10 Building Blocks to a Healthy Meditation & Mindfulness Practice

“Mind matters most” is a quote that SN Goenka says quite a lot. However, every spiritualist worth their weight in gold will tell you that meditation is essential to master and maintain your spiritual wellness. However, what if you can’t meditate.

Truth is, I was one of those people.

I could barely even sit still for yoga, let alone meditation. Anything that required me to go within and be “still” was an immediate no. My body would experience jolts. I all of a sudden was itching everywhere. I would get hot, then cold. I had to sway. Fidget. Then, the most painful thing was feeling like something was biting me to the point, I just had to jump up. These people are crazy, I’d think to myself. And let me not even start on the monkeys that always existed in my brain and took it as their personal opportunity to give me a full show when I would get still because now they have my undivided attention.

Meditation and body work just isn’t for me, I’d concluded. The issue? I was in a cult that was like the Hogwarts for Black women so we were measured on our ability to meditate, communicate with our body, and to be still. The leader was an initiate of Obatala, among others, and when she came back from initiation she shared with us that they do things to them to ensure they don’t react. I won’t share what was shared, but I will say that before she went over there she was strict. Yet, after she came back, it felt like she made it her personal vendetta to ensure we knew how to all forms of abuse without reacting. Despite all that, I still couldn’t meditate or do yoga.

Her tactics made the experience worst for me because throughout the entire experience, I’m thinking “is this right?”, “am I hearing from my body right?”, “Am I right?” Knowing that once I submit this document to her as proof of my AM & PM routine, her inevitable displeasure and berating of me being off task, unclear, and just a ‘can’t get right’ would follow.

At this point, I hated meditating.

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Luckily, you aren’t in a cult. And I have learned a lot of strategies before, during, and after that helped me be mindful while in motion. These served as the building blocks until I eventually learned to sit still for over an hour. Here is a list of 10 of my favorite below:

Walking Meditation

I have been doing walking meditations before I joined the cult. I LOVED going to the river and just walking and observing. No music. Just me and the sounds of nature. Sensing, hearing, feeling everything around me. Even if I went with my mama, we would both naturally go silent. We instinctively knew that our time with nature was to connect to Source.

An easy way to practice mindful walking is to track the sensations of your feet as they rise and falls off the ground. Is the path steady? Rocky? Steep? Paying attention to my lower extremities were essential as it is easy to not think of all the work my feet and legs put in throughout the day.

Keeping a Journal

Therapy is expensive and sometimes we don’t even know what we want to or need to process with a therapist until we start journaling. Journaling about a particular situation that has been troubling us allows for us to put it on a page instead of in our heads. Similarly, journaling about what excites us allows for us to document the experience without it permeating in our minds and craving it as well. Be present. Do not crave.

Mind Releasing/Brain Dumping

Writing gives us access to our subconscious mind. Old emotions and toxic thought patterns reveal themselves. I used to unconsciously start writing out all the things I felt I had to do or literally write, “I’m so stupid” without even thinking. Now when my subconscious mind takes over, I say “I love myself”. So, meditating (which also is access to our subconscious minds) no longer feels like a threat.

Creating To Do Lists

If it’s on the page, it’s not in my head. I used to keep things in my mind so that I remember them. When I would meditate all of those things would come to me. Now, I write them down and create a calendar for me. Now, it doesn’t stick in my mind to visit me when I make effort to return to self.

Time Blocking

I used time blocking in two ways. One to, block off what I want to do then to block off what I actually did. I sometimes and still at times find myself trying to figure out what all did I do today? Time blocking let’s me know that I was active and not wasting time as my subconscious mind would try to convince me of.

Narrating My Movements Out Loud

If you do something over and over again, it’s difficult to be aware while you do it. So, if I was in the kitchen washing dishes like I’ve done a thousand times before I would literally say to myself; “I am putting the dish liquid on the sponge and I scrubbing the bowl. Scrub. Scrub. Scrub. It is still not clean. So, I am going to continue to scrub.” Seems crazy, right? Oh well. It helped me be present.

Speaking My Truths in The Moment

I used to let people walk all over me. Truth or lie. I thought it kept the peace between them and I. However, it created an entire war within myself that would visit me in my blood and bones whenever I attempted to meditate. No mas. I speak my truth now and I don’t care who don’t like it. Now that I know myself and I am learning to love myself more deeply, nothing will ever disconnect me from myself anymore. I’m a Pisces, we are clingy. I’m choosing to be clingy with ME!

Speaking to a Therapist About Deep Rooted Trauma

Trauma lives in the body. True meditation connects you to your body. If you have a lot of trauma, you will experience nearly every sensation in your body and in your mind. Neither, your body or mind, will feel like safe spaces for you. Sort through the trauma. Process it. Learn to be at peace with it, then you can learn to be at peace with self.

Leaving Toxic Environments, Situations, and/or People

You can’t fight a house fire with a water hose. Somebody gotta call the fire truck. Meditation in a case like this would essentially be a water hose attempting to put out a California wild fire. It won’t work. Leave! Now! You are waiting for you to break free.

Dream Work

Writing down my dreams and interpreting them helped me to understand a bit of my subconscious mind. Once I accessed her and paid attention to these expressions, I received way less interruptions during my meditations.