Beginner's Guide To Meditation: Where To Start

Hello,

My name is Heather Dean and I'm one of the teachers here on Insight Timer.

So if you're new to Insight Timer,

Maybe you're new to meditation,

I just wanted to offer a short video with my introduction to what meditation actually is.

And let me start by telling you just a really short story.

So a few years ago,

After I'd already been meditating every day by myself for a couple of years,

I joined a local little meditation group.

And it was Buddhist Zazen meditation.

And when I arrived there.

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I was told,

You have to sit facing the wall,

You have to be in this exact position and you have to keep your eyes open.

And to be honest,

If that had been my very first experience of meditation,

I don't think I'd have ever done it again,

Because I don't really like being told what to do.

So my definition of meditation is that there are no rules.

To me,

That is the first and most important rule of meditation,

The only rule,

Because we have so many rules in every other area of our life.

And meditation is the one moment.

Where you can forget all trying.

All doing and just simply allow yourself to be.

That's really all there is to do when we're meditating.

And there are so many fantastic different sorts of meditation,

And you can find absolutely all of them here on Insight Timer.

So I invite you just to explore,

Follow your intuition,

See what voices you connect with,

Whose energy you connect with,

And just enjoy the process of discovering everything that meditation can be.

We can do meditation standing,

Walking,

We can use affirmations.

We can do loving-kindness meditation,

Mantra meditation.

It's just absolutely vast,

And that's a wonderful thing.

But for me,

Just remember that you don't need to impose any rules on yourself.

And there's no way that it is supposed to go,

No way that you're supposed to feel during meditation.

It's the moment when we're allowing whatever comes up to be present.

Everything is allowed,

However you feel.

You're not supposed to feel calm.

You're not supposed to feel content.

And actually,

When we first start meditating,

It's very normal for difficult feelings to come up.

And be released and that might look like.

Crying,

That might look like some movement in your body,

It might look like yawning,

There are so many different ways we can release.

But I invite you to just go with that process.

See if you can allow it all and just lean into it with lots of self-kindness.

And as you go through the process of discovering what you connect with in terms of meditation,

You will find that you just feel better and better gradually.

And,

In my experience,

Generally if people meditate every day for 10 days and it only needs to be 5 or 10 minutes a day.

After just 10 days you will notice.

Remarkable changes in the way you think,

The way you feel,

You'll notice.

Probably more mental clarity,

More peace of mind.

So.

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Welcome to this journey.

Thank you so much for being here.

And remember,

There are no rules to meditation.

Look forward to connecting with you again very soon.

Bye-bye.

Namaste.