7 Tips for Success

Before we dive into this experience, I want to share seven tips for success, or tools to support your meditation. I found them to be incredibly helpful in my own practice, so I hope one, two, maybe all of them will support you, right? The first is simply make the choice. Commit to doing it. If you spend the whole five days kind of debating, maybe I'll do one day, maybe I'll do two days, and it just wastes a ton of energy, and you're not as likely to stick with it.

So decide, commit, and go for it, right? Number two is consistency. Can be really helpful to have your sit at the same time in the same place every day. I like to wake up, brush my teeth, take the animals out, make my latte, and then sit down. So maybe for you it's up really early before the kids are awake, or after they're in bed at night.

Maybe even make it to work, and close the door, and take your five minutes. But choose something you know will support you, and stick with it every day. Number three is share. So this can work a couple different ways. You can invite friends to do it with you, can kind of hold each other accountable, or you can simply let friends or family know that you're going to do it, and ask them to check in on you every now and then.

Number four is create the space. So I particularly love this one. I like aesthetics. I like my space to be beautiful. So maybe it's a candle, or a stone, or mala beads, whatever it is for you.

But have a space that is ready to go, so you're not kind of searching for your chair, or your prop, or your blocks, whatever you want to sit on, and that it's there for you. So it's there to hold and support you, all right? Number five is journal, or find some way to track what your process is. So this helps to kind of get the gunk out of the mind if you have a lot of questions arising or insights. Sometimes they can just block you when you're sitting.

But if you have a journal, and you can write that all out, then it's clear, it's taken care of, it has a place, you can come back to it when the time is right, so that when you're sitting, you're just sitting, all right? Number six is be kind to yourself, okay? I want to remind you over and over and over again that this is not easy. So if we don't create a lot of space and stillness in our lives, and then we dive into this silence, it can be a little bit freaky, right? Some unpleasant thoughts might arise that we've been busy kind of pushing aside.

So if that's the case, try to replace those critical thoughts with a lot of kindness, a lot of compassion, a lot of patience, hold this whole experience with an incredible sense of gentleness and kindness to yourself, okay? And anything that does arise, know that you can work with it, and when the time is right. But for now, you're sitting, and you're holding yourself with a lot of grace, okay? Number seven, one of my favorites, is rewards, right? There's nothing wrong with setting up a little bit of sweetness at the end of the experience.

Maybe it's one little thing after each sit, and something bigger at the end, I don't know, chocolate, or a walk on the beach, or a dinner with friends, or a bottle of champagne, whatever helps kind of excite you or motivate you, know that it'll be there on the other side, all right? And I just want to reiterate the whole process, see if you can find some joy in it, right? Be kind, hold it lightly, and just enjoy. So to review, make the choice, commit to your practice, have some consistency when and where you practice, share it with friends and family who can support you, create a really supportive space for your practice, journal or find some way that works for you to track what's happening, be kind to yourself, and have a reward when it's all said and done. Good luck, enjoy, I'll see you on the other side.