Meditation Can Be Many Things

04:54

Meditation Can Be Many Things

by Maia Thomlinson

Type

talks

Activity

Meditation

Suitable for

Everyone

When we first come to a meditation practice, it can at times feel intimidating — we have a vision in our minds of what the perfect practice might look like, and we imagine we’ll never measure up. But the truth is, meditation can be many things: the intention is simply to create a container you can return to, one that allows you to approach life with a little more spaciousness. In this video, we'll explore this gentle reframe.

Meditation Mantra Movement Walking Meditation Yoga Creative Meditation Spaciousness Contemplation Mantra Meditation Meditative Texts

Meet your Teacher

Maia Thomlinson

Winnipeg, MB, Canada

Meet your Teacher

Maia Thomlinson

Winnipeg, MB, Canada

Transcript

So when we first come to a meditation practice, It can feel really intimidating. We can think that there is only one way to meditate. And kind of the image that comes to mind is somebody seated on a cushion, Perfect posture, And repeating mantras. But a very gentle reframe I just wanted to offer for you today, If that is feeling intimidating for you, Is that there's many different ways that we can meditate. There is, Of course, Many different ways, Even within seated meditation, That we can practice meditation. So we can look at mantra meditation, We can look at visualizations, We can look at breath work, Or even just a very simple breath awareness practice, Where we're bringing the intention and awareness into the breath. But then there is also forms of meditation. That bring us into our body that can allow us to have movement while we're in that meditative state of mind. So I study astrology, I'm an astrologer, And one of the things I've witnessed is that there are some energetic makeups, Some people who will benefit more from kind of a moving meditation than they would just from sitting still. If you have a lot of mutable energy within you, If you have a lot of energy that just wants to move and express itself or if you deal with a lot of anxiety sometimes sitting still for prolonged periods of time can actually be more anxiety-inducing in the long run. It can sometimes, Depending on, You know, Where you're at in your life in this moment, Make your symptoms worse. So a few other ways that you can think about meditation. One very simple one would be to go for a very intentional slow walk. And when I mean slow, I mean like turtle's pace, Like you're thinking of every step that you're taking and you're bringing your awareness into your senses, Really paying attention to the nature that's around you, Paying attention to the sensation of your feet as they are planting into the earth. I believe there's probably some guided meditations on this platform that you can find for that as well to just bring your attention into the body as you're doing this walking meditation. You can think of labyrinths are another example of a walking meditation where you're walking that spiral form. And as you're walking. . . In towards the middle of the spiral, You're kind of thinking about some question or contemplating what it is that you want an answer to. And then as you come back out of the spiral, The intention is that you just open yourself to receive whatever information is that wants to come through to meet you in that moment. I would also say. Yoga can be a really supportive tool to bring that stillness within if we're looking for something that's a little more intentional movement based. We can also look at one of my favorite practices, Which is sitting with tea. So sitting with tea as a ceremonial practice. For me, What I found is It gives your hands something to do. So if you're somebody who tends to be very fidgety or deals with different forms of OCD, Like picking. Having somewhere to focus your hands and your attention can be very soothing, Especially if you're thinking of tea, It has this warmth to it and it has this familiarity. And then you kind of get to cultivate a relationship with the plant. So that can be something to look into if you're curious. My intention with making this video today is I just want to open your mind a little bit. If you are wanting to bring more contemplation into your life, There's many different ways that you can go about it. You don't just have to do a seated meditation practice. Although, Of course, There's so many benefits to that. And if you're curious at all, I would encourage you to just make it the most accessible form that you can to start with. Five minutes does so much for us. We underestimate our time. What doing nothing for five minutes can do for us. But the intention behind a meditation practice, For me at least, Is often just to create more spaciousness within your being, To give yourself room to process all the stimulation that's coming in at you during your life. So we can look at different practices that I mentioned today and even there are so many more that you can think of. You can think of meditative coloring, You can think of creating a mandala, For example. There are different art practices you can do. There's meditative writing. I really want to encourage you to explore. Just see what's out there if you are curious to learn more about a meditation practice, But the seated one just isn't resonating with you. At this moment in your life. I hope that is supportive and helpful. Yeah, I'll see you on the next one.