But beyond basic mindfulness, what types of meditation are most useful for the inner explorer?

This post will look at three that are especially helpful for navigating inner journeys.

• Conscious Relaxation
• RAIN
• Letting Go

Conscious Relaxation 

Relaxation is easing tension and softening ourselves consciously. Learning how to relax yourself is probably the first mindfulness technique I would recommend for anyone wishing to embark on a course of psychedelic exploration.

Anxiety is particularly common during the early onset phase whilst the effects are increasing and one is still on their way up. It can also come when things get hot and heavy in the peak of an experience. Anxiety can be not only disorienting, but also uncomfortable. It can also just waste valuable session time which would be better spent exploring. 

Learning to recognise anxiety will grow with a standard mindfulness practice. I will not cover that here, as it should be a basic foundation for any explorer. Once recognised, it can be relaxed. This can be done in a couple of ways. 

Slow Breathing

The first is taking long, slow and deep breaths. By controlling our breathing we can trigger a physiological response which relaxes us.

It can be helpful to place one hand on your stomach and one on your heart to feel the rise and fall of the breath. The extra physical sensation and connection to your breath can help to maintain an awareness of it. It can help to keep us breathing long and deep,  and ensure that we are breathing from the belly.

“We regain our balance through the proper application of attention and awareness. This is the slowing down, which we can facilitate physically through relaxed, deep breathing which helps release any tension in our bodies. Once we’ve slowed ourselves down and replanted our psychic feet, it is easier to move our consciousness through the resistance or block.”
– Rick Strassman

Relax the Muscles

The second is to consciously relax all the muscles in our body. If you’ve done any yoga, you might know this as savasana or corpse pose, done at the end of a class.

Feel into your body and see if you can identify any sources of physical tension or tightness. As you breathe, relax them.

The jaw, shoulders, and the stomach are areas where tension is commonly stored in and naturally tighten up when we are feeling uneasy. I find it very helpful to do a mental checklist of these three areas over three breaths: relaxing the muscles in my jaw with one in and out breath; relaxing the shoulders with the next, allowing them to fall and sink to the ground; and with the next breath, relaxing the muscles in the stomach.

You can also do a full body relaxation, letting your whole body loosen. You can systematically go through your entire body, scanning each and every part. This is like a vipassana body scan, but as you place your attention on each section, you consciously relax each part. You can do this systematically by relaxing one part per cycle of breath, before moving to the next part.

For example, on one in and out breath, relax all the muscles in your face; on the next cycle of breath, relaxing all the muscles in your neck; the next breath, relaxing your shoulders; and so on until you reach your feet. You can do this as many times as is useful to you.

Tip: A good way to train in this systematic relaxation of your body is with a guided relaxation for sleep. If you’re looking to establish a mindfulness practice but never seem to be able to find time, try using this guided meditation scan every night as you go to sleep. A few years ago I did this over a period of months, listening to it every night in bed as I drifted off. It helped to train that muscle of guiding relaxation, which I’ve now internalized to some degree, and find it much easier to do.

RAIN

Recognise, Allow, Investigate, Nurture.

This is a mindfulness tool which I find is more useful on low to medium doses or towards the end of higher dose experiences. This is because, although RAIN is designed to be simple, trying to do something with multiple words and steps to remember can be too much on high doses. Something more straightforward like ‘breathe’ is more appropriate in those challenging moments.

That said, I think it is a technique that should be in every psychonaut’s toolbox. You can read more about the RAIN technique in an article here.

Let Go

One of the ultimate tenets of psychedelic exploration.

Learning to let go is one of the most important skills to learn for psychedelic journeying. As with many psychedelic navigation tools, but perhaps more so than any others, it is also key to life.  On a journey of psychedelic exploration the ability to let go will be put to the test and it’s a great chance to practice.

Letting go means just totally dropping yourself into your experience without trying to direct it or control it in any way. The only type of direction you are giving to your awareness is to actually let go of any direction or attempt to place your attention anywhere. In this way, trying to let go can seem almost contradictory. It makes more sense when you think of letting go as an allowing, rather than a willing. Totally letting go is allowing your awareness to go wherever it wants to go. 

You can also imagine letting go physically, as if holding on to the edge of a cliff or a plane flying through the sky, and then just letting go, falling through the air.

One way to practice this is to lie down and feel the weight of your body against the ground. Then feel your body as you imagine you’re melting, as if you’re dissolving into the earth. Then just let yourself dissolve into the floor beneath you. If you’re feeling your sense of self dissolving, then let it happen. If you get the sense that you are dying or disappearing, let it happen. As Bill Richard has said in his Flight Instructions, rebirth can only come after a death, so allowing yourself to die is the only way to be reborn. 

Letting go also combines with relaxing, in that it is letting go of any tension and resistance to present moment experience.

As Tim Leary was quoted in Tomorrow Never Knows, The Beatles’ song about LSD: 

“Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream” 

.

The post Mindfulness Practices for Psychedelic Explorers appeared first on Maps of the Mind.

“The longer I have worked with psychedelics, the more convinced I have become that a daily meditation practice is vital to harnessing the waves of energy and insight that sweep through us on a session day.

“My sessions have deepened my meditation practice and my meditation practice has helped ground my psychedelic practice. In my experience, these are complementary and mutually reinforcing undertakings that can be integrated well.”

— Christopher M. Bache, Ph.D. Author of LSD & the Mind of the Universe

“It is quite obvious that skills in meditation, the practice of being at peace within one’s body and mind, even in uncomfortable places, can be of great help in the course of a psychedelic session.”

— Vanja Palmers, Zen Priest, Psychedelics & Meditation

“The ability to, I think, objectify one’s experience, to see it as something which is just there and very natural, that is a powerful skill, and its a skill that can be developed through meditation, which is why I think actually that a nice long course of meditation is the perfect pre-requisite for psychedelics, because I think that people who have done that will have fewer problems dealing with psychedelic experiences.”

