Meditation and coping strategies

ocean

Hello just wanted to say that meditation has helped me throughout my life

Adrian_Scope

Hello and welcome to the community @ocean. I'm glad you've found something to be so helpful for you. How long have you been using meditation for?

ocean

40 years

Jimm_Scope

That's a long time to keep that up @ocean! Can I ask what you do to help get yourself in the mind space for meditation? I've tried meditation in the past but really struggled to keep my thoughts focused on it.

Cantilip

@ocean hi! Something like 30 years in my case, seeing me through some devastating times.

ocean

When I started meditation my life was extra busy with family and helping everyone around me having experience in the caring system from working with mental health to adults to children to the elderly. I needed a switch off time and knew the only way was to give me that little time for me,I took the initiative to just try sitting still for five minutes and found at the time that was ok for me. That five minutes was the best five minutes …was taken into complete silence eventually the minutes increased bit by bit until I felt comfortable for how long I wanted to sit still. Meditation or anything we do comes from wanting to make little changes to benefit ourselves which enables us to look after others. Practice makes perfect in all that we do in life.

I was raised in a big family so I did find sitting down not so easy but as time moved on I was determined to continue what my heart and mind wanted to achieve.

Those five minutes eventually turned to half hour ,one hour,one hour and 25 minutes and I have never looked back since. Twenty minutes/half hour is sufficient to calm the mind body and spirit. We all deal with things differently. Some like calming music playing for sitting in meditation, some do not. I like both lol.