My journey to a meditation practice

I’m going on 3 years now with a consistent meditation practice, and let me tell you - I still feel like a total beginner. I found my way to meditation through yoga when I was a junior at the University of Kansas. I was seeking a sweaty workout that didn’t include a chaotic college gym and I thought the hot room would help me burn calories. Looking back now, I definitely landed in a yoga studio due to some sort of divine intervention.

What started as a sweaty workout turned into learning more about the physical poses which led to general mindfulness which led to the first version of spirituality that I ever connected with - which helped me see the world through a completely new lens. This was a long process of getting to know myself and the physical movements of yoga helped me get out of my mind and into my body for the first time.

It was around year 2 that I started doing some short guided meditations on a Pilates app that I was subscribed to. I was one of those people who thought, “I will never be able to sit still and quiet my mind, it just won’t work for me.” For the first couple of months that was 100% the case. Thoughts raced through my mind for the entirety of the time I was sitting cross-legged on the floor feeling silly and scared that my college roommates would walk in.

Yoga is so much more than the physical poses

Yoga is such a powerful tool that helps us turn inward due to linking movements to breath. When I started yoga I realized that I was never taking intentional breath. I was breathing halfway into the top of my chest. Once I learned to take full deep breaths into my belly to activate my parasympathetic nervous system, I saw the effects immediately. Mediation is a continuation of this conscious focus on the breath as a gateway to quiet the mind.

All of a sudden, one day I flickered open my eyes at the end of a meditation and I realized that I had truly let go of the thoughts clouding my mind and felt a deep clarity I had never experienced before. If only for 10 seconds, that peace was something I hadn’t experienced in that capacity before while sitting still. The closest thing I could compare it to is being totally focused and consumed while doing an activity I love. I then spent day after day practicing to experience that moment again. Even still to this day, I am not able to completely quiet the mind in every meditation but trust me, the more you practice, the more you get to experience that magic.

There are so many types of meditation, resources for guided meditation, and meditation can look different for everyone. I think the key is experimenting and staying consistent once you find what works best for you. The more you practice, the deeper you are able to go within and the shift you will begin to feel and see moment to moment in your life is so real.

Meditation has hands down transformed my relationship to self and in turn, how I show up in my life.

I would love to share more about tangible steps in starting your mediation journey and pathways to find what works best for you. Stay tuned :)