— Craig, participant on a John Hopkins study on the effects of psilocybin on long-term meditators

“The foundation laid by any previous inner work will hold us in good stead at such times by virtue of the attention skills we have developed. These skills make it easier to remain focused when confronted with the unexpected…

“We regain our balance through the proper application of attention and awareness. This is the slowing down, which we can facilitate physically through relaxed, deep breathing and helps release any tension in our bodies. Once we’ve slowed ourselves down and replanted our psychic feet, it is easier to move our consciousness through the resistance or block.”

— Rick Strassman, author of DMT: The Spirit Molecule and lead researcher on the DMT studies at the University of New Mexico

“Training in meditation is an excellent preparation for confronting the expanded states of consciousness which entheogens generate and, conversely, the intensity and forthrightness of these expanded states can provide a great impetus to apply the achievements attained during meditation in an emphatic way”

— Dokusho Villalba, The Spiritual Potential Of Entheogens – Dissolving The Roots Of Suffering – Zig Zag Zen

Read more:

LSD and the Mind of the Universe: Diamonds from Heaven | Goodreads
Psychedelics & Meditation | MAPS website
DMT: The Spirit Molecule | Goodreads
The Divine Spark | Goodreads
Zig Zag Zen | Goodreads

Bonus:

Reset: How Meditation and Psychedelics Can Go Hand in Hand | MAPS website

The post 5 Quotes on Meditation & Psychedelics appeared first on Maps of the Mind.

Having experienced the positive effect it has had, I would love to see more of this and others doing similar. So here is a way, step by step, to start your meditation group:

Enlist Support

Before starting, as an optional first step, if you have a friend or know someone who is interested, enlist their help. Getting started with something like this is always easier with someone else. I had a good support friend at the beginning and eventually got comfortable doing it alone. This step is optional and you can of course do it alone.

1. Find A Place

You can do it at your place, a friend’s apartment, a park… ideally a place where there is not much outside noise coming in and you won’t be disturbed by other people.

2. Set a Time and Date

Pick a day, maybe two weeks ahead. Consider whether you’d like to have regular meetups and whether this day will suit you going forward. You could also change the day every week, depending on your needs, but a consistent day helps establish a routine and helps people plan around it.

3. Spread The Word

Tell any friends who might be interested in joining about your event. Share it online. You could do this via Meetup or facebook, or, as I did, on Couchsurfing. In your post, include info such as: basic information about yourself and why you’d like to hold a meditation meetup, who it is suitable for, when it is and how long it will last, and what type of meditation and exercises it will include. You can use a simple name, we held ours on Wednesdays so called it Midweek Meditation Group.

If you have limited space, I’d suggest not including the address. Instead, put a contact number or email so people can contact you to tell you if they are coming. That way it will be easier to manage numbers. You can also add info like if it’s free or if you’ll accept donations. You can also ask people to bring tea or candles, snacks, and things that you’ll use for future meetups.

Now that you’ve organised it and have a date, you need to prepare!

4. Get Ready

Get anything you may need, such as candles, cushions, tea, and maybe some snacks for after. All you will absolutely need are enough cushions for the amount of people attending. If you are short you can also ask people to bring their own cushion, like I did when first starting out. Then, the day of, go a bit early to prepare the space and make it nice and cosy. Clear away clutter and have some nice low lighting, either with lamps or some candles.

5. Hold the Circle

Ask people to arrive on time to prevent latecomers disturbing the sit. When people arrive, give them a warm welcome and take them through to a place where they can sit down and talk to others. Ask people to turn off their phones. You could even have a box where people can drop them for the time of the meet.

Once everyone has arrived, you can say hello and remind them of the basic plan for the session. A nice way to begin is a short sharing round. Before that, it might be useful to offer some sharing guidelines. In the first session, I think a nice thing to do is ask people why they came and are interested in meditation. In future and consecutive meetups, I think it’s nice to have a round where each person just takes a moment to check in with themselves and share how they’re feeling with the group. When you have a consistent group, each person can share a little more with what has been going on with them since last time.

You can guide the meditation yourself if you feel comfortable doing that. Otherwise, you can prepare a guided meditation and play it. You can also just decide a set time and do a silent meditation.

Then, you have successfully held your first meditation meetup. Here’s some further tips:

Be Open to Evolve and Mix It Up

It can be nice to offer a few different types of mindfulness activities to keep the practice fresh, and as different things will work for different people, it’s nice to expose people to different tools.

Some activities that we’ve done include:

• Pranayama (breathing exercise)
• Mindful eating
• Sound Meditation
• Body Scan
• Mindfulness of Breath
• Open Awareness
• Eye Gazing
• Loving Kindness Meditation

As you have more experience holding the circles and getting to know the group you will feel more comfortable mixing it up and can also include other things like authentic relating exercises.

Don’t Be Afraid to Start Small

Don’t worry about how many people show up. Keep going! More and more people will reach out and you will find your community. For my first one, which a friend and I hosted, we had one person show up. The next week we had 2, and the following week we were at capacity of 10 and had to turn people away. Over time a regular group settled and I stopped posting about the event online.

Keep It Regular

I think keeping some kind of regularity is great to help build connections between people and offer some consistency to people’s support and practice. If once a week is too much, consider every two weeks.

That’s it. I have seen how initiatives like this can really help people so if this idea calls to you I encourage you to take the first steps to hold your first circle today!

The post How to Start a Meditation Circle appeared first on Maps of the Mind.

RAIN is a meditation technique for dealing with difficult emotions. As such, it’s an especially useful tool for psychedelic journeying.

Difficult emotions often offer the greatest opportunity for learning or insight during a psychedelic journey and having this technique in your toolbox is especially handy.

RAIN allows you to go towards those difficult emotions with the ultimate mindset for psychedelic exploration: that of an explorer.

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek“
Joseph Campbell

You will also find on Bill Richards’ flight instructions used on psilocybin studies that participants are advised to go towards difficult emotions and to investigate them. This is exactly what RAIN does in a systematic and easy-to-follow way.

So let’s have a look at RAIN, which if you hadn’t figured out yet, is an acronym.

