Tips for Creating a Daily Practice
Read the list and notice the tips that most resonate with you. Try those first!

1. Identify your intention for meditating.
   This is different than a goal. The idea here is to have an intention that helps you understand and clarify your motivation around meditation. Your intention might be practical (stay calm at work, feel more present during the day) or you might have a spiritual intention. The benefits you receive from the practice will reflect your intention.
   
   
2. Designate a time to meditate.
   Creating space for meditation at the same time each day can be helpful. It creates a rhythm for your body and also creates a sort of energetic template that allows you to drop into meditation more easily at the designated time.
   
   
3. Designate a physical space to meditate.
   This can be a specific chair in your house or a specific spot on a cushion. If you don’t have room for a dedicated space, that’s okay. Just set up your space in the same location each day.
   
   
4. Remove clutter.
   No matter what the state of your living space, make your meditation space a little sanctuary within your home by removing clutter as much as possible and making it feel clean and pleasant for you.
   
   
5. Sit comfortably.
   To be able to be relaxed and alert in meditation, the body must be able to be still and comfortable for a period of time. If you sit on the floor, find the right mix of cushions to support your spine and allow you to relax your legs. If your body is not comfortable seated on the floor, then sit in a chair. Choose a chair that allows you to sit up straight but be relaxed, with your feet flat on the floor.
   
   
6. Choose a type of meditation.
   There are different techniques for meditation: counting the breath, noting and allowing thoughts, visualizing, chakra focusing, and mantra are a few. Choose one approach that you feel drawn to and practice it consistently for a period of time, maybe 1–3 weeks, to see how it works for you.
   
   
7. Support yourself.
   Join a group class or use an app to help get you started or to help maintain your practice.
   
   

Meditation Support
Joining a local group class can be a great way to learn foundational meditation techniques, meet like-minded people, and get into a regular groove.
 
There is a reason why it’s often easier to meditate in a group or while listening to a guided recording. Being in the presence of a centered teacher with whom we resonate offers the opportunity to see, feel, and even match their meditative depth and helps us learn what’s possible in our own meditation space.

Be sure to choose a teacher who feels right for you. Even a well-known teacher, although highly recommended, may not be your right match. It's super important to follow your inner guidance on this one!
 
If attending a class locally is not an option, there's been an explosion of online support for building a meditation practice. You can choose from a variety free and paid meditation apps.
 
One app I’ve tried and continue to use is Headspace. They offer a 10-pack foundations meditation series for free with the option of subscribing to access other meditation packs focused on specific topics such as Creativity, Acceptance, and Relationships. 

Another popluar free app that I use is Insight Timer. This app includes free guided meditations, paid content, and a timer feature that allows you to create meditation timers with signal sounds at different points in the meditation. For example, if you create a 15-minute meditation timer, you can program a sound to go off at each five-minute interval. I find this helpful to bring me back to focus on days when I'm more challenged to stay present.

If you don't have access to a group meditation circle, using one of these apps can be the next best thing. Let your intuition guide you to one that resonates with you.
 
Branching Out
If seated meditation just doesn’t speak to you, or if you want to supplement your seated meditation practice, other ways of cultivating a meditative space include journaling, walking in nature, sound meditation or drumming, intuitive drawing, and mindful movement practices such as yoga or intuitive dance.
 
How’s It Going?
I would love to know how your meditation practice is going and if you found any of these tips helpful. Please use the contact link below to send your impressions. I do my best to read and reply to all responses.

The other day while having lunch with my sister and our 97-year-old grandma at a Chinese restaurant (Chinese is gram’s favorite!) the following advice appeared in my fortune cookie: Practice is the best of all instructors.
 
Bam. The message resonated--and it appeared at the right time for support. Over the winter I’d been working to reignite and deepen my personal meditation and self-healing practice. Tto be honest, it required a challenging new level of disciplined and patience.
 
As I considered the message in the fortune cookie, I started thinking about how I came to learn what I know and how, in most cases, my independent practice provided the leaping-off point from which I moved from novice to confidence to self-authority (and then continued to practice!)
 
Owning Your Practice
If you’ve ever been involved in a team sport or group exercise, after the teacher-led coaching or instruction there’s an opportunity to step away and practiced on your own. If you did practice on your own, you may have found that you returned to the group practice with a new feeling of authority in your body and ownership of your skill.
 
I experienced the impact of independent exploration in my yoga practice a few years ago. As soon as I began practicing away from class on my own, I developed a new relationship to my body awareness. Back in class, the teacher’s guidance still supported my learning, but I had become my own guide in how to deepen my practice and communicate with my body. Yoga is no longer an outside challenge that I needed to master. Rather, I’ve integrated yoga into the way I express and know myself.
 
