Do Meditation At Home
From start to finish, this article will give you quick, easy steps to follow so that you can meditate at home regularly. You’ll begin by assessing, identifying and altering things that need to change in your home environment. You’ll end by understanding the basics of meditation so that you can let yourself do what you already know how to do deep down in the hidden reality of your mind.
Feng Shui
Here’s the truth about feng shui: it’s not complicated or hard. The following will influence feng shui positively in your home and meditation space:
- Living things, such as plants
- Beautiful objects, such as sculptures or even a well-polished piece of driftwood
- Mirrors in symmetrical placement with the lines in a room
- Mellifluous sounds, such as trickling water or wind chimes
- Furniture away from walls
- A centerpiece, such as a small table with books or an ornate lamp on it
- Incense or something else that smells good
- A lack of clutter and an attention to organization that emphasizes the usefulness, purpose, and essential being of each item in your house
Given that feng shui is connected to Taoism and Buddhism, it will complement the meditative atmosphere you want to cultivate in your home.
You Can Meditate Any Time
What if I told you to throw out all of the tips that came before this? Sounds crazy but that is how radical mindfulness meditation really is. We don’t think of it as radical because it is now ingrained in our popular discourse.
Mindfulness meditation does start as a sitting meditation practice. It goes like this:
- Sit comfortably and close your eyes.
- Focus on breathing. Inhale through your nose slowly and exhale slowly.
- As distracting thoughts arise, don’t judge them and don’t hang onto them. Let each thought go as you focus on breathing.
- Treat all physical sensations and feelings in the same way you do thoughts: register them, then let them go, returning to breathing.
- Extend this practice to everyday activity, remaining “in the moment” of the body’s activity with each new breath.
As you practice mindfulness around your home, note the physical characteristics of the things in themselves. Note physical sensations: sounds, smells, textures, appearances, tastes. Stop now and then and do a body scan from head to toe, noting what each section is doing and how it’s feeling.
Note thoughts that come and the emotions attached to them: let them go. Concentrate on the breath and the physical activities — including the details of the objects with which you’re interacting.
You’ll notice that your home will lend itself to a meditative state when things are in order. This is where true feng shui originates. You will naturally sense how the arrangement of things affects the energy in a room.
Eliminate Pervasive Distractions
In part, meditation is about accepting the existence of distractions. When you meditate, you don’t judge and assign a positive or a negative value to distractions — the ticking of a clock, an itch, the barking of a dog — you let them occur and let them dissipate like waves.
However, in the same way that feng shui removes objects that attract negative chi, there are certain types of distractions that don’t belong in your meditative space. You must remove them.
In a survey of 1,700 people who visited social media sites at least 30 times per week, 30 percent reported high levels of sleep disturbance and 25 percent presented symptoms of depression.
Those individuals who experience sleep disturbances or mental health issues due to social media are not setting boundaries between themselves and their connected devices.
Part of learning how to meditate at home is learning how and when to set boundaries between yourself and your connected devices and social media accounts. If you need your phone for a timed meditation practice, but you normally receive social media notifications on your phone, set it on Do Not Disturb or Airplane mode during your meditation time.
Find the Right Space
Where is your right space for meditation at home? Is it in your basement, your bedroom, your living room, or your study?
The right space will be one with the least distractions built in to its purpose. In that case, it may be your bedroom. If you’ve set up your bedroom to be a place for sleep and only sleep, it will lend itself well to meditation.
The right space will also be a reasonably spacious one. Although comfort is not your goal, you need room to sit. Choose a space that is private, spacious, and quiet. If you don’t have a space in your home like this, create one. Free it from clutter and get it ready for you to meditate there any time.
Ultimately, your right space is one you feel comfortable meditating in, the space you can enter with no other expectations.
