Want to unwind but don’t know where to start? Read on to discover the only meditation you’ll ever need!
When did you last feel completely at peace with yourself? Content to just enjoy the present moment, no matter how fleeting? The pale winter sunlight pouring through your kitchen window, the crisp, fresh air bringing a rosy glow to your cheek, the smile of a stranger on a crowded street… Perhaps the last time you felt truly content was at a family celebration surrounded by loved ones, or maybe it was on a foreign holiday, when your everyday cares felt far away. In our busy, stress-filled lives, feeling at one with ourselves can seem a distant possibility, but it’s a skill you can learn and develop through meditation.
The key to living a contented life starts with self-attention and self-care – like the advice to put on your own oxygen mask before offering to help another, reaching your potential at work, modelling self-respect to your child or discovering your life purpose are only possible it you first attend to your own needs. And tuning in to a quieter space within yourself will enable you to access deep insights about who you truly are and how you can best support yourself on your life’s journey.
Many people associate meditation with emptying the mind, but there are many other ways to reap the benefits of inner reflection, including counting the breath, scanning the body, observing passing thoughts and bestowing kind and loving wishes on yourself and others. The following meditation, which can be used regularly whenever you feel out of sync with yourself, teaches you to connect to what is most beneficial for you, both in everyday situations and to help you carve a pathway to a more fulfilling and meaningful life.
Understanding need
This meditation is a variation on a practice that comes from the late meditation teacher Bob Moore, and enables you to deeply understand the difference between ‘want’ and ‘need’. On the surface, want and need may seem interchangeable, but the two are inherently different. Want is often the product of the ego – the part of you that seeks constant affirmation; a hungry ache that never feels satisfied. By using this meditation regularly, over time you’ll come to recognise what the thought ‘I want’ feels like in your body and mind, and the power it can have over your decision making. In my experience, it has a strong, fiery and compulsive energy – consuming everything in its wake. The energy of ‘I need’, on the other hand, is slower, quieter, deeper. Want is muddy, murky, stagnant, like water in a pond that lacks oxygen. Need, on the other hand, is like a clear mountain stream, constantly flowing towards a greater whole. Need is what nourishes you.
Before you start
The first time you do this meditation, set aside 20 to 30 minutes. Make sure you won’t be interrupted and have a pen and paper to hand. You don’t need to sit crossed legged on the floor – unless you are used to meditating in this way and can keep your back vertical while sitting, it’s often more helpful to sit on a hard-backed chair with your feet firmly on the ground. Not only will this be more sustainable, keeping your feet flat on the floor helps you stay focused and grounded.
Once you’ve tried it a few times, you’ll be able to recognise the different qualities of want and need, and you may find it’s enough to only explore your need in future sessions. You can repeat it any time you feel out of touch with yourself or whenever you could benefit from gaining clarity about a specific situation – it could be as simple as what food would be most nourishing for you or how to spend a free day, to what you need in a life partner, how to repair a damaged friendship or what you need to understand about choosing and pursuing a new career. If you find several ‘needs’ come up, it can be helpful to reconnect to the area below the navel and tune in to the word ‘priority’.
How to do it
Spend a few moments quietening your mind. Close your eyes, allow your breath to become slower and deeper, and let go of any unnecessary tension in your body. If your thoughts are racing, just notice them, but don’t become involved with them.
After a few moments, take your attention to the area a couple of inches below your navel and imagine you are directing your in-breath there, tracing its path through your nostrils and chest, and allowing your lower belly to expand as you inhale, relax as you exhale. Spend a few minutes building up a sense of the navel area, noticing if you feel any sensation there. Resting your palms over your navel, one above the other, can help you feel a connection.
When you feel ready, breathe freely again and begin to tune in to all the things you would like in your life. Let your imagination run free – they don’t have to be things that are likely or even possible. Give yourself permission to be as unrealistic and greedy as you like.
After 10-15 minutes, or when you feel you have exhausted this list, pause a moment, then gently open your eyes and write down as many things as you remember. This will be a useful reference to look back on over time, but it also helps to clear your mind in preparation for the next part of the meditation (to follow).
Next, close your eyes once more and bring your attention back to the area below the navel. This time, imagine you have a nostril there, and that you are breathing in and out, slowly and mindfully, through your navel. Let your breath become slow and spacious. Once you are comfortable with this rhythm, let your breathing return to normal and ask yourself what it is that you most need in this moment. Maybe it is to rest, or maybe to contact a friend you’ve not spoken to in a long time. Perhaps you really need to start a task you’ve been putting off. Again, spend 10 to 15 minutes here, but rather than trying to answer the question with your logical mind, allow the answers to arise naturally.
Initially, just keep it general, but as you become more familiar with the process, you can ask specific questions, such as what do I need today? What do I need in this situation? What do I need to say to my boss/mother/partner?
Once you have finished, pause a moment to let your mind become still once more, then write your needs down.
