Are you feeling overwhelmed at the thought of even starting your meditation journey? Besides this being a perfect sign that you need to address your mental health, you don't need to worry because we have you covered.
Meditation is the perfect tool for the mind to help reduce your stress and anxiety, find your inner peace, and calm, and boost your focus, happiness, and overall well-being.
If you're looking to start your meditation journey in Brisbane, we will cover everything you need to know to get you started.
In this beginner's guide, we'll explore the basics of meditation and its many benefits and break down some of their differences and the places you can practice them.
What are the basics of meditation?
Meditation is all about improving your relationship with your own mind. It's about getting in tune with yourself and discovering your true self.
You can think of meditation to your mind as exercise to your body. If you're looking after your bodily health, then you need to be looking after your mental health too!
Right now, if you are suffering with stress, anxiety, depression, lack of focus, uncontrollable feelings, and desires, then this is a symptom of your mind controlling you - but YOU should be the master of your own mind!
In a discussion between two neuroscientists, Dr Andrew Huberman and Dr Sam Harris, according to Sam Harris:
A thought just arises and passes away. And when you inspect it, when you go to inspect it, it unravels. It's the least substantial possible thing. But yet, it could be a thought of self-hatred. It could be a thought, that unrecognized, totally defines your mood.
What are the benefits of meditation?
There are many science backed benefits to meditation which we have written extensively about here and here. What we don't talk about specifically in those articles is the understanding you gain about your mind and yourself. And in a world where it seems people are constantly searching for an answer to "who am I?", then meditation is a perfect solution.
Amongst the many benefits, here is a synopsis of 11 major benefits:
Reducing stress and anxiety - these are some of the leading reasons why people seek out meditation, and since COVID, it seems this mental health crisis is on the rise.
Improves your overall mood and well-being - when your mind is clear and calm, it is naturally happy.
Increasing your focus and concentration - you develop this as you would any muscle, but on top of that, when your mind is clear, the source of distraction is gone.
Reduced depression - when your life doesn't match what's in your mind it leads to depression. Therefore, when you understand why your mind is conjuring up the types of thoughts and feelings it does, you can deal with the root cause of your depression.
Increases your overall health - by having a free and clear mind, your blood flows better, optimising your health.
Increased cardiovascular health - by reducing stress and anxiety you increase the health of your heart, and given cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the world, it's something you might want to give thought to if there's a history of this in your genetic line.
Exercise for your brain - the grey matter in your brain is associated with memory, decision making and emotional regulation amongst other things, and so meditation is wonderful exercise for your brain.
Reduction in chronic pain - traumas stored in the body are magnified by the mind, leading to chronic pain, so to deal with the trauma is to the deal with the chronic pain.
Improved sleep - thoughts keeping you up at night? Then clearing your mind of those thoughts will obviously radically improve your sleep!
Improved immune function - improved white blood cells and levels in the body boost your immune function.
Longevity - eliminating stress from your mind is the best thing you can do for extending your life span!
Understanding the different types of meditation
If you've ever thought about meditation, you've probably thought about trying to stop your thinking and chanting "ommmmmmmmmm". While this is true, there's actually many types of methods out there, with some being religious and some non-religious.
Just like with exercise and diets, there are many different types.
In this article, we have broken meditation down into 2 main categories - filling the mind, and emptying the mind (or clearing / discarding the mind). Within those categories of meditation, there are different types and variations.
Category 1 meditations - filling the mind
Filling the mind would be a type of meditation that is adding something over the top of your mind and your problems. For example:
Breathing - a calm sensation over your mind
Silence - silence over your mind
Contemplating - additional thoughts over your mind
Sound - emotional vibrations over your mind
Mantras - adding chants over your thoughts
Focusing - willpower over your mind
Category 2 meditations - emptying the mind
Emptying the mind is about clearing away the mind (pictures, thoughts, uncontrollable feelings and emotions) and removing the problem from your mind. For example:
Discarding - clearing the root cause of the issue in the mind
Mindfulness - clearing what comes to the mind. For more information on mindfulness and some helpful apps, check out this wonderful article by the Brisbane ACT Centre.
