How to Get Started with Meditation (and Up Your Body Peace Game)

A mindfulness meditation practice can be transformative when it comes to discovering and maintaining body peace.

In whatever area you’re struggling, hitting that reset button and re-centering will always help you as you move forward, and meditation can be a quick and easy way to reset.

Meditation does not have to be complicated or complex! For years I felt such a pressure to meditate, because I knew the benefits, but I struggled to make it a habit because it seemed so darn hard.

Meditation can be simple, quick and easy… but still incredibly powerful.

First, why would you want to meditate in the first place?

The benefits of meditation include, but are not limited to:

Decreased stress. Just as when you sleep, meditation slows your breathing and your heart rate, causing stress to melt away in the moment. The more you do it, the quicker and more easily you can access that less-stressed feeling.
Better focus. Meditation is an act that helps the external world to quiet down, enabling you to choose where you want to put your energy.
Decreased anxiety. If stress is the feeling of overwhelm due to specific events or circumstances, anxiety is a more generalized experience that many of us struggle with daily. A meditation practice can lower anxiety and even make us more capable of handling the speed bumps and stressors life throws at us.
Decreased reactivity. What does that mean? For me, one reason I turned to meditation early on was that I found my fuse was too short, and I wanted to see if I could lengthen it. In other words: I’d yell at my kids or become impatient with my husband, and I didn’t like that feeling. A meditation and mindfulness practice helped me slow down, so I could choose a better reaction. More of the time, at least. 😉

Even more than all of this, though, meditation can help us with our self care and our body compassion.

Meditation can help you feel and be more connected to your body. Mindfulness is simply the practice of being present in the moment, and being aware of how you feel and what is going on not only around you but within you. The more you meditate, the more present you will be. The more present you will be, the more you can connect with the cues your body is sending you.
Meditation promotes an overall feeling of well being, peace, and kindness. And all of us need to extend all of those feelings towards one another, but just as much so- towards our bodies and our self-care.
As we become more present and more mindful, we can begin to eat more mindfully. So often we struggle with body peace because we struggle with mindless eating, stress eating, and emotional eating. As we become more connected to our mind, body, and spirit, we are more capable of choosing the activities and foods that truly nourish our bodies and help us feel the way that we want to feel.

So if this all sounds great and you’re saying, “Yes, of course I want all that!” then here we go!

How to get started with a super-simple (but powerful) meditation.

First: take the pressure off!

As I mentioned, I used to struggle with meditation because I felt like I could never do it ‘right.’ I thought that it had to take twenty minutes and I had to block out all thoughts, and if a thought crept in, I failed. And when I felt like I failed over and over again, I just quit trying.

Thank goodness I kept an open mind and kept trying to learn about meditation, because the truth is: you can get a tremendous benefit in as little as one minute.

Whatever you can do, however quick and brief, do it- and feel great about doing something so good for your mind and spirit!

Next: get ready to meditate!

I said this was simple, right? I do my best to keep my promises!

Here’s how you’re gonna start:

Decide you want to meditate. It may be something you put on your calendar or your to-do list, or you may be overwhelmed in the moment and want to hit the reset button.
Perform the breathing exercise I am about to share, for one minute, or many minutes.

Yes, it really is that simple! (As I have said: I wouldn’t be able to do it if it was complicated!)

You don’t need to make sure the kids are situated.
You don’t need to go sit on a special pillow.
You don’t need to make sure your surroundings are quiet!
You can simply start, right now.

Here’s how it goes:

Breathe in for a count of five.
Hold for a count of five.
Breathe out for a count of five.
Hold for a count of five.
Repeat as many times as you’d like!

Are there other, perhaps more sophisticated ways to meditate? Absolutely, and many of them are beautiful and even more powerful!

But for today, we’re talking accessibility!

You can do this anywhere, anytime.

And what makes it so wonderful? When you are counting, your mind isn’t wandering! So for that short period of time, as many breath cycles as you have time to allow, you are turning off your brain, which allows you to reset and re-center.

Want to dive even deeper and learn more about the benefits of meditation? I found this book to be incredibly informative and inspirational!

I also am in love with the work that Headspace is doing! They have a short daily podcast on Spotify that I love, as well as several free guided meditations on Spotify. They also have a paid subscription based option, but you can absolutely get started with their no-cost meditations and find incredible benefits!

Mindfulness is an important part of any body peace practice.

If you’d like to dive deeper and learn more about how to discover body peace, learn to eat intuitively, care for your body through healthy movement, it’s something I am passionate about and love to share. Email me here to get more info!

Until next time, I hope you’ll discover the peace, joy, and centeredness that can come from even the simplest meditation!

xo,

Cori