Recognize

what is happening

This is the roots of understanding

Allow

life to be just as it is

This is the grounds of love

Investigate

with gentle attention

This deepens understanding

Nurture

with friendliness

This awakens love

After the RAIN, (what was previously the N before being recently updated) is non-identification. This is realizing freedom from a narrow sense of identity. For example, identifying ourselves with thoughts or feelings. The process of RAIN helps to bring spaciousness around these things and an expanded awareness of the scenes which we often mistake for ourselves.

So let’s go through it more deeply by way of example.

Let’s say for example you are on a psychedelic journey and you feel fear.

R

Starting with R you recognize that you feel fear. You can do this by mentally naming that emotion “fear, fear“.

A

Once recognized move onto the A. Allow it to be, give it permission to be there. You can mentally say “yes OK“. Doing this may mean that the feeling gets stronger, and this is OK. For example, anxiety may develop into a fullness of fear. This is OK. Allow the fear to express itself fully.

When allowing, you may have a sense that it feels too much for you to take. If you’re naming it “fear, fear”, and it’s too strong, then surrender yourself to it. Say: “alright, take me, kill me, I’ll die of this feeling of fear.”

Another example of where complications may come in at the Allow stage. If your first emotion was for example sadness, and you find difficulty allowing it due to the feeling that it is too much. Then go back to R and again Recognize what you are feeling.  Fear that it will be too much. So this would be fear. Feelings can morph when going through this process, so stay fluid. Whatever is on top, start there.

I

After the R&A we begin to deepen attention by investigating with kindness.

Approach that feeling of fear as a curious and friendly explorer. This feeling is there for a reason and has something to show you. So go towards it and try to see what it is that this fear is made of.

N

Nurture is the approach to the investigation. Use a sense of friendliness and gentleness to investigate the felt sense of what’s going on.

Treat this feeling as a friend that is asking for your attention that needs your love. Sit down with the fear and take time to get to know it.

What’s the quality of the sensations?

How do I know I’m feeling fear?

Explore your beliefs around the feeling.
Ask:
What am I believing right now which is causing me to feel fear?
What am I thinking about?

When investigating any core belief, it is key for you to come into your body whilst doing this. Find out where this feeling lives in your body. Some practice in body scan or vipassana meditation will come in useful in this step.

Non-Identification

Completing RAIN brings a quality of openness and presence. Anxiety can shift to a space of presence where you are no longer identified with that fear and you can rest in a kind awareness.

Practice RAIN with a guided meditation

Learning and practicing RAIN is something I would recommend to any aspiring psychedelic practitioner. It is something I learned from meditation teacher Tara Brach and you can find one of her guided RAIN meditations here. As with learning any type of meditation it can be useful to begin by doing a few guided meditations and then once you are familiar with the practice you do it alone.

The post RAIN: A Mindfulness Technique for Psychedelic Navigation appeared first on Maps of the Mind.

Here it is:

Waiting Is Meditating

Or, waiting is mindfulness.

That’s it. You remove waiting from your life, and replace it with awareness.

Anytime you find yourself in a state of ‘waiting’ for something, use this as a reminder to be present and practice mindfulness. Take 3 long deep breaths, relaxing yourself, then bringing your attention to your body. (Or, whatever other mindfulness practice you like).

Sounds easy, and in principle it is, but it takes some practice and mental reprogramming to get there consistently. I won’t pretend I practice this everywhere, but I do it often and find it to be a great tool to have in the mindful kit, and certainly most worthy of a share.

How To Practice

An example to demonstrate….

You enter the supermarket to do some grocery shopping. You’re in a hurry and just want to buy your stuff and get on with your day. You whip round and with your basket full you join the queue for the checkout. It’s a little longer than you’d like.

Now, instead of entering a state of ‘waiting’ and whatever that might normally bring up, (maybe a feeling of hurried restlessness and/or a compulsive urge to get your phone out and check some feed), you check yourself. You stop for a moment.

You take 3 deep breaths.
You bring your attention to the sensations in your body.
You observe them patiently until you reach the front of the line.

When you reach the cashier you’re more relaxed and focused, and go on with your day, happy to have taken the opportunity for a mindful moment.

Opportunity Is Everywhere

If you consider how many times you find yourself waiting, you’ll see how many opportunities there are for mindfulness:

• Any queue or line: shops, airports, banks, post offices etc.
• Stopping at a red light
• Something is downloading, buffering, loading, converting
• Coffee is brewing/tea steeping/water boiling
• Bus stop/tram station/train station platform

I’m sure you can think of many more.

Try to think of one now. What is something you often have to wait for? Think of how it would affect you if you slowed down every time.

Mental Reprogramming

To frequently and effectively use this in your life, it helps to mentally program yourself to associate waiting with this practice, so you catch those opportunities rather than missing them in a blur of hurried and unconscious thoughts (hey, we all do it).

To do this, first find a short phrase that is catchy for you. Some examples:
‘Waiting is breathing’
‘Waiting is slowing down’
‘Waiting is mindfulness’

Then once you have your phrase, drill it in. As if you were learning a new word or other behaviour; repetition repetition repetition.

Sit down for 5 minutes and meditate on it, repeating it like a mantra. Saying, over and over again, ‘waiting is breathing, waiting is breathing, waiting is breathing…’.

You can also write your phrase down and leave it somewhere you’ll see it a lot, like your desk or mirror (post its work!), whilst you train yourself to associate waiting with your practice.

Implement this in to your life and over time you’ll naturally become more patient in times when you’ve found yourself mentally (or loudly) saying ‘hurry up!’ Or ‘come oooon’. You know what I’m talking about

As with anything, it takes practice, so keep it up!

The post An Incredibly Simple & Effective Way To Practice Mindfulness Anywhere appeared first on Maps of the Mind.

There is dispute in the Buddhist community about the value of psychedelics ‘on the path’ and if you’re interested in the intersection of Buddhism and psychedelics, I highly recommend the book Zig Zag Zen. There are plenty of other articles on this topic, but today I’m just gonna share a bit of my story and how these two things have weaved their way into my life.

