How to
meditate
(even if you can
’
t sit still)
M
editation has become
very popular in recent
years and is helping
many people around
the globe. It can offer significant
benefits, from disease and pain
management to better sleep, improved
control of emotions and even stress
relief. It can sound like a wonder
drug, but it might also sound like an
impossible task when you can’t – or
don’t have the opportunity to – sit still.
Some people make it sound so easy,
to just sit down and meditate and clear
out the mind of all of your thoughts,
but in reality this can take some
time to learn. It is like training your
muscles in the gym. It takes practice,
patience and dedication, which most
of us are not born with…
My first meditation
I still remember when I first learnt to
meditate. It was in a meditation group
in Copenhagen, Denmark. I was 19
years old and I couldn’t sit still. I had
a million thoughts going through my
brain – I was worried what the other
people might think about me and
kept thinking that they were so much
better at meditating than me, they
were older and more experienced… I
just couldn’t relax. Needless to say, this
didn’t help my meditation progress.
Fortunately, I was also stubborn, so
I kept going to the weekly meditation
group. Sometimes I would fall asleep,
sometimes my body would ache,
sometimes I would think about my
plans for the following day, but one
night something happened during
the meditation practice and I noticed
this blissful-like feeling all over my
body. That evening, I didn’t want
to come out of my meditative state
when the teacher called us back to
reality. That’s when I realized that I
had been meditating effectively and
that meditation was actually pretty
amazing.
I have meditated for 12 years now
and am acutely aware of the power of
meditation. I find it clears my mind
and makes me more present in the
now. It balances out the inevitable
stress in my everyday life and gives me
better coping skills when something
unexpected comes up. This experience
made me believe that you should
practise what you are not good at,
instead of always doing what you
know. So if you want to start your
A regular meditation practice can have a whole
host of benefits, but how do you manage to
clear your mind in this million-mile-an-hour
world?
Dr Kamilla Holst
shares her tips.
February 2016
39
