How to Meditate Effectively

The following article, which was originally published on WikiHow, is the product of a collaborative effort by over 535 people. According to the tally at the end of the original article, it has been viewed over a million times. Of course, the last person to edit a wiki is the one whose comment will show up until the next one comes along. But WikiHow has several volunteers who regularly patrol their sites to correct I have been watching this article carefully for the past three years, and the quality appears to be not only intact but continually improving.

By comparing it with the preceding Best Me Technique article and the more conventional self-hypnosis article, you can get a better idea of which type of procedure is most appealing to you.

How to Meditate

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Meditation is a mental discipline by which one attempts to get beyond the conditioned, "thinking" mind into a deeper state of relaxation or awareness. There are many different meditation methods.
At the core of meditation is the goal to focus and eventually quiet your mind. As you progress, you will find that you can meditate anywhere and at any time, accessing an inner calm no matter what's going on around you. You will also find that you can better control your reactions to things as you become increasingly aware of your thoughts (letting go of anger, for example). But first, you have to learn to tame your mind.

Steps

1. Make time to meditate. Set aside enough time in your daily routine for meditating. The effects of meditation are most noticeable when you do it regularly and consistently rather than sporadically.
   
   • Some people will find a five minute meditation worthwhile, for others, the benefits of longer meditation are well worth the time.
     
   • You can meditate at any time of day; some people like to start their day off with meditation, others like to end the day by clearing their mind, and some prefer to find refuge in meditation in the middle of a busy day. Generally, however, the easiest time to meditate is in the morning, before the day tires your body out and gives your mind more to think about.
     
   • Don't meditate immediately following a meal, or when you are likely to be hungry. The body's digestive system can be very distracting.
     
2. Find or create a quiet, relaxing environment. It's especially important, when you're starting out, to avoid any obstacles to attention. Turn off any TV sets, phone(s) or other noisy appliances. If you play music, make sure it's calm, repetitive and gentle, so as not to break your concentration. Meditating outside can be conducive, as long as you don't sit near a busy roadway or another source of loud noise.
   
3. Sit on level ground. Sit on a cushion if the ground is uncomfortable. You don't have to twist your limbs into the half lotus or full lotus position or adopt any unusual postures. The important thing is to keep your back straight, as this will help with breathing later on.
   
   • Tilt your pelvis forward by sitting on the forward edge of a thick cushion, or on a chair that has its back legs lifted off the ground 8 to 10 cm (3 or 4 inches).
     
   • Starting from your bottom, stack up the vertebrae in your spine, so that they are balanced one on top of another and support the whole weight of your torso, neck, and head. Done correctly, it feels as if no effort is required to hold your torso up. (A small amount of effort is in fact required, but with the right posture, it is so small and evenly distributed you don't notice it.)
     
   • Relax your arms and legs. They don't need to be in any special position, just as long as they are relaxed and don't interfere with balancing your torso. You can put your hands on your thighs, but it might be easier at first to let your arms hang at your sides - the hanging weight helps reveal where things are out of alignment.
     
4. Relax everything, and keep searching for things that aren't relaxed. When you find them, (and you will), relax them. You may find that you can't relax them unless you adjust your posture so that you are better aligned, and that place doesn't need to work anymore. This commonly happens with muscles near your spine. You may also notice that you are twisted a little and need to straighten out. Little muscles in your face often keep getting tense, too.
5. Let your attention rest on the flow of your breath. Listen to it, follow it, but make no judgments on it (such as "It sounds a little raspy...maybe I'm getting a cold?"). The goal is to allow the "chattering" in your mind to gradually fade away. Find an "anchor" to settle your mind.
   
   • Try reciting a mantra (repetition of a sacred word) A single word like "aum" uttered at a steady rhythm is best. You can recite it verbally or just with the voice in your mind. Beginners may find it easier to count their breaths. Try counting your breath from 1 to 10, then simply start again at 1.
     
   • To circumvent images that keep intruding on your thoughts, visualize a place that calms you. It can be real or imaginary. Imagine you are at the top of a staircase leading to a peaceful place. Count your way down the steps until you are peaceful and relaxed.
     
6. Silence your mind. Once you've trained your mind to focus on just one thing at a time, the next step is focus on nothing at all, essentially "clearing" your mind. This requires tremendous discipline but is the pinnacle of meditation. After focusing on a single point as described in the previous step, you can either cast it away, or observe it impartially and let it come and then go, without labeling it as "good" or "bad". Take the same approach to any thoughts which return to your mind until silence perseveres.
   

Tips

• For some people, focusing attention on a point or object does exactly the opposite of what meditation is all about. It takes you back to the life of focus, concentration, strain. In this case, as an alternative to the above techniques, some meditators recommend un-focusing your attention. Instead of focusing attention on a point or an object, this type of meditation is achieved by attaining a state of zero. Take your attention above all thoughts to a point where you lose all attention and all thoughts.
  
• What you do with a silent mind is up to you. Some people find that it is a good time to introduce an intention or a desired outcome to the subconscious mind. Others prefer to "rest" in the rare silence that meditation offers.
  
