In this meditation guide, you’ll learn the ins and outs of mindfulness meditation, how to implement it in your own life, as well as the many benefits that you can expect to accrue once you start practicing it consistently. However, before we get started, I have a few questions for you.
Have you ever taken a step back and objectively observed the contents of your thoughts? Have you ever noticed when you’re thinking and when you’re not thinking? Do you find yourself often daydreaming, completely lost in the contents of your thoughts, unsure as to how mindfulness meditation works?
Is your mind often still, resilient, at peace with that which you cannot control, and therefore anchored in the present moment, unhinged from thoughts about the past or the future? Or is your mind on the opposite end of the spectrum?
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Perhaps you find that you immediately start talking to yourself the moment your alarm goes off in the morning. Such mental chatter may be, “Ugh, time to get up and get ready for work. I’m so sleepy. I wish I could just call in sick today. I hope Ashley isn’t working with me. God knows I don’t need to deal with her again today. Why is it so cold in this house? Okay, I’m up. Damn, I have to piss bad.”
For most of us, such idle conversations with oneself occurs on a near constant basis without us ever being consciously aware of it. Most of us wake up talking to ourselves all day long until we finally talk ourselves to sleep at the day’s end. If you think you’re impervious to such mindlessness, then I encourage you to sit back and see how long it takes before a thought pops into your mind.
Suffice to say you’ll be surprised as to how often you catch yourself thinking and talking to yourself, albeit a single image, a single word, or an entire conversation. For most of us, we cannot go very long without thinking about something.
In fact, to go even a solid hour without becoming lost in thought would put you in the same class as some of the most adept yogis and mindfulness meditation experts who have ever lived. For a great number of us, when we observe the contents of our minds, we quickly realize how challenging it is to simply focus on the present – that is, to not be lost in thought.
Thus, the importance of knowing how to meditate comes in.
How long do you think you can go without thinking a thought or without talking to yourself? Do you think you can remain anchored in the present moment for 60 uninterrupted seconds? How about for 10 minutes? To truly understand how difficult this experiment really is, I implore you to try it out for yourself.
You may be asking yourself, “What is so bad about thinking?” Well, there isn’t anything wrong with thinking itself, obviously. However, thinking does become a problem when we become completely lost in thought – that is, when we’re thinking without being consciously aware that we’re thinking. This is akin to daydreaming or having your brain on “auto-pilot.” Knowing how to meditate can alleviate this trance.
For example, you may be watching your favorite movie, but as you’re watching it and therefore devoting a portion of your attention to it, you’re also arbitrarily thinking about all the errands you have to run tomorrow, that argument you had with your spouse the other day, those new shoes you want to buy, and what you’re going to eat for dinner after the movie is over.
The content of such idle mental chatter is not necessarily the problem. Rather, it is the idle mental chatter itself that is the problem. Knowing exactly how to meditate can help you reduce this sort of self-talk.
When our mind is left untamed – that is, when we do not make active efforts to remain grounded in the present moment (aka mindfulness meditation), we tend to find ourselves either living in the past by dwelling on past regrets or we may live in the future by dwelling on moments or situations that have not yet happened but that make us anxious.
One of the main problems with not knowing how to meditate and being lost in thought (or daydreaming) is that our thoughts often carry with them the baggage of unwanted emotions, such as fear, envy, anger, shame, and guilt. For most of us, we have deadlines to meet, bills that need to be paid, relationships that need to be tended to, desires that need to be either fulfilled or tamed, and much more.
Our complex lives often leave us constantly thinking of ways to fix our many problems so to improve the status quo of our lives. For most people, such willful behavior will do nothing but enhance their mental suffering and decrease their equanimity. And for those of us who are anxious, our worry thoughts appear to never end.
The more anxious we are, the more worry thoughts we dwell on. This is a vicious cycle that I have found myself in on countless occasions. Before I ever knew what mindfulness meditation was, let alone how to meditate, I did the only thing that made sense to me, which was to think more and more about my problems so to try and figure out a way to fix them. After all, not thinking about them seemed like an unproductive use of my time and made me feel like I was being lazy.
For someone with a highly anxious mind, the arduous effort I put forth to thwart my suffering did nothing but increase my misery. Mindfulness meditation or contemplative practice as it’s also sometimes referred to as can help you to regulate your emotions to a degree in which you may have once thought was impossible. I hope you take relief in knowing that the more you practice being mindful or being in the present moment, and therefore learning how to meditate, the more adept you will be at coping with and relieving your anxiety.
