Confession: several times a year I fall out of my meditation habit and go days without meditating. This is not good for my mental health. My mind feels more chaotic and my life becomes heavy.

Thankfully, I have a process that slowly eases me back into regular meditation when I’ve fallen out of the habit.

It’s really simple and I’d love to share it with you here.

It’s also great for anyone feeling distracted or overstimulated and has a hard time meditating, or anyone new to meditation in general.

These simple tips will help you ease into the meditative state and help you build momentum around the habit.

I go into more detail in the video, but here are the high-level tips:

1. Turn off your phone, or at least set it to Do Not Disturb.
2. Remove visual stimulus. You can do this with an eye mask, and if you don’t have one use a bandana or even a shirt.
3. Light a candle, or burn incense / palo santo / sage. Allow the scent to bring your attention inwards.
4. Grab your headphones and listen to a good playlist with theta or delta binaural beats. This kind of music uses subtly different frequencies in the left and right ear to bring the mind into a more relaxed mental state. There is literally nothing you need to do for the binaural music to do its magic.
5. Repeat after me: “There is no possible way to get this wrong.” Your mind might try to convince you that you are doing it “wrong” or that nothing is happening, but this is normal. My mind does this all the time. The key is not to fight it or give it much attention. There is nothing you need to do.

And one more thing…

I don’t waste any time trying to quiet my mind. That shit does not work for creative minds. Once I know there is no possible way to get this wrong and I allow my mind go wherever it wants, eventually my resistance gets bored and quietly leaves. That’s when things get interesting.

Try these tips out next time you are feeling overstimulated or stuck, and let me know if you have any tips of your own. I’d love to hear them.

Big love,

D

—