How To Meditate Together

Meditation is a wonderful practice that I strongly recommend for everyone.  Ten minutes a day is all it takes.  There are quite a few fabulous benefits to meditation: clear thinking, better sleep, improved mood, increased intuition, more energy, less anxiety — just to name a few.  So even if you are single, I suggest that you start meditating every day.  If you are partnered perhaps  either you haven’t felt as connected as you used to or things are going great but you want to make them even better. In either case, meditating together daily, or as often as possible, could make a big difference in the quality of your relationship.  Below are a few simple steps to meditating:
 

1. Get in a quiet place.  If your house and workplace are never quiet, use your car or go out to a quiet place in nature.
2. Sit, don’t lie down, either cross-legged if that is comfortable for you or with your feet flat on the floor.
3. Put your hands palms up on your legs and join the index finger and thumb of both hands together lightly.
4. Keep your spine straight so that your chakras, the energy centers that run from your tail bone to the crown of your head, are aligned.
5. Close your eyes.
6. Take three deep breaths in through your nose, allowing your belly to expand as you do. With each breath, hold it for three seconds, think of something you want to release (ie, a grudge, despair, worrying) and let it go on your outbreath, which is also through your nose.  During meditation, all of your breathing is through your nose, as this sends the message to the body that all is well.
7. For the remainder of the time, just focus on two things as you continue to take slow, conscious breaths in and out through your nose.  Focus on the breath itself, and also on your third eye.  Your third eye is one of your chakras that is located on your forehead between your eyebrows (perhaps a bit above).  Look at your third eye while you are meditating.  You may literally see an eye that is indigo blue, the color of that particular chakra.
8. As the thoughts come, don’t fight with them.  Don’t try to push them away. This will only make them come back stronger.  Simply acknowledge them and let them go.  You want to allow the clutter in your mind, what we call resistance, to simply drift away.  You are left with your natural state of joy. 

It is best to meditate in the morning if you can.  You will benefit whether you do it alone, with a partner, or with a friend. If you do it with others, however, your energies will blend in the space as you are each engaged in the mediation process and this will bring you closer together.  Don’t get frustrated or give up if you notice your mind wanders a lot. That is completely normal, especially at the beginning. That is why we call it the practice of meditation. Stick with it and you will find that for very little effort and time invested you can significantly improve the quality of your life and your relationships.