Meditation: From 8 minutes to 40

With all this great stress reducing advice out there I thought I would add something that has worked for me. Unlike a massage (which by the way I am big fan of), there is nothing instantaneous about meditation but the long  term effects can be profound.

I started meditating after reading The 8 Minute Meditation by Victor Davich. It could have been any book, this one I bought at a white elephant auction and it was packaged with something else I wanted and I never had any intention of reading it. So timing is everything, right book at the right moment. What I like about the book was that it made meditation so accessible. No fancy equipment, no chanting and no way to fail. Just sit down in a chair and practice. That's it, practice calming your mind. Now that was something I could handle. As I started taking the 8 minutes every day I decided to find a meditation group and went to visit it a couple of times. That gave me the boost I needed to take my meditation to the next level. I added another 8 minutes at night and was up to 16 minutes a day just like that.

As astonishing as it is to my husband, after 3 years I sit and practice for 40 minutes a day. My goal is to continue honing my skill and take that to an hour a day. Unbelievable, a mom of triplets managing to carve out 40 minutes a day, to sit, and well, do absolutely nothing!

I cannot wait to write the next blog to tell you of the changes it has made in my life and why I would gladly give up 40 minutes.