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Learning the BASICS of Mindfulness Meditation
Fortunately for us in the West, mindfulness meditation is no longer an esoteric skill used only by enlightened yogis and monks in the Eastern part of the world. In fact, virtually anyone can learn how to meditate!
It has seeped into the mainstream with prodigious results for those suffering from anxiety and stress. One of the most common ways to use mindfulness meditation is to sit down in a quiet room, close your eyes, and redirect your attention to nothing more than the sensations involved in breathing. However, to do this we will need to create a space for meditation.
You can use mindfulness meditation by focusing on the way it feels as your chest rises and falls with each passing breath, noticing the temperature of the cool air entering your nostrils and the warm air existing them, or simply following the breath as it makes its journey through your nose, filling your lungs, only to then be expelled seconds later. This practice can be done for 5 mins, 10 mins, 30 mins, an hour, or longer.
Using mindfulness meditation in the way I have just described is very important for training the mind when stress is present. It is in these moments where you are strengthening the resiliency of your mind so that when you are actually in an anxiety provoking situation, you will be much more adept at coping with the stress associated with it.
Although there are many benefits to be obtained by such isolated, silent meditation, the true beauty of mindfulness meditation is that it does not require you to be confined to a chair for 30 minutes at a time.
The magic truly happens when you use these mindfulness meditation skills during stressful situations via the use of your 5 major senses: touch, hearing, sight, taste, and smell. Doing this is one of the best ways on how to meditate.
It is through these senses that you are able to observe the world around you and it is these observations that will allow you to be anchored into the present moment, free from being lost in thought. Before I explain how to meditate via your senses with mindfulness meditation, I will first talk about the vital importance of being nonjudgmental or objective during your mindfulness meditation practice.
It doesn’t matter how trivial the object of attention is, whether it be mindfully noticing the points of contact as your body rests in a chair or the way your chest rises and falls with each passing breath, judging your experience as “good” or “bad” is the best way to ensure that your mind will go down the rabbit hole of discursive thought, only to prolong your suffering, regardless of how miniscule that suffering may be. Why is this the case?
Well, when we make a judgement about something, that judgement is almost always followed by thoughts that reinforce the judgement made. This means that more and more judgments will follow the initial one. Such mental chatter often occurs with the lights off, meaning that it occurs unconsciously without your conscious awareness.
This is what it is like to be lost in thought, trapped in a mind-loop where one judgmental thought feeds off of the previous one in a near never ending cycle that usually ends with you thinking of something that had absolutely nothing to do with the initial thought. These judgmental thoughts carry with them a great deal of emotional baggage.
This emotional baggage can be stifled by knowing how to meditate by using your 5 main senses.
Unwanted emotions such as anger, shame, and jealousy, are but a few of many other emotions that are infamously known to arise when someone is making a judgement about oneself or of another person.
Although being judgmental is clearly an inexorable characteristic of human beings – regardless of how sanctimonious some people are when they claim to never be judgmental – we can still do our best to be consciously aware when we are being judgmental so that we can then go back to observing our point of focus objectively, not subjectively.
This is exactly the course of action you should take when you do inevitably judge some aspect of your mindfulness meditation. I say inevitably because it is in our nature to do this, and that’s okay.
When you’re practicing mindfulness meditation and you notice that you’re judging some aspect of your practice, realize that the moments in which that conversation with yourself is occurring – that is, when judgmental ideas and images arise in thought – you are no longer being mindful.
The instant you break concentration from your point of focus when using mindfulness meditation is the moment you enter into the realm of idle chit chat with you as the sole interlocutor.
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How to Meditate Using Your Sense of TOUCH
Although our sense of touch is one of our most important senses, we often fail to recognize how useful a tool it is at helping us to remain anchored in the present moment. Using this sense is one of my favorite ways on how to meditate.
For example, as I type the words you’re now reading in this sentence, I am consciously aware of the many sensations I feel on each of my 10 fingertips as each one presses on the various keys on my laptop. This is a perfect example of using mindfulness meditation via your sense of touch to remain present.
To know how to meditate by using your sense of touch, you need only direct your attention to a specific point of focus. This can be focusing on the sensations of the soles of your feet as you walk, or it can be noticing the weight of a glass as you drink from it. Being aware of such trivial things means that you are experiencing the physical world around you with undivided attention.
The antithesis of this would be you walking or drinking from a glass while being completely lost in thought about how you wish you had a different job, how you wish you would have treated your ex better, or some other arbitrary desire or regret.
