The East Community Guide - Gainesville, FL sept 2017 the east first take | Page 4

1. Keep It Short and Sweet
It’s a common misconception that you have to meditate for some great length of time,
such as 20 or 30 minutes. The truth is, even 5 minutes of meditation is highly effective
and all you need to begin establishing meditation as a consistent practice.
2. Set a Regular Meditation Time
This is a simple and, for the most part, easy point (the setting of it is easy, sticking to it
often isn’t), but I’ve found that it’s something most people don’t consider when
attempting to make meditation a daily habit.
3. Be Mindful in Daily Life (Don’t Restrict Your Practice to the Cushion)
It’s easy at first to get the idea that you can only meditate while sitting in a specific way,
with your eyes closed, on a cushion. However, you can practice mindfulness anywhere,
while doing anything, and at any time.
You can be mindful:
– In a waiting room – In your car (driving and stopped) – While cleaning – In the
restroom (yep) – At your office desk – During breakfast, lunch, and dinner – While
taking out the trash – While walking to your car – While grocery shopping
4. Meditate for (at least) 11 Days Straight
We all know (or at least believe) it’s best to do something
consistently for a long stretch of time, because then
you’re more likely to make it a habit or a more “automatic”
behavior.
5. Do What You Can
The reality is, if you want to stick to a consistent
meditation practice, you need to be flexible.
Someday, things will come up and block you from either
meditating during your regular scheduled session, or,
from meditating as long as you usually do.
When this happens, just adapt and roll with it. If you’re
short on time (actually short on time, not just convincing
yourself you are), meditate for 5-10 minutes instead of
your usual 20 minute session.
6. Make Friends with Your Critical Mind
Something interesting happens when we start meditating: we come face-to-face with
the mind. However, for most of us, it’s not a joyous occasion (at least at first). That’s
because, for most of us, all we find is utter chaos.
And as a result of coming face-to-face with the chaos of our mind, we learn that we’re
naturally very, very critical of ourselves.
In failing to consistently hold concentration on the breath- because our mind is a crazy
unrelenting monkey- we think, “I’m not cut out for meditation”, “I can’t meditate”, and
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