Selfie Does Meditation
Hey! Do you have anxiety? Let’s walk over here and leave the others.* They’re gone now? Cool. I have anxiety too. I named it Andy and Andy Anxiety is a huuuuuge Johnny/J-Bird/inconvenience sometimes and for real, who even invited him to this brunch?! I realize that giving a name to your anxiety may seem a little cray but giving it a name feels like a solid reminder that I am/you are/ we are not our anxiety.
That being said, one thing that really helps is meditation. Now meditation, as we all know, is good for a buuuuunch of things. But like many things - like not drinking margaritas while guzzling queso - staying still for an hour while chanting sounds freaking terrible. But(!), thankfully, I discovered that just like there a lot of ways to keep your body healthy and fit, there are a lot of ways to keep your mind fit.
Selfie Tip 1: Get.An.App
Listen, I’m not going to sit quietly in a room on a pillow with just my thoughts. I mean, I guess I can now, but that’s just not me on the day-to-day. But I do meditate a lot, I do follow a roadmap and I am super psyched to have done it with someone else’s voice in my head (mostly Ceasar Barajas’) thanks to the mediation options on Aaptiv. I’ve also use Headspace and Calm and there are plenty of others. Heck, even my watch has a “stop and breathe” option.
Selfie Tip 2: Start Small
With all the stuff I want to accomplish in any given day, making a ton of room in my life to meditate is the first thing to go even though I know it’s a really important practice with long-term benefits. But there’s no requirement to do 30 or 20 minutes. Heck, when I started, I couldn’t even get through the ten minutes of sitting still a day required by Headspace. But now, even when my day is crazy, and there’s a deadline and I still need to go on a training run and take the dog to the vet and cook dinner and my desk is literally on fire, I can make 5 minutes in the morning or before bed, which is enough time to reap the benefits.
Selfie Tip 3: Pick a Method You Actually Like
As I mentioned, I don’t love sitting still but I really like going for a walk during the day. I also, you know, have to drive to work which in Austin traffic can be zippy quick or straight-up excruciatingly long. In both cases, there’s a meditation for that. Honestly, walking meditation is my freaking jam and consistently sticking with that practice is what made me able to try and stick with more traditional meditation - even the chanting-“oooooooom”-alone- in-a-room-on-a-pillow kind. If you like to lie down, sit, stare at candles, walk, chant - whatever - there’s a meditation for that.
Selfie Tip 4: Stick With It
Meditation is a mental exercise and just like any other exercise, practice makes...well, better. All the apps I’ve seen have some sort of program where you can start at day one and go to day 10 or 30 or whatever the program is. I don’t always practice meditation everyday but when I need it to focus or energize or CALM THE FREAK DOWN, I’ve got it in my back pocket because it’s easy to pick up something I already know how to do.
How about you? Do you have a favorite meditation app or guide or practice tips?
*Im just kidding,friends! Everyone can come to the meditation party.