You can do this too. You can connect directly to your inner awareness and empowerment. Perhaps you’ve begun already.

Embodying Your Intuition
A very talented violin soloist played at a concert I recently attended. Although the soloist was a petite woman, I kept noticing how small the violin looked in her hands. She seemed to have energetically embodied the violin so that it became an extension of herself.
 
Developing your intuition is similar to learning to play a musical instrument. At first, intuition may seem larger than you and outside of your grasp. With practice, as you grow your skills and awareness, intuition becomes an integral part of your consciousness.
 
There are a few universal truths about intuition and inner guidance, but the way we experience our inner guidance is unique to each one of us. When exploring intuition it’s essential to learn your own inner language: the specific way you receive and perceive information from within. There’s no one who can tell you what your intuition feels like, sounds like, or looks like. No one can experience your inner guidance and the way it works but you.
 
Of course, having a teacher remains helpful and important. I have deep gratitude and appreciation for my teachers and mentors who modeled their own self-practice and exploration. Teachers share information and hold a space for you to explore and learn. However, after the class, you choose whether to take what you’ve learned into action through practice and application in your daily life. If you do, it creates a powerful combination of teacher/group support and independent practice.

A Story of Personal Practice 
When I was studying energy healing, my teacher at the time introduced the concept of spirit guides: we each have a guide that is specifically assigned to us. In class we connected to our guide and learned what that felt like. We then received an assignment between classes: on a daily basis, connect to your guide and use writing to channel the guidance your guide has for you.
 
I accepted the practice. For several months, each morning I took 10–20 minutes to stretch, center myself in meditation, and connect to my guide. My awareness expanded exponentially. I owned my relationship to my guide and anchored that connection. I also learned what my own inner voice sounded like, so I could begin to discern the voice of my higher truth from all the other voices in my head.
 
When I returned to class, I felt a new layer in my inner foundation that was always with me no matter who my teacher was and whether I was part of a group or not.
 
Becoming Your Own Teacher
We’ve entered an era of self-directed discovery. We find ourselves less and less likely to look to a supreme authority for direction. Therapists and healing professionals provide a foundational service to support our growth. However, if you see a therapist or healer or take classes on a regular basis but do not have your own independent practice (journaling, self-reflection, meditation, movement, or whatever supports you) you’re setting up a dynamic of imbalance. Without maintaining a personal practice, how can you cultivate your own space for observing, information collecting, self-healing, and self-expression? How will you learn what you truly know, feel, and need?

The practice of getting to know yourself in depth isn't quick or easy. There’s no shortcut to mastery, just like there’s no shortcut to healing. It takes trial and error. Sometimes you're on the horse and sometimes you fall off.  But if you stick with a practice for any length of time, your inner awareness begins to bubble up from inside, and you begin to create a personal foundation that stays with you wherever you go.
 
Next Steps

1. Choose a skill or activity that you are drawn to. Perhaps you’re already learning it, perhaps you have yet to begin.
2. Create a personal practice you can implement to support your learning. This is an additional to any teacher-led classes or group work that you may already be doing.
3. Decide what level of commitment you are able to make at this time. (Daily? Weekly? 10 minutes? 30 minutes?) For what duration will you practice? (21 days? 40 days? 3 months? A year?)
4. Begin your practice.

A sincere man who came to one of my classes expressed concern after completing the first short meditation. He confessed that his mind always races, and during the meditation he noticed how much his mind had been distracting him. It had been challenging—and uncomfortable.

It was clear that he felt he had failed during the meditation.

Now in this particular class, the group showed up very open to explore. During the short introductory meditation, I watched every student shift signifcantly. By the time they opened their eyes, the energy in the room had changed completely.

I was moved by the class's openness and willingess, so when this man expressed his sense of not doing well during the meditation, my heart went out to him. He hadn’t noticed the significant shift of his energy.   

Why had he missed his success? He was confusing success with comfort. He'd been looking for a feeling of comfort or "doing it right" and, as a result, he had judged his discomfort as something bad.

Anyone who has faced a challenge or fear and created real change has dealt with discomfort: emotional, physical, or mental. Stepping out of your comfort zone is inherently uncomfortable. But the only way to learn or create change is to step out--little by little, again and again. 

As this courageous man knows, practicing things you are not yet good at, taking risks, and stepping out can be an uncomfortable endeavor. 

We can prepare for success and growth by mentally preparing ourselves for discomfort. Then, when we encounter the uncomfortable feelings of newness and change we can choose to acknowledge and celebrate them as a sign of success and growth.