When we are in such a mindless state of mind, we miss out on the experiences that occur in the here and now. Sure, we may be physically there, but we are often not psychologically there. Using your sense of touch is one of the most effective ways at helping you to be present and therefore helping you to relieve any unnecessary anxiety that you would have otherwise experienced.
Some other examples of ways you can use mindfulness meditation by way of using your sense of touch is to notice the points of contact as you sit down in a chair. While sitting, nonjudgmentally redirect your attention to the way the soles of your feet feel as they make contact with the floor.
Notice the way your thighs and buttocks feel as gravity pulls your body downward into the chair. When you are practicing mindfulness meditation in this way, there is absolutely no room whatsoever for fear thoughts to be entertained.
You only have so much attention to give, and if your attention is completely fixated on your tactile senses, then there won’t be any additional space left in your mind to be attentive to worry thoughts. This is one of the most important realizations of knowing how to meditate.
Sure, thoughts may arbitrarily pop in and out of your mind during your mindfulness meditation practice, but such occurrences are inevitable. It is only when we become lost in thought – that is, when we are thinking without being aware that we are thinking – when we open the flood gates to experiencing an influx of unwanted emotions, such as fear, anger, and shame.
You can use your sense of touch to increase your equanimity in what appears to be in an infinite amount of ways, such as by noticing the way it feels as you grip the steering wheel when driving or by making a conscious effort to notice the way your skin feels as the warm water in the shower makes contact with it. There truly is an exorbitant amount of ways you can use your sense of touch to help you remain present and to further improve your mindfulness meditation practice.
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How to Meditate Using Your Sense of HEARING
Our sense of hearing is another very important sense that we often take for granted and one that is key for learning how to meditate. We often drown out most of the sounds around us in any given situation as our thoughts, ideas, and emotions oftentimes steal away our attention. This truly is a shame because by doing so, we are missing out on untapped reservoirs of equanimity.
Unless you are in a soundproof room, you will not have an issue finding sounds around you to redirect your attention to. It is also pertinent to note that using your sense of hearing for mindfulness meditation purposes does not require nor does it encourage you to actively seek out sounds around you.
Instead, you should simply take on the role of “the observer of sounds.” Simply sit back and nonjudgmentally observe the many sounds in your environment, from loud to faint. This is one of the best ways on how to meditate by using your sense of hearing.
One of the simplest sounds you can use to redirect your attention can be the sound of air as it passes in and out of your nostrils when breathing. This subtle noise is a perfect point of focus for you to devote your full undivided attention to as it will exist for as long as you yourself will exist.
Retrospectively, upon practicing this for yourself, you will notice that in the moments you were truly attentive to the sounds made during breathing, emotions like anxiety, guilt, and anger were completely absent.
Other sounds with which you can use as mindfulness meditation tools can be the sounds made during busy traffic, the background noise of commerce as you sit down for a cup of coffee at your local coffee shop, the sound of the wind as it combs through the trees, birds chirping, raindrops falling on the ground, music playing, food sizzling as it cooks, and so on ad infinitum.
When you walk outside and decide you are going to do your absolute best to use your sense of hearing to be mindful, it truly is a remarkable experience to have as you become aware of sounds that you were not aware even existed.
Instead of trying to stop thoughts from occurring, which is impossible, you are instead encouraged to redirect your attention away from your worry thoughts toward something that does not have any emotional baggage attached to it, such as nonjudgmentally observing the sounds around you in your environment. This is how to meditate by using your sense of hearing.
How to Meditate Using Your Sense of SIGHT
Your sense of sight may be one of the more obvious senses that you can use to help you remain present when using mindfulness meditation. Be that as it may, we often do not think about using our sense of sight to help anchor us into the present moment. Why is this the case?
It may be because we are often trapped in the habit of describing to ourselves whatever it is we are looking at with a sort of vacuous automaticity. Such descriptions that we tell ourselves are usually laced with judgements of some sort, albeit good or bad ones.
For example, we may see a puppy at the park and automatically think to ourselves, “How adorable! Look at the little guy. He looks so happy just playing in the grass. What life must be like to be so carefree and mirthful. I sure do wish I had a dog. I know I can’t afford it though. Ugh, when will I ever get a break?” This is a perfect example of how thinking “happy thoughts” can often go awry.
Sure, not all of our thoughts will end up in a dark place, but for most of us, we are in a constant state of deep desire to improve the status quo of our lives. Such deep inclinations will often arise in thought merely as a consequence of the intense emotions that are associated with those desires, as well as the sheer repetition with which we so often remind ourselves of our many flaws and shortcomings.
