Say What? Say Meditation!!!

I tried it in the past - didn't work. Then a friend told me those oft repeated words that make you get a slightly euphoric feeling rushing through your body - there's an app for that. 'That' being meditation. I have a hard time slowing down and an even harder time relaxing. Last year on a long weekend trip to my friends cabin in upstate NY it took me about a day and a half into the mini-vacation before I completely shut down and didn't feel my throat contracting and my fingers attempt to grasp the air without internet or phone reception. So, when my friend LL suggested I try meditation during brunch I thought she was nuts. I mean honestly.

But, there is indeed an app for meditation and LL had me put two on my phone immediately. The apps are Simply Being and one with a symbol and a blue background on it, which are both self-guided apps. You can pick the background ambience noise, speed, to link it to your iPod playlists, etc. This advice came at an opportune time, as fate seems to have it in my life lately, because I'd just watched the entire TED conference series with the theme: What makes us happy? and seen the episode of Oprah with Goldie Hawn where they discussed happiness and ways to destress. I know the warm-up and cool-down phases of a work-out are essential but so is slowing things down in your life. I work in a stressful environment and I need that unwind time. So, I've begun to take baby steps towards incorporating meditation into my life. I started about four weeks ago doing five minutes (the longest five minutes of my life) and have worked my way up to doing 30 minutes before I go to work and 30 minutes before I go to bed. I've seen my stress level go down as well during this time and plan to continue my meditative growth. It's actually not as hard to do once you get into the swing of things.

Some things that help me be able to meditate or just take a moment to do deep breaths while I'm driving into work, etc. is the music I'm listening to. I've included some of my chill-mix music for you here...

Rushed Farewells - Strayfolk from Henrik Thorén on Vimeo.

Aaron Thompson - A Record, A Wheel from goldenbear on Vimeo.