Discovering LSD

I first tried LSD as a curious guy keen for new experiences. As someone who enjoyed being creative, I was especially interested in new ways of thinking. I also wanted to have fun. I had little idea what I was in for when I put that little piece of paper in my mouth, but looking back, I now see those first experiences as pivotal in my life. Though they’ve affected me in many ways, one that stands out is how they lead me to meditation. At the time I had never tried meditating, nor had any real idea what it was, but if I had never tried LSD, I honestly doubt I’d have started meditating.

How Psychedelic Experience Lead Me To Meditation

On the tail end of my first LSD trips, I didn’t have any ‘comedown’. The post-trip chapter I experienced would more accurately be described as a serene, contemplative afterglow. After the ecstasy and madness of the peak, I descended to a more peaceful state which was in its own way, my favourite part of the whole experience. Though at the time I didn’t have any clear idea of what ‘meditation’ meant, I described the afterglow state to friends as meditative; my mind was sharp and clear and I was deeply reflective. I also noticed that my breathing naturally became long and slow. This tuning into the flow of my breath was a naturally induced meditation session.

When my friends and I didn’t naively first time candy flip on a Sunday and have to go to work the next day without getting a wink of sleep (see: my first time on acid – I started a new job that Monday – another story, another time), an ideal recovery day would be spent chilling with my fellow travellers. We’d order pizza, smoke joints and get comfortable on the sofas for a run of movies. After a long session, we were always physically exhausted, yet my mind was always energised. With this mental energy I’d wander philosophically through themes and ideas that came up in the films, conversation, music or anything else. As we watched movies I’d interpret them in all kinds of novel ways, see metaphors the writers and directors had put in, and understand concepts that I hadn’t considered before. I’d make notes in my journal about interesting ideas that came to mind and, of course, just generally enjoy hanging out. Relaxed but attentive, naturally contemplative, it was a taster for meditation.

In the wake of these experiences, my mind was clearer. I had a greater awareness and detachment of my thoughts. I felt wiser. I was looking at things from a greater perspective more often and more naturally, like that mental trick you do when something bad happens and you ask yourself “how much will this matter in 5, 10 or 20 years?”, or you zoom out on google maps to try and coerce the overview effect. I was thinking more creatively and seeing metaphors in almost everything, and my behaviour became less guided by fear and petty concerns. The effect was sudden and obvious, and lasted some months before beginning to fade and older mental habits and ways of being began to return.

I missed my newly found but now fading clarity and wisdom, but I’d experienced another way of being that I wouldn’t forget in a hurry. Following a wikipedia trail, I was lead from psychedelic drugs to non-ordinary forms of consciousness to meditation; a method of changing awareness, without substances. Though my access to psychedelic substances was gone, my newly whetted appetite for discovery remained, and I moved to Asia with a job teaching English.

From the UK to China

In my new home city of Shanghai, I started going to classes on meditation and reading books on the topic. Reading books about Buddhism felt like I was reading books about psychedelic experience, and in retrospect, they were some kind of integration texts. I began a daily meditation practice, and soon after went on my first silent retreat in 2012.

Temple stay in Korea

In the 6 years that have passed since, meditation practice has become a key foundation in my life. I’ve been back on other retreats and temple stays, was part of a Zen sangha in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh in Spain, and last year started a weekly meditation group in Berlin. Meditation is what a friend of mine would call a fundamental – others include exercise, diet, community and creative projects – and mindfulness is a skill I find applicable in so many situations of life. 

Like many others, my practice started with psychedelics. And while my first psychedelic journeys lead me to meditation, meditation has boomeranged back around and played its role in my psychedelic sessions. Today I’ll share one example.

How Meditation Helped On A Deep Journey

On a grey Saturday a couple years ago, alone in a friend’s house whilst he was away for the weekend, I took 250 micrograms of LSD. In the months before, I’d been reading various psychedelic-therapeutic protocols and had prepared accordingly for the session. I managed the anxiety of a turbulent come up by relaxing myself many times as I noticed myself getting anxious and tightening up, and directing my attention to my breathing. Around an hour in, as the lysergic waves really began to come on strong, I was lying down, looking up at the ceiling.

In one moment, a monster appeared above me. It was hovering over me, looking down at me from the ceiling. I was looking directly at its face, and it was looking right back at me, right into my eyes.

I was instinctively gripped by fear. My shoulders and rest of my body tightened up instantly as I stared in shock. The beast was of course not physically there, it was a manifestation of my fears, a representation of what scares me and had been avoided.

I held the monster’s gaze, took a deep breath in, and with a long exhale, relaxed my body, letting tension go. As I did this, the monster dissolved into harmless patterns right before my eyes. The visual information was in fact the same – the rich ceiling patterns that made up the monsters face were still there – but they no longer appeared scary or even as a being to me. What changed wasn’t the sensory information I was receiving, it was my perception of it. What made up the ‘monster’ was still there, I just saw it differently. I had a new perspective.

There were a few other moments leading up to this confrontation where I noticed myself getting anxious and tightening up, and I consciously relaxed my body. I see these as like smaller hurdles that once passed, allowed me to get to the point of this confrontation. The dissolution was like a jumping off point, and after this I dropped deep into ineffable experience.

The journey was deep and had many chapters: there were visions of a past life, alternate realities, and repressed emotions burst up and were released though uncontrollable bouts of sobbing. In the most profound chapter, it was a transpersonal experience; ‘I’ disappeared, along with time, and experience just happened.

I’ll share this story in more detail another time but for now I think its enough to say it was a significant experience that shifted something deep inside of me. The next day I felt lighter and clearer. I had more understanding and compassion. And my meditation practice was revived with a spark. I hadn’t been this affected since those very first journeys – the ones that spurred me on to meditation. I didn’t become a holy and all-understanding being overnight, but I inched in that direction. 

