5 Finger Meditation Technique

Just as I promised to share my various meditation methods, here it is! One of them which i always like to start with is the 5 finger meditation method. Which has a very dear story to it.

I was going through a really painful break up, and I needed to get away. I couldn't stop crying, I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't function... so I hopped on a bus to Chicago to see my bestie, who I hadn't seen in a while. I kept myself occupied by watching a movie on the bus, and eventually dozed-off in an awkward position. I got there and it was friday night. We washed up, and went to bed. The next day was full of activities and occasionally I would have a break down. That night we visited her pool, which also had a sauna, and I had a major break down, weeping so much that I couldn't breathe or talk. So she held my hands and told me to close my eyes, feel the warmth of the sauna, and breathe with her.

She held out her hand and used her fingers to count to three. That was the deep inhale. The exhale was longer, and she used five fingers to count the exhale. We did this for 5- 6 minutes and it really helped me calm down.

She later told me this was a method she would use to calm down/ and relax her patients! It works wonders, and I use it to calm myself down, and also help me focus on my breathing. After which meditation comes in easily.

I am so grateful for having her as my friend, and am so glad and impressed she uses meditation and other breathing techniques to calm her patients down. Which goes to prove that yoga, pranayama and meditation are practices that heal! I hope you find this technique as helpful and soothing as I have found it to be.


OM!

Picture from The Legend of Korra (A "Avatar: The Last Airbender" adventure). Korra has to learn to meditate to tap into her Avatar energies!

My First Official Meditation Class!

Yoga Guru: Are you free to teach the Mindfulness Meditation class tomorrow evening at 7:15pm at the studio?

I needed to pause and think about this for a bit.

A few years ago I had attended a speech/ lecture by Sri Sri Ravishankar, where he led us in a 20-30 minute meditation. I achieved a very deep level of meditation, and in someways lost touch with my body. In example my mind couldn't move my finger when I tried to will it, but let the will go as well. It was pretty amazing, and my first time going that deep. My point for this story was I felt the pressure to incite this deep of a meditation onto my new students. How would I do that?

There have been times when I have lead meditations before, but they were usually small groups, my friends, or one on one. I was nervous leading the meditation on my birthday, but I did not have too many huge expectations for it, since I had meditated with my friends on different occasions. This just seemed more formal, and official in someways.

After talking to myself a bit, and sharing my dilemma with a few close friends/ my sister, I was encouraged to 1- believe in my self  2- realize that I am not expected to lead them into that deep a meditation 3- make it my own. So I replied with a big "Yes".

Friday morning came by, and I was hoping to compose a meditation with my sister's help. However Thursday evening got busy, and I needed to write and practice it before I taught it. It was time to make it my own. So late Thursday night I wrote down 4 to 5 pages of notes, and practiced it. It felt good to me, and seeing it was Friday after a week of work, most people would look forward to relaxing. So the theme would be relaxation.

The goal was to get to the studio early, to meditate, ground myself, and set up for the class. It was my time to calm my energies down, focus them to calm others and radiate a feeling of love, safety, and calm. I was able to do so, for I found a change in my voice, however a slight bubble of excitement/ adrenalin remained. However when we sat down for class I think something else took over, perhaps the calmness I had planted during my own meditation.

I realized if I was stressed out, or made it so formal, people would not be able to relax, and meditate. I think closing the eyes and clearing the mind, needs trust to be able to relax. One needs to be very practiced to be able to focus, meditate in a stressful situation. So I began with introductions, and everyone telling a funny story, because laughter IS the best medicine to melt the worries away. Smiles are also this amazing way of reaching out to people and releasing those endorphins. Then I began the meditation part.

The meditation was composed of 4 parts: 1 Relaxing through intentional deep breathing; 2 Relaxing through letting go; 3 Relaxing and deepening through visualization; 4 Deepening the meditation by letting go, focusing on natural breathing and observing the mind. I will explain these different meditation techniques in blogs to come!

The class went well and people were indeed relaxed, and one student actually described that they had relaxed so deep, that their mind went blank. Another student described that the meditation really helped refresh them after the week, and they felt glowing and radiant after. This made me happy, however I did notice it was tough to practice being a facilitator/ leading the meditation. Especially keeping time, was tough due to having to look at my phone.

I look forward to leading more meditations in the future!


Breathe!

Picture Courtesy Conscious Culture

Life - Ebb and Flow

Even meditation can't fix some days. Maybe its Murphy's law, maybe its the secret, I don't know.
I meditated on positive things, even the little things from my gratitude list, but things didn't let up until I got some relaxing time with sympathizers :-P sometimes we just need support, and a full night's rest. However It may not fix, but it can make it a wee bit easier.

So  from Monday work has been busy, and hectic. Taking on responsibilities, and making big decisions is overrated. I would love to tell kids, stay young as long as possible, you aren't missing too much fun stuff. When I was young I always wanted to be a college student, grown up person. Then when I was in college I wanted to be a professor, then I realized that was a bunch of silly drama by a bunch of "intellectuals". Really.
I decided to go get a job, and then I wanted more and more responsibility - this is the catch: this R word makes us feel important and worthwhile in life. It can also lead to our failures, weaknesses. Be careful what you wish for, or you're going to have to eat more than your bite? Whatever the saying is. This week I did meditate, and was ABLE to actually live upto my responsibilities but it was not easy, (however no one ever said life was easy). Meditation helped cause I focused on positive, and me being able to carry out, and not being as stressed as I would have otherwise been.

However never underestimate other people's responsibilities/problems (other than Mitt's cause he has it easy ;-))

Breathe.