How should I meditate? The many forms of meditation practice

There are almost as many ways of meditating as there are ways of being! Honestly, this is true. For seasoned and experienced meditators, life becomes a living meditation, in the sense that present awareness, conscious thought and openness are brought into everyday activities and situations more readily. This, in itself, is the basis for meditation practice: conscious awareness in the present moment. Of course, as humans, we are often very reactive, emotional beings who love to ponder the past and plan endlessly for the future. As a result, we sometimes forget to feel and respond to life's situations with true present awareness and, as such, our behaviours reflect this by becoming more reactive, less measured, reasonable or compassionate to self or others. This is why meditation is seen as a practice. We are never the finished article. We are always practising.

However, back to the focus of the blog: how should I meditate, and what are the many forms of meditation? There are some general categories of meditation to summarise and, by narrowing it down in this way, it makes it easier to explore our options and trial the ones we feel drawn to, to find out which methods of meditation suit us best. All have the capacity to benefit our health and well-being physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, but since we are all unique individuals, what suits one does not always suit another so well.

Here are the 13 categories of practice that I have explored.

Mindfulness based meditation

Whether seated, lying down, going for a slow walk or doing a household chore, mindfulness meditation is a practice where you quietly bring your attention to the sounds, the sensations and other sensory experiences of the moments as they pass, and the movements the body makes during the activity. The aim is to keep bringing your attention back to the senses whenever the mind starts to wander. There should be no judgment when the mind wanders, just awareness, and then returning to the practice of present moment mindfulness.

Body scanning and relaxation

This is basically a specific type of mindfulness meditation practice involving mentally scanning your body for any pain, tension, discomfort, softness, heaviness, heat, cool, or anything distinctly noticeable. If you find focusing on the body difficult by yourself in a quiet space, there are many guided meditations you can use.

Body scanning is often combined with relaxation of the body. Some practices encourage you to tighten or scrunch up specific body parts on an inhalation, hold briefly, and relax on the exhalation. This can be a great way to help relieve stress and tension and prepare for a good night's sleep.

Meditation using an object of focus

As the title suggests, this meditation practice uses an object of focus and begins with an eyes-open approach. Examples may include:

• Candle meditation
• Crystal meditation
• Using other natural objects such as flowers, pine cones, feathers, stones, leaves, and so on
• Picking an object within the home such as a watch, an ornament, an item of food, and so on

Sitting quietly, you hold the object in your hands or place it on a table in front of you, and you study it. It can be helpful to put your eyes in a soft gaze to engage with a softer state of mind. Taking in the colours, textures, shapes, light and shadow, reflections and so on, the aim is that your focus is solely on the object. When the mind wanders, you simply bring your awareness back. You can choose to close your eyes and use the sense of touch to deepen and experiment with your practice.

Concept focused meditation

This meditation practice is more a focused contemplation exercise. You choose a concept to focus on and repeat the spoken word silently in your mind a few times. You then widen your awareness to what that word means to you, how you experience it in your life or how you imagine it. If the mind wanders too far from the original concept, you simply bring it back to repeating the word silently in the mind. You may also notice where you experience any sense of the word or meaning within the body.

Example concepts may be contemplating: compassion, surrender, oneness, wholeness, peace, love, strength, home, openness, truth, unity, family, nothing, darkness, space, expansion, and many more.

Gratitude meditation

Gratitude meditation is a heart-opening practice which helps increase feelings of positivity and well-being, perhaps even safety, by focusing on what is right and good in your world. This can be a practice completed whilst seated or lying down in a quiet space. Alternatively, you can choose to mindfully write down in a book or diary the things you are truly grateful for. This is highly recommended for those experiencing depression, low mood, stress and anxiety.

Loving-kindness meditation

Rooted in Buddhist practice, loving-kindness meditation is a great way to cultivate our propensity for kindness. It involves mentally sending goodwill, kindness and warmth towards self and others. This is often done by silently repeating a series of mantras such as in the metta meditation: May I be well, may I be happy, may I be peaceful. May you be well, may you be happy, may you be peaceful.

Usually in loving-kindness meditation, we begin by sending our intentions to self to place us in the best mental space to share our intentions wider. You can hold close friends and family in mind as you send them kind, loving thoughts and gradually offer out the same intentions to less familiar people you know, people you may find difficult or challenging, and also to perfect strangers or wider society.

What I find beautiful about this practice is that, although you can practise it seated somewhere quiet with eyes closed, there is also much to be said for practising it with eyes open on a bus, waiting in a queue, walking through a park or similar. To share your kindness and loving thoughts with others without their knowledge is a very powerful and feel-good practice.

Sound or music focused listening meditation

Harder than it sounds, this practice is carried out by sitting or lying down and mindfully listening to music. I recommend listening to unfamiliar music without lyrics when you begin your practice so that your memory does not come into play, distracting you from your auditory focus. Pay attention to all the different instruments (if there is more than one), noticing the contribution of each to the whole, for a few moments at a time. Notice the low and high notes. Notice the rhythm. Bring awareness to how it influences your physical body, your mind, your mood or emotions. Become aware if it triggers any memories. All the while, keep returning to the beginner's curious mindset of: what do I hear, and how do I experience it?