Reflecting on the session afterwards, I saw how techniques that I’d learnt in meditation helped me to relax, to let my guard down and open to the experience with lessened resistance. And this is why I recommend meditation to anyone considering a first psychedelic experience. Including you.

Thanks for reading.

The post Psychedelics and Meditation – How They’ve Informed Each Other On My Path appeared first on Maps of the Mind.

This is how I spent the first 45 minutes of today. And yesterday, and the day before, and well, you get the idea. I’ve been doing some version of this morning routine for the past couple years and though still sometimes difficult, I love starting the day like this. After an instagram post received some interest, I thought I’d write a little more on my morning routine and some tips on how to create, and do your own. This post contains everything from designing a routine to getting up early to some tips n’ tricks to overcome resistance.

My Morning Routine Reflects My Priorities

Each step in my morning routine reflects a priority, and by starting the day like this I get many small wins in before starting the day.

• • Physical health: Water, yoga, pushups, plank, cold shower.

• • Mental peace and clarity: Meditation, making bed.

• • Discipline, practice in surrender to discomfort: Cold shower

• • Focus: Meditation, reading.

• • Learning and knowledge: Reading

By starting the day like this – before the business of the day begins to give me excuses for why today isn’t the best day – I get a small practice in all of these areas. Even if I do nothing else for myself through the day, when I get into bed for the night, I sleep knowing that I did at least something for myself and my wellbeing.

Your priorities, and therefore morning routine, will probably be different. If you’re learning to play the guitar, maybe you’ll have 10 minutes practicing. If attention and focus is important to you, maybe you’ll do 20 minutes meditation. Getting in shape? More exercise. I’ve chosen long term goals or values and the morning has become a cornerstone for me.

Start Small

Now you might want to start your own morning routine. If you’re just starting on the morning routine journey, I’d suggest starting small and gradually stacking. V1.0 of my routine was just water and yoga. After some months I added a short meditation. Reading came in at the start of 2017. Pushups and cold shower last summer. Plank shortly after. It’s been a continued and evolving thing that started small and built from there.

Once you’ve designed your routine, you need to do it. Simple, but not easy. Here’s a few tips.

Remove Obstacles The Night Before

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
– Benjamin Franklin

To give myself the best chance of succeeding I remove as many obstacles as I can that stand between me and those actions. I do this before going to bed to make each action as easy and frictionless as possible on waking up. Some examples:

Put a glass of water next to my bed. On waking up I don’t need to go get a glass. Just drink. I also leave a full 1 litre bottle of water bedside so I can refill my glass as I drink through the routine.

Roll out the yoga mat. One less hurdle. Just position my phone, press play, and I’m off. When I was doing yoga on youtube, I would choose and load the video the night before and position my laptop at the front of the mat. All I needed to do was get on the mat and press play. I also lay my clothes ready.

Pre-decide number of pushups. I don’t waste time or energy thinking ‘how many pushups should I do today?’. I know I have to do 35, so I do 35 then move on. Simple. Sometimes I swap in pull-ups, squats or kettlebell swings for the plank but if I do, I decide this and the number the night before bed. This reduces decision fatigue.

Kindle/book on the page that I will read, on the desk next to where I meditate. After the meditation, I pick it up, swipe, read. No remembering where I left my book yesterday or finding my place. Again, making it as easy as possible.

Decide and write down the full routine. To be able to prepare like this I obviously need to know what I’ll be doing in advance. I take 30 seconds each night to write it down on a piece of paper. Again, no wasted time or energy thinking ‘what should I do next?’. I just follow the list.

This all takes me about 5 minutes before going to bed but makes everything go more smoothly and easily in the morning.

Getting Up Early

The first step to being able to do anything before work is getting up early enough. If you’re a serial snoozer like me you know very well that getting up just 20 minutes earlier than you need to can seem totally impossible. I’ve always struggled with getting up early but have found a few things that help me.

Alarmy (Android . Apple) This app has been a total game changer. Getting vertical is the hardest part of getting up for me, but once I’m on my feet the chances of me going back to sleep reduce massively. With alarmy, I have to get up and take a photo of a shampoo bottle in the bathroom to stop the alarm. I then take a pee, splash my face with water, chug some water, then head for the mat. On alarmy you can set your own photo based on how far from bed you need to go to be safe. There are other options like a barcode that you have to scan, or maths problems you have to solve, so you can pick what suits you. Another option is to just place your alarm clock on the other side of the room.

Go to bed early. Makes it a lot easier for obvious reasons. It also means that it’s harder for my sleepyhead morning self to kid me that “no but seriously, you’re really tired, you need more sleep. Just get another hour.” Fact is, I’m always sleepy when I wake up. But less so after a good night’s sleep. To help get a good night’s rest I have a digital sunset 1 hour before sleep and listen to a guided sleep meditation in bed.

You can nap later. Sometimes the lying voice that tells me I need more sleep is really convincing: “You need your energy for the day, you’ll just get tired later”. My response now is “fine, if I really get tired later, I’ll take a nap.” Of course, I hardly ever take the nap – the voice is just the sleepyhead in me craving the snuggle zone, a deceiver that has lured me into countless unnecessary lie ins over the years. 

Warm the room. Getting up early is so much harder in the winter than the summer because leaving that warm bed for the cold air outside is ungodly. Even if you make it out, the promise of returning to those snug warm sheets is so irresistibly appealing that you’ll probably hop back in and off to the land of Zs. So having a warm room helps. I currently close all windows at night to trap heat inside my room. In the summer, this can make it really hot but this actually helps spur me out of bed. Depending on your situation, you could try this or have the heating come on 30 mins before your alarm.

Start with yoga. Stretching first thing is a nice gentle way to wake me up so that by the time I’ve finished, there’s no danger of going back to bed.

No Regrets. Another one to combat the big snoozer voice in my head (its relentless and persistent). I remind myself that I have never regretted waking up early and doing the morning routine. Ever. Not once. Out of hundreds of times. I am always glad I did it. And while I do still enjoy lie ins, I prefer them to be the exception rather than the rule. When I have too many they become dirtied with guilt. Remember, you won’t regret it.

