A Step By Step Guide and Explanation of My Current Meditation Practice

Meditation is a superpower. It has changed my life in unimaginable and countless ways over the years. I could never have foreseen how a simple practice could be so powerful, creating a butterfly effect in my world and transforming my entire perception of existence.

In short, meditation elevates your awareness, it brings you out of the illusion of thought and into the present moment. Floating within an ineffable spaciousness away from the incessant chatter of the ego-personality mind, we find ourselves closer to our spiritual nature.

A consistent meditation practice will quickly shift you into a place of observation as you become the witness of and increasingly dis-identified from, your thoughts and emotions. Such mastery enables you to be less reactive, more peaceful from within and progressively more in tune with the bursting aliveness of life itself.

For more information on the life-changing benefits of meditation, mindfulness and living in the present moment, please visit the following article; 12 Reasons to Be in the Present Moment

Types of Meditation

Mindfulness can be cultivated at any moment throughout your day by simply noticing that you have been lost in the dream of thought and making a conscious choice to come into the present moment instead. Once you have successfully woken up from thought into the present moment, many anchors can be utilised to remain at this level of awareness for longer. For example, some common anchors include, breathing, tuning into what your senses are perceiving or taking your awareness into the inner energy field of the body.

There is a variety of meditation techniques and you may resonate more with different ones at particular stages throughout your journey. For example many find transcendental meditation to be extremely powerful with the use of a repeated mantra. Another popular type of meditation is that of guided visualisation where one ignites the infinite potential of the mind’s eye.

Focussed meditation aims at using the anchors previously mentioned (breathe etc.) to stay out of thought and in the moment. This technique is a gradual process of calming the headspace and remaining in the position as the observer of the mind and emotional body.

I have found this to be my favourite meditation practice and it has evolved in its own way over the years to reveal a hidden spaciousness within the mind that can be focussed upon for increasingly longer periods. In this space, I can enquire into my true existence whilst also finding a deep peace away from thought.

My Practice

When I sit to meditate daily, I generally undertake a routine method that helps me to detach from my thoughts and increase my focus. As a result, I may rest longer in ever-increasingly deeper states of meditation as the witness, within a thoughtless mind.

This is a current practice that has built up over years of intuitive guidance and personal resonance. It incorporates both visualisation and a mantra that I have developed and found to be extremely powerful. This is by no means a single trajectory that must be followed and I encourage you to take only what you resonate with. There is no right or wrong way to meditate, your spirit will guide you through it.

1. Position

I generally meditate with my legs crossed and back straight. You could sit in a chair or lie down with your spine in one line depending on whatever you feel like at the time.

2. Tuning Into Sounds

I like to start meditations in the same way as this trains the brain to know when it’s about to meditate, therefore entering into a deeper brainwave state right away simply through association. I generally spend the first few minutes really coming into the moment by tuning into my setting and getting to know the blanket of sounds around me. If the mind wanders, I simply bring it back to the sounds when I become aware that I got temporarily lost in thought.

3. Focussed Breathing

Next, I turn my attention to the breathe and focus on the simple and gentle process of inhalation and exhalation. I remain concentrated as I silently count ten breathes, being mindful of any thoughts that pop into my head during the process and letting them go as they come into my mind. If I get pulled into and lost within a thought stream during this process, I will start counting from one again.

This is a great way to practice focus and remaining present whilst also getting an idea of how active my mind is on this particular day. Some days I can reach a count of ten breathe with no interruption from arising thoughts, whereas other days I am constantly bombarded with a heavy influx of tempting thoughts that want to be followed and expanded upon. It is important not to judge yourself if you find it difficult to concentrate as this is simply another thought that must be observed, accepted and let go of.

4. Thought Visualisation

At this stage, I turn my attention to my headspace and the inner energy field of the brain. When I focus my attention within this area, I often feel a heaviness or a slight pressure, the intensity of this sensation depends on how many thoughts have been accumulating and racing through my mind recently.

I then imagine my headspace to be filled with items, each representing thought forms that are lingering. The items sometimes appear as coloured shapes or sometimes they can accumulate together as a murky liquid. I then proceed to empty my mind of the substance or objects whether it’s through pushing it out with my hand or simply letting it flow out back into the earth.

Subsequently, I am left with blank space and I continue to focus my attention on the emptiness, watching for any thoughts that may arise and simply letting them flow out too. At this point, I often feel a release as my head is lighter and a sense of peace washes over me. 

For more information please check out the following article; Empty The Mind With This Simple Yet Powerful Visualisation

5. Mantra

At this point, I will choose to temporarily occupy my mind with a simple mantra that I generally repeat only three times: I AM the space between my thoughts. I have found these words to be immensely powerful for me when it comes to maintaining stillness within the mind space. Having gradually eased into a quietened mind, I return to emptiness after the mantra is spoken.

6. Spaciousness and Stillness

I now begin to truly dwell within a thoughtless mind as the position of the observer. Where there was once a river of thought, there is now only stillness with occasional ripples of movement as thoughts bubble up to the surface. When a thought enters my mind I simply allow it to be there and then drop it once again without following it and allowing it to feed on other similar thoughts.

Of course, some thoughts hold more power over us and we blindly follow them, losing our presence, our observation and state of awareness. I often regard thoughts as having hooks with the intention of attaching onto our attention and dragging us away, before we know it we are in a thought stream and lost in the flow of it.

To prevent slipping into the dimension of thought, we can choose to take our interest away from the thoughts, however, I find that practice is key here. In one sitting we can find that our thoughts gradually subside and calm down as we continue to give them the attention that they seek. With consistent practice, we become more adapted to our position as the observer and we rest in what the Zen and Daoist Meditators refer to as ‘no mind’ for longer periods of time.

Finding this spaciousness within my mind has truly been a transcendent gift! I can now access and utilise it in many ways but crucially it enables me to float in nothingness and reach deeper and deeper states.

Ultimately I can begin to explore and uncover my truth beyond the illusion of separation that only the thinking mind creates.

7. Receiving Messages and Self Inquiry

Though my main goal of this meditation practice is to rest within the spaciousness itself, there is however a multitude of avenues that I can choose to go down when I have accessed a calm mind. It is important to remember that when the inner chatter (egoic mind) has subsided, we allow our true essence to shine through and therefore this is a great opportunity to connect to ourselves and spirit.

In this place, we may decide to send love to the world and our loved ones. We may call in our angels, higher self, guides etc… You may have a question in your life that you are wanting answers to or perhaps guidance moving forward with something. This is a perfect opportunity to receive messages from spirit and I often receive creative or general life inspiration, spontaneous answers to questions and intuitive flashes or flashbacks in this dimension away from thought.

Importantly, you may be thinking, ‘but who is the one that is observing my thoughts?’. If this question interests you then the thoughtless mind is the perfect place for self-inquiry where you may simply ask the question, ‘who am I?’.

Final Words

I believe that meditation and mindfulness will one day be a common and essential part of most peoples wellness routine. It will be as integrated within societies normal daily activities just as exercise and eating healthy food is.

In reality, society is addicted to thinking and we truly believe that the voice inside our mind is representative of who we are. Yet, once we discover a place that is absent of thought, we can begin to change the world and the way we see ourselves within it, one meditation practice at a time.

With Gratitude,