• You should be comfortable enough to concentrate, but not so comfortable that you feel the urge to fall asleep.
  
• Make some effort to be mindful of your mood and thoughts when not meditating. You may notice that you feel calmer, happier, and sharper on days when you have meditated, and notice a decrease in these qualities when you have not.
  
• It may be beneficial to mentally review or replay the previous day at the start of your sessions, if you can do so in a relaxed, passive way. This often happens naturally, and sometimes it's best to allow this to happen, as long as you don't get emotionally wrapped up or let it go on too long before beginning meditation. This procedure is known as "processing" of recent events, and becoming skilled at performing a non-judgmental review of events does much to increase awareness and emotional well-being.
  
• The benefits of meditation can be experienced long before the practitioner has been successful in maintaining focus or clearing the mind, simply as a result of the practice.
  
• Set aside a specific time each day for meditation, but don't overdo it. If 20-30 minutes in the morning isn't enough, add another session later in the day instead of trying for a single, longer session.
  
• It is easy to lose track of time while meditating. Being concerned about time can be distracting to meditation. Some people find it liberating to set a timer and let it be concerned about how long you have to meditate. Choose a gentle timer. If it is too jarring, the anticipation of the alarm can be distracting also.
  
• With good posture, it will be easier to breathe as your lungs will have more space. In fact, you may notice how most of the muscles in your torso work to help you breathe, from the muscles in the base of your pelvis to the ones in your neck, centered on the main breathing muscle, the diaphragm. They work just a little, assisting the diaphragm. If you notice this, it's a good sign you have established a good posture. The right posture is easy and comfortable. You almost feel like you are floating.
  
• Do what works best for you. What works for some people might have other techniques that might not work for you. Don't let that get you down.
  

Warnings

• Don't expect immediate results. The purpose of meditation is not to turn you into a Zen master overnight. Meditation works best when it is done for its own sake, without becoming attached to results.
  
• If you find your mind is wandering, try not to scold or beat up on yourself about it. Wandering restlessly is the normal state of the conditioned mind. This is the first lesson many people learn in meditation and it is a valuable one. Simply, gently, invite your attention back to your breath, remembering that you've just had a small but precious "awakening." Becoming aware of your wandering mind is a success, not a failure.
  
• Some people find it's difficult to meditate immediately before bedtime. If you're very sleepy, you may find yourself nodding off. Conversely, meditating may energize your mind, making it more difficult to fall asleep.
  
• As you meet other people who meditate, you may encounter a few who will boast about their endurance for long meditation sessions, even hours and hours at a sitting. Don't be tempted to change your practice to "keep up." Meditation is not competitive. It's a way of life.
  
• If your posture is good, you will almost certainly feel a stretch on the back of your neck, and possibly in your shoulders. Just relax. If the stretch is so pronounced that it is painful, work on stretching and relaxing that area when you aren't meditating.
  

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Experience as an Art Form: Alternative Paradigm for Hypnosis?

(An earlier version of this posting was presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association,San Francisco, CA: August, 1999).

I would like to propose an alternative paradigm for hypnosis and related phenomena, moving from primary reliance upon a medical/counseling model to a concurrent view of suggestion as a tool for the creative artist, and experience itself as an artistic medium.

We have all the mastery we need right now to knock the socks off of Hollywood! We can not only guide our participants through an experience of being Harry Potter jousting on his broom, or Indiana Jones in pursuit of hidden treasure, or Juliet on her balcony, or anything else the participant would care to experience, we can also tell them how it will feel, how it will be remembered, and how much they will enjoy (and want to repeat) this kind of experience. And, just as a little child needs to be cautioned, as I was at that age, “It’s only a movie,” so that they don’t become too frightened or otherwise emotionally involved, we can caution our participants in the same way so that the experience does not affect their personality in the same way that a therapeutically-motivated one might.

Many writers and investigators have envisioned the types of innovation which those who choose to adopt such an alternative paradigm will almost immediately be able to provide. Aldous Huxley, in his book, Brave New World (1958, p. 23), predicted that motion picture technology would develop to a point where it would involve not only the sense of vision, but all of the other senses as well, in a totally absorbing entertainment medium which he referred to as the "Feelies." Followers of the Star Trek series are familiar with the use of "Holodeck" programs -- three-dimensional holographic images, with which the participants are able to interact as if the computer-generated images were actual people and events (Okuda, Okuda, & Mirek, 1994, p. 128), as illustrated by the following example of a mock combat exercise between two Starship officers which almost got out of hand:

But we don't have to wait for the development of virtual reality programs to reach this level of sophistication. Those who are familiar with the phenomena of hypnosis will immediately recognize that all of the aforementioned experiences can be undergone by sufficiently willing and able hypnotic subjects with relative ease -- in most cases, if the subject is experientially gifted, merely by suggesting that they are to take place. But the degree of involvement which is possible by means of hypnosis is much greater than it might be with the fictional Holodeck. The focus in hypnosis is upon the experiential dimensions of the whole person, inside and out, rather than relying solely upon the external physical dimensions of the environment -- and therefore the possibilities for creating meaningful experiences are even much greater than those portrayed in the above encounter!

