have become!
Meditation Tip 29: Do informal practice with a friend. Get a like minded friend to do informal practice with. If it is your significant other… so much the better! This is the same concept as a workout partner… but the muscle groups we are working are awareness and acceptance, focus and relaxation. You can choose to do the same practice as your partner, or you can choose separate practices to do at the same time and place together. This can be really motivating… and it will also tend to seriously deepen your connection with the other person.
There are always new ways to enjoy informal practice…
The more you bring informal meditation into your life… the more you will be able to take joy in every moment… the more you will be able to cultivate insights about yourself and those around you!
When you work with inducing powerful states of consciousness through informal and formal practice, it also becomes much easier to develop the deep connection of energy oneness through out your life as well!
keep smiling,
Ben
P.S. My intention is to post this series every Friday, for the duration of the series.
P.P.S. If you want more tips and methods on relaxation right now, you can check out some of the earlier posts in the ‘Relaxation Techniques’ category, or you can go to GA-SpiritualLifeCoaching.com, where you can download the Relax Now mind-body training audio.
Popularity: 1% [?]
