I know so many people struggle with sitting still and quieting their mind. It has taken me years to get to a point where I have seen the benefits of a regular meditation practice.
As many of us experience, I had a mind that I didn't know how to turn off and to be completely honest, I wasn't even aware that I was suffering from this. I learned, through meditation, is that if I was dealing with a stressful situation, my mind would be constantly thinking about the situation. My mind would make up whatever it wanted to about the situation and the majority of the stories I came up with were lies. It was when I started meditating that I realized what was happening to not only myself but when speaking with others, they were also stuck in these thought loops! Meditation taught me to bring awareness to those intrusive thoughts, discern the truth, & to let the thought go.
Getting stuck in a thought loop lowers your vibration and that's felt by having low energy, lack of motivation or desire, or having that feeling of being "stuck" in life. Meditation is a tool that can help you recognize the thought pattern and change it. If I find myself in one of these patterns now, I recognize it almost immediately and can stop it and let the thought go. A short list of a few things I do to change and stop the pattern is:
Paying attention to how I've been recently spending my time (am I watching the news, spending too much time on social media, I look at what books have I been reading, & look at who am I surrounding myself with-are these people inspiring or draining)
Focus on something positive by writing down 5-10 things I am grateful for in my life
Go outside because nature is an AMAZING healer
Focus on the present moment
I don't necessarily do all these things at one time, however I recognize now what I need and take action as to what I need at that moment. You will find what works for you, I am sure of it and maybe one or all of these will be on your list too!
I know a meditation practice can be a difficult habit to develop and the practice itself can feel so challenging, but give it a try! Try it for 30 days, use a guided meditation if you like just to get into the habit of sitting. There are a lot of apps and free guided meditations that you can use to get started and I will share a couple. When I started I used the Calm app and really enjoyed the meditations they have on there.
Because I don't use guided meditations, I don't have suggestions that I have personally used (other than ones on the Calm app) however these are ones I found that were intriguing to me!
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