Manifesting Meditation For Beginners

The practice of meditation is tremendously powerful and has impacts on both our spiritual and physical well-being, as well as on our reality. Creating a routine meditation practice can help to super-charge your ability to manifest your desires, has incredible health benefits, and believe it or not – it can actually be a fun experience!

The idea that you have to be able to completely clear your mind of thoughts to successfully meditate is probably one of the most common misconceptions. This is only one form of meditation and honestly, it’s quite challenging! For someone who has never meditated before, it would be like giving a kindergarten student a complicated math equation to solve.

As with anything, it takes some time to learn the technique and train your brain to comply with your spirit. The first thing you must understand is, you are not your brain or your thoughts. You are not your body, or your emotions. These are all things you experience. You experience the thoughts in your mind, you experience the sensations of the body and of emotions, but these things are not you.

So, what or who is doing the observing? The answer is Spirit. Your spirit. This understanding is vital. Once you can separate your Spirit, your Soul, from the mechanics of the body, you can begin to tame the voracious beast that is your mind.

Going back to stillness meditations for moment, these are certainly powerful and wonderful to experience, but our brains are used to running the show! Instead of trying to turn off your thoughts, I encourage you to begin by giving the mind something to do instead.

Take some time to think about what you want to achieve through your practice. At its most basic meditation can be used as a tool to help align your mind, body and spirit with your overall goals. These goals can be anything! Reducing stress or anxiety, improving overall vitality, enhancing mental function, boosting your mood, improving your sleep patterns, and so on. Creative visualization is a remarkably powerful tool for manifesting. If you have never tried it before, start with just one simple intention. As you grow more adept, you can expand your goals and wishes.

Develop your imagination – you can use it to create in your mind what you hope to create in your life ~ Stephen Covey

Once you have chosen your intention, you can get started. The following exercise is an easy introduction to meditative visualization to become familiar with the basics.

Find a place you can sit comfortably and where you will not be disturbed. You can either sit cross-legged on the floor, or in a chair. The important thing is that you are comfortable, and that you will not be feeling any discomfort while you are visualizing.

Place your hands in your lap, or on your knees, with your palms facing up, whichever feels most natural for you. Try not to slouch, keep your back straight, but do not force yourself into any kind of rigid position. The reason you want to straighten your spine is to allow your energy to flow more easily throughout your body. If you are rigidly holding a position, your energy will not flow smoothly, so it is more important to be comfortable than to have perfect posture here.

Once you’ve found a relaxed position, settle into your space and start to become aware of your breathing. Inhale long draws of breath, for a slow count of three, and then exhale slowly also to a count of three. Focus on the feeling of the air being pulled into your nose. Feel the sensation of coolness that this creates on your upper lip, the feel of your lungs filling up and hugging your heart, the sound of the air rushing into your body. Feel the warmth of it as you expel the air through your nose. Just be with your breath. For ten inhalations, stay with this awareness of your breathing.

At this point, you may notice that thoughts are nagging at you. That is okay. As thoughts come to you, just allow them to come and allow them to go. Do not focus on them, or follow any of those thoughts to dominate, but do not force them out either. Just keep returning your attention to your breathing. Let those thoughts go by like passing clouds, or leaves in the wind.

Count your breaths until you get to the tenth inhalation. I think of this step as a gentle way to tell your brain that it is not in the driver’s seat at the moment.

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will ~ George Bernard Shaw

Now that you have calmed your mind and body, you can begin to use your spirit to guide the mind. Visualize what your life ultimately looks like when you have achieved that goal you set. Get specific and have fun with this part!

If you want to sleep better at night, for instance, imagine yourself in your bed, soundly and contentedly. See yourself waking up energized and rejuvenated. Feel a sense of rested vitality in your body. Perceive your renewed mental clarity.

Stay with the visualization and go into as much detail as possible. Make it as real as you can, by imagining you are feeling all those sensations right now and involving all of your senses. What do you see, hear, smell, taste and feel? What do you sense in your body? What are you thinking about? What emotions do you feel having achieved this goal?

When you are ready to come back from your visualization, return your focus to your breath. You want to ease yourself out of your meditation and your mind back into conscious reality.

For another ten breaths, focus again on the sensations of your breathing. As you come to the seventh breath, prepare to come back to your body by wiggling your fingers and toes. Enjoy those last few peaceful breaths. On the tenth breath, slowly open your eyes and come fully back into your body. Afterwards, take a few minutes to assess. How do you feel? Did anything unexpected happen?

Do not worry about how long you were in your meditation. At first you may only stay in it for a few minutes. As you become more adept, your meditations will naturally increase in length. You may even find that you are reluctant to come back from them, it is such a peaceful state of mind.

Meditation is a conduit for life altering experiences with Spirit and Self. It opens a conversation with the universe that is both thrilling and brilliantly comforting. A journey well worth taking.