Start meditating now!
What are you waiting for?
- Attend an 11th Step meditation meeting in your area. Check the Meetings Listings page for one in your area.
- Read the how some of the various styles suggest to meditate Centering Prayer, Buddhist meditation, Hindu meditation
- Talk to fellow members in the program, find out who the experienced meditators are and ask them for help.
- Start with a guided meditation CD such as the SpiritStep One Beginning Meditation CD. There are others on the market, also that will walk you through getting started.
- Listen, and meditate now with this beginning 11th Step Meditation from SpiritStep:
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Track 4 SpiritStep One 1st Guided Meditation
- Check your local newspapers for meditation groups that align with your concept of higher power and visit them.
- Explore this site to discover the type of meditation, or a tool that you can identify with to help get you started.
Tips on taking your daily spiritual vitamin – Meditation
Here are some tips to help you develop your practice of meditation. Remember, as with any exercise or new activity it is not always easy getting started. Please, be patient with yourself and the process, use tools such as, 11th Step Meditation meetings, guided meditation CDs, or any other tools to help as you get started.
When to meditate? Mornings are best, but anytime you can find 15 to 20 minutes in a relatively quiet location will be ok.
- Where to meditate? Find a comfortable place to sit that is relatively quiet. Where you will not be disturbed. You may hear outside noises or experience distractions, but that is ok.
- How to sit? There are meditation practices that suggest specific postures for sitting. You will have a better chance of staying awake while meditating if you sit up straight with both feet on the floor and your hands in your lap.
- A few words about thoughts during meditation. It seems easier to teach beginning meditators to use a guided meditation that is active that uses affirmations and imagery to concentrate on to start with. This gives you something to concentrate upon and help detach from the constant stream of thoughts
- Our minds are designed to think and they usually keep us very busy reminding us of our past mistakes, replaying emotional scenes in our mind or worrying about what will happen in the future. We cannot stop our mind from thinking as we meditate. The trick is to learn to not grab onto any particular thought or to let it dominate our attention, or even try to ignore them.
- As thoughts arise in your meditation just watch them float by, as if on a cloud or in a stream. It is OK to notice these thoughts. Become the observer of your thoughts. This is the practice of meditation and know that this will be a skill that becomes easier the more that you meditate.
- I suggest that you use the guided meditations a number of times before you practice it by yourself so you are familiar with the each step.
- We are what we think and the affirmations are a spiritual exercise towards this realigning of our thoughts and of our lives.
Please do not get discouraged and give up. Meditation takes practice. You will think that you are not being very productive, that you are distracted and not doing it right. Persist through this. Be consistent. You will discover the fruits of your meditation over time. The first goal achieved will be emotional balance, a calm within the storm of our thoughts and emotions. This is Serenity! Discover it and Stick with it.