Why Meditation first Thing in the morning?
One of the most wonderful aspects of meditating first thing in the morning is this feeling of peace and serenity before you start your day. While sitting you give your body extra-time to regenerate, to rejuvenates and to fill your energy batteries. What I love about meditating on your own and outside a class is, that you can completely adjust it to your needs and desires, play with it and find your own style.
If you haven’t meditated yet at home on your own, it is definitely time to give it a try and to make the experience. This article gives you some ideas of where to start. Get started somewhere and expand your repertoire with practice and experience. This article summarizes the 3 tips that I found the most important through years of personal experience.
Tips for Meditating
Tip 1: Establish a framework for your sitting time and keep to it.
Keep your framework every morning no matter if you are going to work, have a day off or if you are on vacation. Have some fixed elements in your sitting time and always include at least 10 to 20 minutes still sitting and finishing after that with lying down in relaxation pose (Shavasana).
The reason for the fixed framework is, that it becomes a habit and it is natural to meditate in the mornings for you. As soon as you start sitting, you will know that this is the sweetest part of the morning. You will not want to miss it anymore! Still, establishing a routine is greatly advised. It only takes 4 days to establish a new routine. After the first 3 days it feels to you as if you always meditated in the mornings.
This is what I do every morning: Upon awakening I already speak my favorite affirmations, bless myself and others and the day. I keep repeating those loving thoughts while making my coffee and having it first. Then I sit down, light up a candle and pray the Lord’s prayer and a few other prayers. You do not have to believe in the Creator for meditating, but as I think He is in everything and everywhere, I love to tune into the Creator first thing upon sitting down. Next, I speak affirmations, ask for protection throughout the day and feel grateful for what I have. I finish my sitting time with sitting still for 20 minutes (you can start with 10) and relax in Shavasana. Afterwards I make my green juice and have it. I count the green juice as my meditation time, too, because it is sacred to me. It provides me with vital life force energy (prana) for the day, which is collected by the green leafy greens from the sun.
Tip 2: Make your sitting time fun and change your routine from time to time.
Change your routine from time to time as you do not want to become dependent or attached to it. Make it a creative process. You can also use guided meditations in addition to the practices I mentioned above. Personally, I only want to hear my own voice in the morning and be very still. I often listen to guided meditations in the evenings.
Changing a few elements in your sitting time from time to time keeps your practice fresh and you feel like an explorer. Each practice has a different energy, feeling and effect to it. There is so much out there to explore!
Always keep the core, though: Still sitting time and Shavasana in the end to ground the meditation energy in your system. Put all judgments or ‘shoulds’ aside how mediation time should look like. This is your private time and make it joyful for you.
Tip 3: Keep your feeling of peace from the morning throughout the day.
If you are new to meditation and become to love it, there is a chance that you will feel a great gap between your peaceful sitting time in the morning and your daily life. This would feel like changing between two worlds and this can be very painful.
The key here is to see meditation time as a practice for your day. If you like to pray, pray while you are in the tram, or between meetings, pray for help for the task that you have to accomplish at work or take a few moments to sit still during your lunch break. Bless the people on the street or bless yourself while standing in the shopping line.Take the tools from the morning and apply them throughout the day.
Your thoughts make your experience. So why not applying that what makes you happy in the morning each moment? Often people think without being conscious what they think. They are not aware, that this automated thinking makes their experience. You can change that and consciously create your day with the powerful mind set from your morning session.
Start the Day with Love; Spend the Day with Love; Fill the Day with Love; End the Day with Love; This is the way to God. – Sri Sathya Sai Baba