With regards to the foregoing example, it would be much more productive to simply observe the puppy in an objective and nonjudgmental way. You can do this by simply observing the many colors on the dog’s coat, the behaviors it’s exhibiting as it plays, and the shapes of its body as it moves from one angle to the next from your perspective.
This is a great way on how to meditate for beginners by using your sense of sight!
If you don’t feel comfortable doing something like this, then rest assure there are countless other things you can redirect your attention toward in private to help you relieve anxiety and stress by using your sense of sight.
One of the best ways to practice using your sense of sight for the sake of mindfulness meditation is to nonjudgmentally observe a photograph. The point of focus can be a large framed picture on a wall, a picture in a magazine, or a picture on your phone. The source doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you find a visual that you can focus on.
To start such a practice, find a quiet room and a chair to sit in with a picture you’d wish to meditate on. Remember to remain nonjudgmental as you observe the many colors, textures, shapes, and images in the photo. Try tracing certain shapes with your eyes and notice how certain colors dissipate into other colors.
If you find your mind wandering during your practice, that’s okay. This will happen, regardless of how adept you are at knowing how to meditate. When it does happen, just gently go back to observing the picture in front of you.
The next time you find yourself in a stressful situation, try using your sense of sight to lock onto an object with which to devote your attention to. While observing the object nonjudgmentally, it will allow your anxiety to dissipate as your attention will not be spent on dwelling on irrational fear thoughts, but rather it will be focused on observing the object, whatever that may be.
This is useful because when looking at physical objects nonjudgmentally, there is absolutely no emotional baggage attached to them, unlike our thoughts, which carry with them an army of unwanted emotions and unpleasant feelings. Knowing how to meditate via your sense of sight can help to alleviate this psychological distress.
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How to Meditate Using Your Sense of TASTE
Eating delicious foods is one of the most pleasurable experiences in life as it is often associated with feelings of joy and contentment. When taken to the extreme, however, we become gluttons, often using food as a way to ease the pain and struggles associated with life.
However, when we decide to no longer be mindless drones when we chomp away during lunch by knowing how to meditate and eating mindfully, we allow ourselves to truly be in the present moment.
Many of you may feel as though you have absolutely no problem whatsoever with tasting your food or enjoying the experience of eating. This is not the point. Rather, I’m professing that by redirecting your full undivided attention to the way your food tastes and feels as you eat, it will allow you to enter into a state of equanimity that simply cannot exist when eating mindlessly, or unconsciously.
This is because when we sit down and eat a meal, the background mental chatter radiating from the corners of our mind does not stop. We continue to think and think about one trivial thing after another ad nauseum.
Sure, there may be moments that last a second or two when our attention is completely captivated by the pleasure we’re experiencing from the flavors in the food we’re eating. However, the problem here is that the moment when our attention is no longer fixated on the way our food tastes, we go right back to thinking again, thinking about problems, deadlines, and desires.
This transition takes no effort on our part as it happens unconsciously with near instant automaticity. Even if we’re eating the most delicious food we’ve ever eaten in our entire lives, we will only experience a scintilla of the equanimity that such a food can procure for us because we simply cannot stop thinking and thinking.
If you’re convinced that the acquisition of such a mindfulness meditation skill is simply not worth your trouble, that you need not learn how to meditate by using your sense of taste, or that I’m putting forth a solution to a non-problem, then I encourage you to try the following exercise when you have your next meal:
From the moment you take your first bite of food until the second you swallow your last bite, pay close attention to the state of your mind and what your attention is focused on. See how long it takes you before you have a thought or before you become completely lost in thought.
Do you think you can go one entire bite of food without having a single thought? How about two bites? Even when you try your absolute best to remain completely attentive to the flavors and textures of your food, you will eventually become completely lost in thought about things that have occurred in the past or about things that have not yet happened in the future.
How to Meditate Using Your Sense of SMELL
Your sense of smell may be the least important sense you have, and I will admit that I do not often use it as a mindfulness meditation tool. This is not because I don’t know how to meditate by using my sense of smell, but rather it’s because I much prefer to use my tactile and auditory senses as I find it much easier to be mindful when using them, as opposed to other senses.
This is just my own personal preference, so don’t let this scare you away from using your sense of smell when using mindfulness meditation to remain present. The point of focus with which you can devote your attention to while using your sense of smell can be anything that gives off an aroma.
