Common Meditation Mistakes - Women's Fitness

Common Meditation Mistakes - part of the women's fitness video series by GeoBeats. When you are setting out to do meditation, posture is very important. So, even though there is no wrong way to meditate, there are some suggested ways that can make it a little bit easier and a little bit more comfortable, especially in posture. If you are sitting cross-legged, you do not necessarily have to have a full lotus position, but you want to make sure that your hips are above your knees, and that your knees are forming a little bit of a foundation. If you have your knees up in the air, or if you have a leg over a foot, what is going to happen is your legs are going to fall asleep, or you are going to cut off your circulation, and it is going to be that much more difficult to practice. So, setting up your posture before you begin to meditate is really a good idea. Also, a good idea to know yourself. Again, people get the idea that it is supposed to be a certain way, and that I am not really meditating unless I am sitting on the floor on a cushion. But, if your body will not let you sit on the floor, sit on a chair. It is really important to make sure that you do not hurt yourself physically by trying to do it a certain way. There is no certain way that must be done. So, if your body says please let me sit in a chair, go ahead and sit in a chair. It is absolutely OK. There is also a tendency during meditation to try and control the breath. Because one of the primary instructions is to bring your awareness to the breath, there is a sense that you need to breathe a certain way. It should be deep, or it should be shallow, or it should be long or short. And actually, you are not doing any kind of controlling of the breath, you are just kind of experiencing the breath. So, if you find yourself wanting it to be different from the way it is, step back a little bit and maybe just experience the air filling your lungs, instead of trying to force it into a certain pattern. And that will be a little bit easier for you.