Meditating Amongst the Mayhem

I have been asked to give a talk to the amazing staff at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth, UK, for Mental Health Awareness Week. As usual, my first response is to be overwhelmed and desperate to get it ‘right’. I calmed down using this method and concluded I am simply going to share a practice I use DAILY. It has become so habitual now I don’t really think about it. Whenever I feel unable to make a decision, I turn to this. Whenever I become irritated or angered, I turn to this. It’s like drinking a glass of water in response to a recognition of thirst.

This is a yoga meditation where we manipulate and focus on our breath. Yoga as we know it in the West is mostly thought of as the physical making of seemingly impossible shapes with the body.

The point of these shapes or asanas in thier sanskrit name is to master, cleanse and respect the physical body to a point where the

” real inner work may be done”. 

This inner work is where we come to MEDITATE. 

There is a plethora of types of meditation practices. A whole host of names to get to grips with. 

The BEST kind of meditation is the one you will actually do…….REGULARLY.

The beauty, in my opinion, of the yogic meditation practices, (of which there are many), is they instruct the meditator to carry out a task, you have to ‘DO’ something often imperceptible to the external onlooker. It may be counting, chanting, visualising, or isolating a body part for example. What this does is give you a single point/task to focus upon which leaves little room for you to wonder what to cook for dinner or how many seconds that seem like hours have passed already. 

These tasks are the gym for the brain and like your physical body, the brain will learn what’s expected of it with practice, rebel like crazy, knuckle down then feel suitably relaxed and smug post workout.

Download my brief and eversosimple guide or check out my youtube channel to a method you can employ anywhere, anytime. Standing in a queue, waiting for an appointment, anytime you would reach to check your phone….again!……do something for your mental health instead.