It’s easy to overlook your state of mind when trying to get healthy. You exercise, you are eating on plan, yet you feel more stressed than ever! If you take time out every day to meditate, you will not only relieve stress, but you can use it to reaffirm your weight loss goals.  Check out these tips from GoodLife Zen on how to mediate.

1. Posture
Whether you sit on a chair or cross-legged on the floor, make sure that your spine is upright with head up. If you are slumped your mind will drift. Mind and body are intertwined. If your body is well-balanced, your mind will also be in balance. To straighten up, imagine that your head is touching the sky.

2. Eyes

Try and keep you eyes open. Open eyes allow you to be more present. Just lower your eyes and let your gaze be sort. If you close your eyes you will be more likely to drift away on thoughts and stories. However, it’s important to do what is comfortable for you. Some people find closing their eyes much more effective. It’s good to experiment and see what feels best for you.

3. Focus

In ordinary consciousness we are hardly ever present. For example, sometimes we drive the car on autopilot while being preoccupied with thoughts. Suddenly we arrive at our destination and don’t remember anything about the drive!

So, meditation is a wonderful way of waking up to our life. Otherwise we miss most of our experiences because we are somewhere else in our mind! Let’s take a look at what focus is. In ordinary life, we tend to equate focus with concentration. That’s like using the mind like a concentrated beam of light. But in meditation, that kind of mind isn’t helpful. It’s too sharp and edgy. To focus in meditation means to pay soft attention to whatever you place in the centre of awareness. I suggest using the breath as a focus. It’s like a natural door that connects ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. Zen Master Toni Packer says: “Attention comes from nowhere. It has no cause. It belongs to no one.”

4. The breath

Paying attention to the breath is a great way to anchor yourself in the present moment.
Notice your breath streaming in and out. There’s no need to regulate the breath – just let it be natural.

5. Counting you breath

If you are having difficulties settling, you can try counting the breath – which is an ancient meditation practice. On your outbreath, silently count “one”, then “two”, and up to “four”. Then return to “one”. Whenever you notice your thoughts have strayed far away or you find yourself counting “thirtythree”, simply return to “one”. In this way, “one” is like coming home to the present moment. It’s good to return without a backward glance.

6. Thoughts

When you notice thoughts, gently let them go by returning yous focus to the breath. Don’t try and stop thoughts; this will just make you feel agitated. Imagine that they are unwelcome visitors at your door: Acknowledge their presence and politely ask them to leave. Then shine the soft light of your attention on your breath.

7. Emotions

It’s difficult to settle into meditation if you are struggling with strong emotions. This is because some emotions tend to breed stories in the mind. Especially anger, shame and fear create stories that repeat over and over in the mind. Anger and shame make us keep looking at past events of the past. Fear looks at the future with stories that start with, “What if…”

The way to deal with strong emotions in meditation is to focus on the body feelings that accompany the emotion. For example, this could be the tight band of fear around the chest or the hot roiling of anger in the belly. Let go of the stories and refocus on your body. In this way you are honouring your emotions but not becoming entangled in stories.

8. Silence

Silence is healing. I know that there are is a lot of ‘meditation music’ around, but nothing beats simple silence. Otherwise the music or sounds on the tape just drown out the chatter in your mind. When we sit in silence we actually get to experience what our mind is doing. There is steadiness and calmness that comes from sitting in silence. In time outer and inner silence meet and you come to rest in the moment.

9. Length

Start with 10 minutes and only sit longer if you feel that that is too short. Don’t force yourself to meditate longer if you are not ready to do that. In time you might like to extend your meditation to 25 minutes. That’s a length that allows you to settle your mind without causing too much stress on your body. Most importantly, shrug off any ‘shoulds’. Some people enjoy sitting for an hour at a time. Others find that they can’t sit longer than 10 minutes. Do what feels right for you!

10. Place

It’s lovely to create a special place to sit. You can even make a shrine or an altar that you can face when you sit in meditation. You might like to place a candle on your altar and objects that have meaning to you. It’s lovely to find objects for your altar as you walk. Maybe you find stones, or seashells, or flowers that speak to you.

11. Enjoyment

Most of all it’s important to enjoy meditation. You might like to try sitting with a hint of a smile. Be kind to yourself. Start sitting just a little each day. It’s helpful to establish a daily habit.

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This chart from Eating Well magazine takes all of the guess work out of how long to marinate and grill your food! It has everything from salmon, tofu, to pork chops!

Grilling is a great way to take advantage of the nice weather and keep your kitchen cool. There are tons of recipes for great marinades and spice rubs to make sure that even though you are eating healthy, you are eating great tasting food.

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So I’m traveling again this week for work, as I am 99% of the time. I was able to drive for this business meeting, so no 3 ounce bottles of anything with me! I also packed all my JC food and called ahead about a refrigerator. So I get to the hotel and I only have a min-bar in my room. It’s empty but it is like a sauna on the inside. They replaced it but explained that the min-bar will not get as cold as a refrigerator. I called the front desk and asked about getting a refrigerator and they said they would call me back. Well as it approached 10pm, I decided to go get ice thinking I could at least keep my food cold for the night. I travel with the JC blue quilted bags but they don’t keep food cold for more than two hours.

So I go to get ice and in the room where the ice is supposed to be I see two mini-refrigerators stacked! The one on top is unplugged, but I open it and it is still cold so my mind is clicking - this could work. Beside the stacked mini-refrigerators is a dolly. So I go back to my room and ask about these and they tell me they are out of service. But you know that feeling you get when you just don’t believe what someone is telling you? I had that feeling. So I go back to the storage room load the mini-fridge on the dolly and proceed to set it up in my room.

Long story short, it’s working fine and my JC entrees, snacks, fruits, and cut up veggies that I brought are all ready to go and so am I! So my point for this hump day is, when it becomes non-negotiable to go off my plan there is ALWAYS a way to do this program. I’ll be working until 10pm for the next two days. So working from 7am to 10pm I DESERVE to fuel my body appropriately and to maintain a healthy mindset. And I do that when I FIRST take care of myself.

So JATTNE (Jenny All The Time No Excuses) for me on this hump day. How about for you?

‘til my weigh in this Saturday,

Hope

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