Spiritual Meditation: A Beginner’s Guide to the Mindful Practice
Sometimes the simplest thing can feel the most overwhelming. That’s why people struggle with spiritual meditation. The root of the exercise is a deep breath and simply existing; how difficult can it really be?
In a world filled with deadlines, anxieties, fears, and a connection to all the problems of the world in your pocket, it’s more difficult than ever to find time to simply exist and explore our minds in a still space. And that’s why it’s more important than ever before to do it.
So how do you start practicing spiritual meditation?
Here’s an overview of the basics of spiritual meditation, its benefits, and how to go about trying it for yourself.
What Is Spiritual Meditation?
Spiritual meditation takes the concept of practicing mindfulness and directing it towards a higher purpose. Through spiritual meditation, you use deep breathing and a calm mind to connect with whatever you believe runs at the core of the universe to achieve a spiritual awakening.
This figure could be a god, but it certainly doesn’t have to be. Spiritual enlightenment does not require a specific religion to be effective.
When trying to access this force that is bigger than yourself, you could think about:
- The universe
- Nature
- A higher power
- Your connection with others
- A basic life force
Whatever you think holds this universe together, you’ll use your time of spiritual meditation to connect with it. This will help you understand yourself more deeply as you search for your place and purpose within that greater force.
From this calm mindset that comes from this type of meditation, you gain a clearer perspective on life and can more easily see what in your life is a priority, and what anxieties you can let go as you access a higher consciousness.
As our awareness of our place in the world grows, we become calmer, kinder, and more enlightened people who wish to make the world around us a better place.
The Benefits of Spiritual Meditation
In addition to the benefits that come from a clearer sense of divine purpose and clarity, meditation gives you physical and mental health benefits.
People with mental health diagnoses will likely struggle the most with meditation, but that’s why it’s essential for them to try. Meditation slows the racing mind and stops mindless wandering by anchoring the person to the present moment.
Learning to slow down thoughts can help people with anxiety control their racing mind. People with depression can benefit from a clearer mind that devotes time to discovering their life’s purpose.
When surveyed on why they decided to try meditation, these were the top responses:
- 76% said general wellness
- 60% said improved energy
- 50% said to aid memory and focus
- 29% said anxiety relief
- 22% said stress relief
- 18% said depression relief
The best part? 60% of those people said meditation helped them achieve those goals.
A Beginner’s Guide to Spiritual Meditations
So spiritual meditation sounds great. How do you start?
Before you sit on a chair, close your eyes, and focus on your breath, you should research different meditation techniques to find what works for you.
The easiest way to begin your meditation journey is by using a guided meditation recording. Listening to guided meditations can help you get some sort of direction to achieve your spiritual experience. If you’re only just beginning, just starting by sitting and trying to control your thoughts on your own can feel overwhelming and ineffective.
Apps like Insight Timer and Headspace give you an excellent starting point to finding the right guided meditation for you. Insight Timer has thousands of free recordings and you can sort by length of time, your goal for the meditation, sex of the speaker if you have vocal preferences, and many other factors.
The most important part of spiritual meditation?
Practice.
You will not reach spiritual enlightenment on your first try. It takes a significant amount of time to develop the focus required to truly feel like you’re connecting with a higher power.
It also takes a lot of experimentation. If you start out by laying on your back, you might find that it’s all too easy to fall asleep, so you switch to the sit in the chair method. If you start by listening to a guided meditation, you might find the voice distracting, so you switch to rain sounds. Everyone benefits from a different approach to meditation, so invest time in trying different techniques to see what works for you.
Spiritual Meditation Is What You Make It
Unlike many things in our lives, spiritual meditation has no rules and no structure. While you can follow guidelines or listen to a mindfulness meditation recording, you can’t apply structure to the act of soul searching and just being.
The point of spiritual meditation is finding yourself, your place in the universe, and connecting with whatever you consider spiritual: the universe, nature, God, your relationship with other people. Whatever brings you peace in this world is what you’re looking to connect with during your spiritual meditation.
Meditations are very personal and only you can decide how you want to connect with the universe.
Author, Artist, Photographer.
Sarah Margaret is an artist who expresses her love for feminism, equality, and justice through a variety of mediums: photography, filmmaking, poetry, illustration, song, acting, and of course, writing.
She owns Still Poetry Photography, a company that showcases her passion for capturing poetic moments in time. Instead of poetry in motion, she captures visual poetry in fractions of a second, making cherished keepsakes of unforgettable moments.
She is the artist behind the Still Poetry Etsy shop, which houses her illustrations and bespoke, handmade items. She is the author of intricacies are just cracks in the wall, a narrative poetry anthology that follows a young woman discovering herself as she emerges from an abusive relationship.
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