When you begin a meditation practice, the most important thing to remember is to approach meditation with "relaxed effort," and not to be concerned about doing it correctly or about what is supposed to happen.

Just follow the simple steps, and allow for whatever you experience. If you follow the above guidelines, you will find meditation to be easy and enjoyable, and you will start noticing positive results in your life.

A Simple Mindful Meditation

• Sit comfortably, with your eyes closed, your spine reasonably straight.
• Let your attention rest on your breathing.
• When thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, or external sounds arise, simply acknowledge and accept them, allowing them to pass through without judging or getting involved with them. Let go.
• When you notice your attention has been engaged in thoughts, emotions, or sensations, bring it back to your breathing and continue. Let go.
• Remain focused for about 20 minutes.

Visualization Meditation

• Close your eyes and concentrate on a soothing, tranquil place where you feel safe and calm. Take a few cleansing breaths. Breathe in slowly and deeply for five counts, then exhale slowly for five counts.
• As distractions flutter through your mind, remind yourself that you'll deal with them when you are finished meditating.
• See yourself on a peaceful, quiet beach, safe and warm. Picture yourself resting on the sand.
• Feel the sun on your skin.
• Hear the water lapping the shore.
• Listen for the sounds of seagulls.
• See the ships gliding out to sea.
• As you relax, imagine a beautiful, colored mist is swirling up around you. It billows up around you into a cushiony, soft, cloud of energy
• You are now resting completely upon this cloud...and you are safe. As you breathe in and out, let your thoughts just come and go.
• Relaxing more and more, the cloud of energy now lifts you up into the air and carries you down into your own inner world...down between the boundaries of time and space...to a place of timeless beauty and infinite possibilities.
• Floating down now, going deeper and deeper, leaving the outer world and its concerns far behind, as you drift and float on this beautiful cloud....going further and further.
• Relaxing into the cloud you are returning the way you came...lifting up, up through time and space, coming back from the inner world...coming up...further and further...floating and drifting back...coming back...bringing you all the way back into your body now, into this room...bringing your attention completely back into this time and place...take a deep breath and begin to re-orient yourself to the outer world...and when you're ready, open your eyes, and return feeling relaxed, alert and at peace.

Affirmative Meditation

Choose one or more affirmative statements that have meaning for you. Some examples are:

• "I feel loved every moment."
• "I am healthy."
• "I am happy."
• "I take charge of my life."
• "My eyes clearly see the world around me."
• "I am wise."
• "I am a spark of divine love."
• "I am free."
• "I am listening to spirit everyday."
• "I am beautiful."

Then close your eyes and sit comfortably with your feet flat on the ground. Take in a cleansing breath and slowly release it, settling in and relaxing.

Repeat each of the affirmations you have chosen.

As other thoughts come up, acknowledge them and return to your affirmations.

Continue for 20 minutes.

Mantra Meditation

Say or hum single syllable sounds. Examples include:

                        “AH”

                        “OM”

                        “HU”

Guided Meditation

Close your eyes and sit comfortably with your feet flat on the ground.   

Make your spine reasonably straight by imagining one end of a string attached to the crown of your head and the other end connected to the very center of the Universe – suspending your body effortlessly. Feel your rootedness through your feet and into the Earth. Let your consciousness go deeper into the Earth and higher into the Universe, and into the silence. Let go.

Now focus on your breathing – take three deep abdominal breaths, letting yourself relax and be present, and into the silence. Let go.

When thoughts, emotions, physical sensations or external sounds arise, simply acknowledge them and let go, allowing them to pass through you without judgment or getting involved with them, and into the silence. Let go.

Come back to your breath and be here now.

Hear those words and take them in be here now.

Place emphasis on each word separately and reflect.

 

Be here NOW…

Be HERE now…

BE here now…

 

Return to your breathing – feel your connectedness to the Universe, to the Earth, and to those around you. Notice what you are feeling. The calm, accepting, spacious awareness is your core self…your higher self…your essence.

Picture the image you make with your body. Now picture the image you don’t have to make to be here in the mystery and the wonder of life’s beauty. Let go. When ready, open your eyes and return refreshed and relaxed.

Source: Tom Bergmann, DC, a professor at Northwestern Health Sciences University and public lecturer about meditation.