Axiomatically, you would not want to subject yourself to an offensive odor, as this would almost immediately cause you to react to it in a judgmental way. And as I already touched upon, being judgmental is one of absolute best ways to sabotage any chances you may have at truly being in the present moment.
So, while remaining nonjudgmental to the best of your ability, you can use a lit candle or a warm meal as the point of focus with which to direct your attention toward. Regardless of whatever aroma you decide to observe, the way in which you will go about it will not change.
All that is required of you to reap the benefits of this mindfulness meditation practice is to take notice and become interested in the unique aromas you experience. Simply observe whatever it is that you smell without judging it as being “good” or “bad.”
Some other examples of objects that have strong aromas with which you can use mindfulness meditation via your sense of smell to reduce anxiety are flowers, perfume, freshly cut grass, the beach, leather, or coffee. Nonjudgmentally observing the aromas given off by any one of those things can allow you to truly be in the present moment and therefore help to reduce your anxiety tenfold.
And there you have it! You now know how to meditate by using your 5 main senses.
Final Thoughts
Although using one sense at a time is very useful during mindfulness meditation, it is often much more useful to use multiple senses at once. One of the easiest ways you can utilize all 5 of your main senses to be mindful is when you’re eating.
For example, you can use your sense of taste to observe the many flavors in each bite, your sense of smell to notice the aroma the food gives off, your sense of touch by either holding the food in your hands as you take a bite or by noticing the textures in your mouth as you chew, your sense of sound (i.e. is your food crunchy?), and your sense of sight to observe the colors and shapes of the food.
This may be a more advanced way on how to meditate for some people. So, it may be best to start off meditating by using only one sense in the beginning. Then, as you become more adept on how to meditate, you can progress to using multiple sense at once.
Another useful way to use mindfulness meditation by way of using multiple senses is to go for a walk at the park. Here, you can use your sense of smell to notice the aroma of all of the plant-life surrounding you, your sense of touch as you notice the points of contact at the bottom of your feet as you take each step from your heels to your toes, your sense of sound as you hear the tree’s rustling in the wind or nearby birds signing, and your sense of sight as you notice the bright colors of green and blue, the glimmering of a pond nearby, or any wildlife that catches your eye.
Upon reading this article, you may have noticed that I have made it a point to occasionally remind you that you indeed will eventually fail when attempting to remain mindful. So, I will succinctly address a handful of concerns you may be having as a result of that sentiment. Perhaps some of you are inclined to ask me, “Well, if it is inevitable that we will become lost in thought even if we try our hardest to be mindful, then what is the point of even trying?”
My answer to this would be that the point of mindfulness meditation is not to stop thoughts or to stop you from thinking about things. It is instead a skill that can help you to more easily extinguish mindless chit chat with yourself so that you can better experience life in the present moment. A consequence of this is less anxiety and more equanimity.
When we decide each day to make an active effort to not dwell on the past or to not excessively worry about the future, but to instead live in the present moment, then we allow ourselves to experience the peace of mind and stillness that we so deeply desire. Yes, you will eventually become lost in thought when you practice mindfulness meditation.
However, the more you practice being mindful and become more adept at how to meditate, the quicker you will be at noticing when you are lost in thought and the more adept you will be at remaining mindful for longer periods of time.
All that we have and all that we can ever be sure to have is what we can observe in the present moment. We cannot change the past, nor do we know what the future has in store for us. With this being said, spending hours upon hours of brain power anxiously trying to solve problems that may not ever occur is not a productive or healthy use of your time and energy.
With that being said, I understand that constantly worrying about future events may seem like you’re taking an active step at improving the status quo of your life, but there comes a time during such introspection when you are no longer being productive but are instead being willful.
As we think and think and think about our problems all throughout the day, it musters up emotions such as frustration, anger, shame, and guilt. When we’re in a state of high emotionality, our ability to think logically is significantly undermined.
The longer we spend thinking about our many issues and concerns, the more emotional we tend to get, leaving us less equipped at coming to sound productive resolutions to our many complicated problems. It is only when our mind is still, calm, and resilient, when we can adeptly resolve our many problems in life.
I’m not saying that emotions should never be a factor in decision making as they clearly have strong benefits, but rather I’m saying that when it comes to solving life’s problems and making big decisions, the less impulsive, neurotic, and high strung we are the better we will be at coming to sound reasonable conclusions.
Congrats, you now know how to meditate! Good luck on your journey and remember that practice makes perfect.
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