Just as a painter works with brush upon canvas, and a sculptor works with chisel upon stone, psychologists who choose to adopt this new paradigm will be able to with suggestion as a new art form, and human experience as a new medium. As with any other art form, experiences based upon the new paradigm will have as their purpose the facilitation of personal growth, the ennoblement of the human spirit, and the enrichment of human existence.

Of course, since suggestibility is normally distributed in the general population (Hilgard, 1970; Hull, 1939), the number of people who may be able to benefit from the use of this alternative paradigm is necessarily limited, at least at present. But this should not deter us from making use of this approach for those who are able to respond to it without additional training. With an appropriately trained professional guide, individuals who respond well to suggestion may learn to respond to suggested experiences under hypnosis with a considerably greater degree of personal involvement than is usually obtained when one is reading a novel, or watching a motion picture, or a play -- and with much greater protection against the possibility of deleterious consequences than is available to individuals who are exposed virtually at random to the excesses of contemporary media.

In order to provide an opportunity for spontaneous innovation to enhance the quality of the situation, hypnotically directed experiences should probably not be scripted in complete detail ahead of time -- particularly if the hypnotist/director is to remain present to guide and interpret the experience as it unfolds. Nevertheless, the theme, intention, and many of the major details of each directed experience should be thoroughly discussed with the participant beforehand, so that he or she has a clear understanding of what is about to take place. Such planning will help to insure the participant's wholehearted cooperation and to tailor the experience to the participant's own personal tastes and preferences, in order to maximize the pleasure and personal fulfillment which is to be derived from the experience itself (Gibbons, 2000, 2001).

It should not be difficult to find sources for application of the foregoing technique from contemporary media. For example, it should be relatively simple to utilize "Best Me" suggestions (Gibbons, 2001) to create a directed experience in which one is clinging to a piece of floating wreckage and watching the sinking Titanic, much more vividly than one is able to imagine merely by watching a motion picture -- experiencing the intensity of the scene almost as intensely if one were really there, while at the same time emotionally dissociating oneself from the full pain and horror of the situation, much as we have all learned to do through years of exposure to the mass media. The therapeutic potential of the experience, of course, is manifested in the heroine's subsequent promise to never give up no matter what life may bring in the future. Utilizing our therapeutic license as hypnotist/director, the experience can be modified so that this promise need not necessarily be made to a lover who is rapidly expiring of hypothermia, but perhaps to God, to the memory of a loved one, or to one's own best self.

Several clinical applications of hyperempiria, or suggestion-enhanced experience, have been developed, including applications for mood control, motivation, and spiritual enhancement,. Numerous other applicaations of this new paradigm are possible for the enhancement of human potential, the ennoblement of the human spirit, and the fulfillment of human existence.

References

Beck, A. T., Rush, A. J., Shaw, B. F., & Emery, G. (1979). Cognitive therapy of depression. New York: Guilford.

Gibbons, D. E. (2000). Applied hypnosis and hyperempiria. Lincoln, NE: Authors Choice Press (originally published 1979 by Plenum Press).

Gibbons, D. E. (2001). Experience as an art form: Hypnosis, hyperempiria, and the Best Me technique.Lincoln, NE: Authors Choice Press.

Hilgard, E. R. (1965). Hypnotic susceptibility. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.

Hull, C. L. (1933). Hypnosis and suggestibility: An experimental approach. New York: Appleton-Century.

Huxley, A. (1958). Brave New World. New York: Bantam.

Lazarus, A. A. (1989). The practice of multimodal therapy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Okuda, M., Okuda, D., & Mirek, D. (1994). The Star Trek encyclopedia: A reference guide to the future. New York: Pocket Books.

How to Get Top Listed on Google Free of Charge

Do you remember those ads saying, "Get top listed on Google" (for a fee, of course)? They were all the rage for a while, until it became obvious to everyone that we couldn't ALL be top-listed at the same time, regardless of whether or not a fee was involved.

Google gives a higher ranking to those pages which have the largest number of other pages that link to them. After writing my own WikiHow page entitled, "How to Hypnotize Yourself Using the Best Me Technique,," I linked it to as many other similar WikiHow pages as I cohld, and then linked those pages back to my own, which they make extremely easy to do. Finally, I linked my page to my blog, which contains ads for my books For several weeks, if you entered just the word "hypnotize," my entry would show up first. But ite what the ads implied, I discovered that the mere fact of being top-listed won't make you rich! (In fact, you'll probably not notice much of a difference (which is why I gave up trying to add more links after a while in order to stay on top).

As Richard Nongard correctly pointed out, "It makes a difference in profit, but not that much. Frankly internet marketing is important but RELATIONSHIP marketing, meeting people and letting people know who you are either in real life or online is FAR more important."

I couldn't agree more!