Photo by Miguel Virkkunen Carvalho.
Longterm readers may remember how I dabbled with secular mediation a few years ago.
This is generally how those sessions went:
Ok, it’s time to meditate!
Shoo, thoughts.
<silence>
How long have I been doing this?
<silence>
The silence is nice, but how do I know when to stop?
<silence>
How long has it been, again? What if I fall asleep?
I’m not Buddhist, but the idea of meditating is very appealing to me. Unfortunately the actual practice of it has been pretty elusive. Once every year or so I’d try it again with equally non-meditative results.
And then late last year I discovered Calm. It’s a free meditation site that can be used in a few different ways. You can set a timer on the site and otherwise not interact with it at all. You could also participate in their prerecorded guided meditation exercises, download the Calm app, or set a timer and simply listen to the instrumental background music they play continuously.
I didn’t expect this, but my favourite part of the Calm site is their guided meditation exercises. They are as short as 2 and as long as 20 minutes in length. As a beginner I find it really helpful to follow someone else’s prompts, although I suspect there may come a time when I no longer need this guidance.
The background noise on it’s own is a little distracting for me because it cycles between nature sounds and instrumental music so rapidly.
It will be interesting to see if I can keep up this new habit!
If you meditate, how did you learn how to make it a longterm part of your daily routine?