One Thing At A Time

Sometimes before I start those pushups I think “I can’t be bothered today. And then I’ve got to do the plank after. And then…” When I start to think like this I tell myself ‘just do the pushups, then you can decide on the plank after.’ Of course I finish the pushups, then do the plank.

Having the morning routine written down on paper helps here. When I get too much in my head, I look at the list, find where I am, and zero in on the next one thing. Not the list. The next one thing. I can always do one thing. Sometimes when 35 pushups seems like too much, I tell myself ‘just do 10 today’. Then after 10 I do 10 more. Then 10 more. Then 5 more. Breaking things down like this makes them more manageable and way more do-able.

Don’t Think. Just Do.

Sometimes the next one thing even seems like too much. When that’s the case, the voice of resistance instead changes to ‘I’m too tired for pushups today’. Override by just starting the action. If it’s really too hard I’ll find that out down there, by at least trying to do them.

Starting is the hard part. Once started, doing is easy.

Don’t get caught in a discussion with yourself about why you might need a break today – you’ve already planned out the whole thing the night before and have thought out reasons why you’re doing this. So what are you thinking about? All that’s left is to do. To do, start. So end the discussion, get down, and start doing pushups.

Reward At The End

It’s no coincidence that my routine ends with reading and coffee. They are my reward for completion, and damn do I enjoy that coffee.

Use Technology To Help

Sure, it might in some way be breeding a generation of people who can’t think for themselves and have no attention span, but technology isn’t all bad. It can be used for nobler purposes.

Alarmy is an example of using tech to help. I also use Down Dog for yoga, it gives different routines each time and has options from 10 minutes upwards. I’m not a yoga pro so I like having someone to follow. Before using down dog, I used to follow videos on Yoga With Adrienne (I started with her course 30 days of yoga).

The meditation is one on Aware (3, 4 & 5 minute meditations available) and there are other short ones you can use here and here. If losing weight or doing more exercise is a priority for you, use a Tabata timer to crush HIIT workouts, or follow lighter workouts on an app like Home Workout. Using apps helps to automate decisions – you don’t need to decide your workout routine or series of yoga postures, just follow. Whatever your aim, I’m sure there’s an app out there designed to help.

Mindfulness Rituals

I mentioned that mental peace and clarity were priorities that are factored in to my morning routine. So as well as the meditation, I use the shower and coffee as mindfulness rituals. More on this here:

Experiment, Adapt & Update

The idea of a morning routine might seem rigid, but I actually think flexibility is important.

Your ideal morning routine this month might not be the same as it is next month. As mentioned before, my routine has changed over the last couple years, and is still changing – next week I’m planning on trying out extending the morning meditation.

If I’m sharing a room with someone or working away and it’s difficult to do, I might strip it back to just water and yoga and follow the yoga with only audio using some headphones. Or even just find a spot where I can at least do some sun salutations. Point is, things change, so don’t be afraid to try out different things and adapt your routine to what’s going on in your life.

Book Recommendations

A few books with chapters that can be read in under 5 minutes. All go well with morning coffee.

The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living – Ryan Holiday
Wherever You Go, There You Are – Jon Kabat-Zin
The War Of Art – Steven Pressfield
Tao Te Ching – Lao Tzu
The Obstacle Is The Way – Ryan Holiday
The Dhammapada
Comfortable With Uncertainty – Pema Chödrön

Got good book recommendations? Comment with them below.

Good Luck!

I’m always interested to hear about others’ routines so feel free to share yours below or any tips you might have. Until then, make the most of your mornings!

The post My Morning Routine, And Tips On How To Create Your Own appeared first on Maps of the Mind.

Transforming Existing Habits

If you’ve read a bit about habit forming, you’ll already be familiar with the strategy of attaching new habits to existing ones. This is the basic idea here, but rather than attaching mindfulness to our habits, we’re actually going to be transforming the habits into mindfulness practices. This is an idea I came across a few years ago after reading Thich That Hanh (who seems like the most chill man alive), and has been hugely helpful in bringing present moment awareness from my meditation session to the rest of my day.

Creating Mindful Checkpoints & Triggers for Awareness

What we want to use are everyday habits that are spread throughout the day. This is to create a series of mindful checkpoints to keep us on course and develop consistency and continuity of practice. It’s easy to get swept up in the momentum of the day, becoming rushed and going from one task to the next without truly being present. Later, we come round when the day has come and gone, and realise we’ve only been “half-there”. We’ve been absently gliding through on autopilot, and we’ve missed much of the day without being sure where we’ve really been.

“Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Ferris Bueller

Mr. Bueller, a wise man

By transforming existing habits into mini-meditations, we can sprinkle mindful moments throughout the day, using our checkpoints as triggers for awareness, calling us back to the present moment, and giving us a chance to choose where we put our attention.

The Basic Method To Turning Any Action Into A Practice

Totally focus your attention on what you are doing in the present moment. When your mind wanders or you realise that you’ve begun thinking, just bring your attention back to what you are doing. Focus on the sensations you feel in your body, what you can see, what you can hear. Keep your attention tuned in to your activity as best you can.

5 Habits To Turn Into Mindfulness Practices

Here are 5 everyday habits turned mindfulness practices, complete with cheesy alliterated titles to help you remember them.

1. Awakening Ablution: The Sensual Shower

Listen to the sound of the splashing water. Notice how the water landing on your skin feels; the temperature and pressure. Take in the smell of your shower gel. As you dry yourself, feel the rub and the texture of the towel against each part of your body as you dry it, scanning your body for sensation.

Bonus: Cognizant Cold Shower
If you find that in the shower your mind easily wanders off elsewhere, flip it to cold and see how quickly you are back in the room! As your natural inclination to tighten up kicks in, relax your shoulders, and breathe deep. Surrender to the cold! As well as being effective at bringing you into the present moment, cold showers have numerous other benefits and are a good way to build discipline and practice embracing discomfort.