Mantra and chanting meditation

This is the process of quietening and focusing the mind using a sound, word or phrase, recited either aloud or silently. There are many types of mantra and chanting, including:

• Sanskrit sounds, words and phrases (for example Om, Vam, Om shanti shanti shanti, Aham brahmasmi)
• Reiki chanting (the symbols in the system of Reiki all have what is known as a kotodama, and each one can be practised repetitively as a chant to deepen practice. There are also much longer chanting scripts within the system of Reiki)
• Affirmations (for example: I am calm, I am strong, I am healthy; everything I desire is within me; I hold the key to my freedom.)

Each has its own unique benefit, but for those who find the wandering mind very distracting, chanting can be a very helpful way to remain focused. The repetition, particularly of meaningful phrases, can be wonderful for releasing self-limiting beliefs and creating a mindset of abundance and possibility.

Movement meditation

There is a massive range of movement meditation practices, including:

• Yoga
• Qi gong
• T'ai chi
• Intuitive and conscious movement meditation
• Dance and ecstatic dance meditation

Bringing mindful awareness to the movements and sensations of the body, and the sense of balance, stretch, strength and freedom, can be hugely powerful as a meditation practice. Again, for those with a frequently wandering mind, these practices can be a great place to start. Paying attention to the breath with movement is a key part of yoga, qi gong and t'ai chi in particular.

This category of meditation can also include what is known as embodiment practices. These are where you move your body based on particular feelings, memories and experiences and, where necessary and helpful, release uncomfortable or unhelpful energies through the body, or use the movements to bring new and helpful energies such as strength, freedom and balance into the body.

Visualisation meditations

Visualisation may be as simple or as complicated as you wish. Often practised through a guided meditation, you are invited to imagine a particular place (for example a beach, a lakeside, a wood, a temple) and move yourself through that place visually in your mind. If you find visualisation difficult, you can practise a slightly adapted version by imagining what you would be hearing, feeling underneath your feet or on your skin, and so forth. By practising, you may find your skills at visualising improve, especially if you also engage in working with the "third eye" or brow energy centre in the chakra system.

These kinds of meditation can really provide focus and, for some, switch off the busyness of life's stresses. Some would say that this is escaping the busyness of the mind and missing the purpose of meditation. However, it is for you to decide what you need to begin with and what works for you best.

This is one of my specialist areas of practice and I have written hundreds of meditations including some level of visualisation.

Breathing practices

There are a vast range of breathing practices and breathwork techniques that are used as meditation. Some originate in yoga, some in shamanism, others in Traditional Chinese Medicine, to mention but a few. However, in all practices of breathwork, the philosophy is similar: the breath is what gives us life and indeed reflects how we are living in the moment. By bringing awareness to the breath and taking charge of the breath under voluntary control, we can alter our physical, mental and emotional state.

Some breathwork is to bring balance, some to relieve stress and tension, some to heighten spiritual development or release emotion and trauma, some to super-charge the body with oxygen. The list is long. What we do know is that by bringing attention to the breath, we can reach a different state of awareness, focus and being, and this is powerful as a meditation and transformation tool.

Healing meditation

Whether a visualisation or a hands-on healing practice, healing meditations set the intention to heal, either self or another person, by creating the intention and the focus. I have spent years exploring and discovering a wide range of healing meditation practices and techniques. What I have found with healing meditation is that it enables our mind to step into a place of infinite potential and self-belief that is empowering and often profoundly healing. What I find incredible about these practices is that we do not always heal the thing we thought we needed to. We open up to discover something else that needed healing through the process, which may then lead to healing the original issue we began with. Often this has a wider impact on our well-being, even if the pain or situation we began with does still remain.

Shamanic journeying

Rooted in ancient cultures all around the world in its various guises, shamanic journeying is a form of meditation that requires entering an altered state of being, to embark on a journey. Traditionally, a rhythmic drumbeat would be the instigator for entering an altered state, but with practice, one can achieve this state of being through deep relaxation, breathing practices, trance dance or guided meditation.

In shamanic journeying, the belief is that there are different, or invisible, realms of being, beyond our waking physical reality. By journeying into these realms and engaging with the landscape, the beings and the energies there, they can inform and help us change and transform our present pains, illnesses, problems, stresses and challenges. Often symbolic in meaning, the energy and events of the journeys influence our being physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

Again, this is one of my areas of expertise and is very close to my heart, as it has had a marked impact on my life, my wellness and my spiritual development over the years.

With any of these practices, the recommendation is that you start with a manageable duration of practice so that it is comfortable and achievable for you. For example, you may begin with just 3 minutes of practice for the first few days and notice, without judgment (this is important!), how easily distracted your mind is. Gradually increase the duration of practice by 1 to 2 minutes every few days and notice how you find it. Your practice will vary from day to day and you may find different times of day work better than others. This is all part of the practice.

For all meditation practices, but most especially the healing meditations, mantras, movement meditation and shamanic journeying, I highly recommend learning from an experienced teacher. A teacher will be able to guide you personally on your journey, help provide specific tips and advice and personal practices, and also support you to develop your understanding of yourself and your journey through meditation and your unique life situations as you find them. This is, of course, something I offer both in groups and privately on a one-to-one basis. So whether you are local to Nottingham or live further afield and would like online guidance, please do contact me if you would like my help. And of course, you are welcome to join the Peaceful Me audio subscription, where you can access my growing library of guided meditations, visualisations, breathing practices and journeys for the soul.