There are going to be other types too, but these cover the majority of them. Their goals are all the same - find your inner peace, calm and happiness, or in other words, find your true self.
Then, you will need to figure out which one is right for you.
How do I know which meditation is right for me?
Meditation is all about you and your mind and it's our mind which is creating the problem (NOTE: when I say "mind" I mean the body/brain as one). Our thoughts create our moods and emotions which affect our mental and physical state and consequently our mental and physical health.
So, if the mind is the problem, then you need to reflect on ask yourself a series of questions:
What are your goals?
What are you trying to fix?
Which of the benefits are you looking for?
Then you can either:
Discard those thoughts and feelings, and eventually they disappear from your mind,
Observe them through mindfulness and try to be detached from them
Fill them over with another sensation.
The benefits of discarding (to us at least) is like a meta-approach in that you can apply the other forms of meditation even after discarding for an even deeper experience. But have a look at what some of our practitioners are saying about it:
Is the meditation place important?
That really depends on you. If proximity is important to you, rather than the method itself, then obviously you just need to find something closer to you.
The feel of the meditation centre itself is important, and having a place to go to where you can "disconnect" from your life and just be present with the method can definitely contribute to the habit sticking.
If you live a busy life, or you find a good method, but distance is a problem, these days you can meditate online with certain meditation centres.
Our centre is one such centre where we offer online live guided meditation (it's not pre-recorded) 7 days a week, throughout our entire opening hours of 9am - 10pm Monday to Saturday and 9am - 4pm on Sundays.
A beginner's guide to meditation in Brisbane?
In our beginner's guide to meditation in Brisbane, we've taken the time to compile a list of places for you to meditate.
Category 1 meditations
Breathing - Many yoga classes include this at the end of a class
Silence - The Brahma Kumaris Brisbane Centre - offering in-person and online meditation (they also offer many different types of meditation)
Contemplating - Calm app - offering a range of online guided meditation
Sound - Biofield Being - offering in-person meditation
Mantras - Transcendental Meditation Brisbane - offering in-person meditation
Focusing - Kadampa Meditation Centre - offering in-person and online meditation.
Category 2 meditations
Discarding - Brisbane Meditation - offering in-person and online guided meditation
Mindfulness - Yoga Nundah - offering a variety of in-person yoga classes with mindfulness
Some of these will be free, and others will have cost, and obviously this will depend on the level of service you get. For example, our meditation has a monthly membership, but we offer unlimited face to face meditation in-person and online and we're open 7 days a week, so you get extremely high value and flexibility.
Another excellent resource is Eventbrite, where you can find a range of meditation classes in Brisbane. We offer a free meditation on Tuesday at 7:00pm and Saturday at 2:00pm.
How often should I practice meditation?
Given all the benefits of meditation, we consider it to be the most important thing you can do for yourself. The links between your mental health and your overall health are very clear.
You can ask yourself these questions:
How often do I exercise?
How well do I eat?
How much do I take care of my body?
If you devote a huge amount of time looking after your body, why aren't you doing the same for your mind? They are one and the same! In the same way you feed your body, and should be exercising every day, you should also devote that time to your mind.
In this way, we strongly recommend you meditate as much as you can. In an ideal world, you should try and find time every day to at least do some meditation.
It's best to make it a priority.
This can be hard for some people, and if you're just starting out, it's not a good idea to burn yourself out. We do recommend that you try and schedule in 3 meditation sessions a week at a minimum to build the good habit.
Like any skill, consistency is key.
Conclusion
Navigating the many types of meditation practices in Brisbane can be overwhelming, but once you understand their difference, it will make it a lot easier for you to find what is going to suite you. We recommend you try as many as you can to see which one works best for your goals, although naturally we are biased towards the method of discarding, which we believe you can supplement other meditation methods with if you choose to, to get an even deeper experience.
If you are interested in finding out more about our meditation method and visiting our centre, you can book yourself a free introduction by clicking the link below.
We hope to meet you soon :)