2. Conscious Coffee: The First Sip Of The Day

Wrap your hands round the mug and feel the warmth of the coffee permeating out against your fingers. Get your nose in there and yes, smell the coffee. Take that first sip like you’re on death row and chose coffee as your last drink – its the last sip of coffee you’re ever gonna take. Taste that goodness.

Alternative: The Taoist Tea
Not a coffee person? Do it with a tea, or whatever your morning drink is.

3. Savor The Flavor: Mindful Mouthful

Choose one meal or snack in your day and make the first bite a mindful mouthful. Before you start eating, stop to think about where all the ingredients have come from and their journey to your plate. Look at the colours of the food and take on how it smells. Then, chew the first mouthful at least 10 times, taking the time to pay attention to the texture and flavour of the food. Enjoy.

Bonus: Mindful Meal
If you’re feeling ambitious, make it a full mindful meal. This will work best with a meal that you eat alone. Before you start, put your phone on airplane mode and put it face down. This will help stop your flickering mind from finding a distraction from your food. And don’t worry, the world will go on just fine without you for the course of a meal. Then, repeat as above, but making each and every bite a mindful mouthful.

4. Tuned In Toothbrushing

Just before you’re about to put the toothbrush in your mouth, stop. Take a deep breath and relax your shoulders. Now switch hands and brush your teeth with your left hand (or if you’re a leftie, your right hand). This will feel a little weird but the awkwardness will help to coerce you into being present with the act and make a normally unconscious act conscious. Focus on the task of brushing.

Extra: Using your opposite hand can be applied to many everyday tasks and can apparently help increase creativity and grow your brain. Give it a go, try stirring drinks and putting your key in the door with the opposite hand.

5. Receptive Rest

This is for when you’re ready to get your sleep.

Lie on your back and feel the weight of your body on the bed. Rest your hands on your stomach and feel them rise as you inhale, and fall as you exhale. Now you’re breathing from your diaphragm, begin to make the exhale longer than your inhale.

• Breathe in for a count of 2
• Hold for 1
• Breathe out for a count of 4
• Hold for a count of 1

Continue this for a few minutes.

Adjust the 4-1-6-1 ratio as you like, the only rule is that your exhale should be longer than your inhale.

The tummy rise and fall is to make sure you’re breathing from your diaphragm (a relaxed form of breathing that occurs in mammals during a state of relaxation), and making your exhale longer than your inhale has a physiological effect that calms your body – your heart rate drops, blood vessels relax – perfect for bed.

And… a bonus 6th one, as it doesn’t strictly qualify as transforming a habit – it’s a classic habit-attach. Still, too good for me not to include…

6. Desk Downtime

Visit this website when you arrive at your desk (or before you get up from it). A surprisingly effective way to give yourself a 2 minute breather and tune back into the present. Try setting it as your homepage so its the first thing you see when you switch on.

Create Your Own

These are just examples, but you get the idea. Be creative and make your own checkpoints by transforming other daily habits into opportunities for awareness.

Implement The Practices. One by One.

Daily habits can potentially act as cornerstones to bring you back to presence throughout the days that make up your life, so it’s worth taking the time to implement them as mindfulness practices. It’d be easy to try and take them all on at once, fail, and then give up altogether. Instead, I’d recommend installing them one at a time.

Choose one, for example showering, and really target this window of your day to make it as mindful as possible. Have ‘sensual shower’ on your to-do list every day. Leave a note on the shower nozzle to remind you. Fully dedicate the shower to mindfulness. After a few weeks, it should become second nature and you won’t need to have it on your to-do list to remember doing it. Congratulations, you’ve successfully installed a trigger for a mindful habit (though you will still need to practice the mindfulness during the activity).

Whilst continuing with your sensual showers, choose the next habit to install. Let’s go for conscious coffee. Now go about it with the same amount of effort: Have it on your to-do list, leave a post-it on your coffee mug etc. Stack your mindfulness practices this way and in a few months you will have a series of mindful checkpoints throughout your day.

Monthly Challenges

To make a game of it, choose a calendar month and make a mindfulness challenge. For example, March is going to be sensual shower month: “Every single shower I take in March, I will pay attention to my senses.” By April, you’ll be ready for conscious coffee month: “I will take that moment to make the first sip of the day a conscious one.”

That’s it. Good luck. I wish you many more mindful moments!

The post Transforming Everyday Habits Into Mindfulness Practices (+ 5 Habits To Transform) appeared first on Maps of the Mind.

Meditation is on the rise. As it grows, so do the number of meditation apps and there are now so many available that I wouldn’t be surprised if you felt overwhelmed at the choice. Not an ideal way to start a journey to calm your mind. So on my quest to help anyone who wants to try, start or keep up meditation, I’ve tried out a selection of apps and compiled this list of the best ones (yes, I’ve been meditating a lot in the process).

Find One That Works For You

Some are simple timers, some have profiles and progress trackers, most have guided meditations. There are many different types and they will suit different needs. I suggest looking through to find one that appeals to you and then try it for a week or two. I’ve put a summary below each app so you can skim through. If you’re new to meditation I’d recommend starting with one that has an introductory course – info on these with the summary.

N.B. All of the apps in this list have at least some free material, whilst others are entirely free. I can’t comment on the paid versions or features of any of these apps, the info here is on the free versions.

Without further ado:

Insight Timer

The most popular completely free meditation app, insight is comprehensive and has a tonne of features. There are loads of guided meditations available, with and without music, even in numerous languages. You can of course use as many or as few features as you like (I typically only use the timer).  However, if you like extra features and think that tracking your progress or storing presets for different timed meditations would be useful, this one might suit. There are really too many features for me to include here, far more than I’ve ever used, the best way is to just download it and have a look round for yourself. You can create a user profile, add friends and send messages to other meditators. It is almost a bridge between a meditation app and a social networking site. I like that whenever you finish a meditation you are told how many people around the world meditated at the same time as you, and have an easy option to tell them ‘thanks for meditating with me’. Nice touch.

