By Brittney Hiller
What is meditation? Meditation has shown to reduce stress and anxiety, lower blood pressure, and create ease in the practitioners’ life. Meditation is simply, a moment for you to create space in your life that will encourage and enhance awareness as well as creativity.
{Doesn’t that sound YUMMY?}
As a yoga teacher, I practice meditation in many different forms, from transcendental (which has been deeply studied by Dr. Herbert Benson and taught to students at Harvard University), to visualization meditation. Recently, I have had the pleasure of speaking with many students whom have wanted more meditation in their life.
Here is ONE quick way to jumpstart your meditation practice, TODAY – like, right now. {yup, now, now}
For two minutes (you have two minutes), turn off Facebook and Instagram or the TV and voila’ you have created two minutes. Now, comfortably sit upright, perhaps in a chair or on a pillow on the ground. If you find yourself at a desk, perfect! Face your computer and begin with this easy step.
Place your index finger to your thumb. Now we are going to rotate out our fingers with our thumb, therefore the rotation looks like so,
Thumb to Index finger
Thumb to Middle finger
Thumb to Ring finger
Thumb to Pinky.
You got it!
Now with this rotation we are beginning to empower the brain to think actively, which is GREAT for creativity! The fun begins here, where you can create a mantra, a repetitive and uplifting phrase such as
PEACE BEGINS WITH ME.
See how we have four places with our finger to put in four words, and then repeat? Awesome!
Create a mantra that suits you best.
TODAY I WILL RELAX
I AM HAPPY TODAY
PEACE BEGINS WITH ME
I AM AT EASE
MY DAY IS GREAT
{You’ve got it now}
With each rotation of your fingers, you place a word.
Breathe slowly and deeply with each round and give yourself 2 minutes to do this. As I often encourage, truly notice HOW you feel before and then after. It is a small gift for you today, but I hope you take the moment and ‘Treat yo’ Self!’