Summary:
– Totally free
– Comprehensive app
– Thousands of guided meditations with and without music, ambient music tracks.
– Customizable timer with options for reminder bells throughout.
– Personal profile; Track progress over sessions per day, and as well as logging your sessions, add friends & send messages.

Download: here

Headspace

When you start on Headspace you will be led through ‘Take 10’; an excellent free ten-day course for beginners with a ten minute guided meditation each day. Take 10 is perfect for beginners as it introduces the practice of meditation in a very accessible way and has a few short animations on some days which help to illustrate and explain some of the ideas and concepts behind meditation. The meditations are guided by British founder Andy Puddicombe and I found them to be very relaxing. After the 10 days are up you will be invited to subscribe. If you are new to meditation I would recommend doing the 10 days to learn the basics, and then decide if you want to pay subscription or go on to one of the other free apps to continue your practice.

Intro course: Take 10 – a ten-day course for beginners with a ten minute guided meditation each day.

Summary: Best free introductory 10-day course out there. Sadly nothing else in the free version.

Download: here

Calm

Slick app with a nice layout. When you start you will be led through ‘7 Days of Calm’, a week long course for beginners in which you can learn the basics of mindfulness meditation through a ten minute guided session each day. The course introduces ideas like awareness and working with thoughts, and teaches mindful breathing techniques, concentration, and how to recognize distraction. The free version is much more extensive than Headspace and after the intro course there are loads more meditations which come under headings of; body scan, loving kindness, calm light, and forgiveness. You can choose the length of the meditation with options between 3 and 30 minutes so you can find a meditation that’s suited for you. There is also a free sample collection of 10 minute sessions from the daily calm program that are based on themes like choice, resilience, gratitude, impermanence, and letting go. All the meditations are guided by an American female.

Intro course: 7 Days Of Calm – teaching the basics of mindfulness in a 10 minute guided meditation per day.

Summary: Slick app. Many features on free version. Good introductory 7 day course. Many different types of meditations at different lengths. Other features including profile for tracking stats and streak, daily meditation reminder, and simple timer for a timed or open-ended unguided meditation.

Download: here

Zazen Meditation Timer

Super basic meditation timer that I like because of its simplicity. When you open the app you all you need to do is press ‘Start Meditation’ and you will get a 5 second countdown before a bell rings to start a 10 minute meditation. Another bell will signify the end. That’s it! Perfect for a no-fuss way to have 10 minutes in silence.

If you want more or less than 10 minutes, you can enter the settings and change the length of the practice.

Summary: No-thrills timer for a silent meditation. Default is 10 minutes but time of meditation changeable.

Download: here

Aware

Aware has a 21-day course which will build you from 10 minutes a day to 20. The first week is free and each is 10 minutes. The sessions are similar to headspace but without animations and led by an Indian rather than a British male. What I like about Aware is the ‘energizers’ – short 3-5 minute meditations that you can slip into your day. I’ve been setting an alarm around 1pm everyday to do one of these and it always seems to catch me when I’m starting to feel rushed. After the short meditation I always feel calmer and more relaxed. The benefit of these shorter ones are that they’re too short to say no. If it was a 10 minute meditation I’d be tempted to skip it but I can always find 3 minutes. Even though its short it halts the momentum of my thinking mind long enough for me to feel a difference to my mood.

Intro course: Free first 7 days of introductory course. 10 minutes per day. Similar to headspace.

Summary: Good ‘energizers’ which are 3-5 minute meditations. Good for slipping into busy schedules.

Download: here

Stop, Breathe & Think

OK so this is number 6 – I’ve added this on as an update to the article because I’ve been using it recently and think it deserves a mention.

When you open Stop, Breath & Think you’ll be prompted to close your eyes for 10 seconds and check in with how you’re feeling mentally and physically, and then input what you’re feeling and your emotions. Based on this, you’ll be given suggestions of two or three different types of meditations, and after choosing one, you can then choose the length. Alternatively, if you know what type of meditation you’re after, you can just choose it straight off the bat. Nice variety and another good option.

Summary: Sleek app. Many different types of meditation at different lengths. Nice check-in feature before you start a meditation.

Download: here

Good Luck!

Hope you find one that can help you build a regular meditation habit, as I genuinely believe it is one of the best things you can do for yourself. Good luck!

Did I miss any great apps? Let me know and leave a comment below.

The post 5 Best Meditation Apps for Android appeared first on Maps of the Mind.

The other day I stumbled upon this short video which begins with an interviewer saying to Bill Murray:

“Tell me what it is that you want that you don’t have.”

His answer is surprising and meaningful. I’ve long been a huge fan of Murray as a comedy actor (who isn’t?) and I was pleasantly surprised to hear him talking about the power of mindfulness and being present. I won’t speak for him so I’ll say no more on his intriguing answer, you can see for yourself.

– If you can’t watch the video I’ve posted some quotes below.

• N.B. The volume is low on this video so you’ll probably want to crank it up a little.

Without using the word mindfulness, Bill is clearly aware of the benefits of raising your consciousness and being more aware and present, and I hope someone recommends him to start meditating. If anyone knows Bill please send him over to my page – Why You Should Start Meditating Today

Quotes

‘Are you here? And most of the time you’re not’

‘That’s not me there, that’s what I’m doing now, but that’s not necessarily me’

‘I’d like to just be more here all the time and I’d like to see what I could get done, what I could really do, if I were able to not get distracted, to not change channels in my mind and body – so I’m my own channel, really here, and always with you. You could look at me and go ‘OK he’s there, there’s someone there…”

‘This is not a dress rehearsal, this is your life’

‘You kill a man, you kill every opportunity he ever had’

‘It resonated, it rang a bell inside of me, a bell that rings a lot that says “Remember Bill, come back, remember, remember. This is your life, this is the only one you’ve got”‘

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – 

Do you know of any other famous people speaking about meditation or mindfulness? We’d love to share it too, send us a message or leave a comment!

The post Bill Murray Talks Deeply On The Power Of Mindfulness appeared first on Maps of the Mind.