Pause, Breathe, Repeat: A Beginner’s Guide to Meditation (With a Mini Session!)

Feeling overwhelmed, distracted, or just... over it? In this episode, I'm breaking down meditation into something that’s actually doable—even if you’ve got a busy brain or zero experience. We’ll explore what meditation really is (spoiler: it’s not about silencing your thoughts), why it works wonders for your mental and emotional health, and how to get started without needing a mountain retreat. Stick around until the end for a short, guided meditation you can revisit anytime you need a reset.

So, take a breath. You’ve got this.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hey y'all, welcome back to The Fitzen Project. And this week is going to be a little short episode on something that I find near and dear to my heart. And it's about meditation, mindful moments, all of these great things that I keep talking about in every single one of my podcasts up to date. And I don't even know the... you really know what is meditation. I mean, does one really know meditation if they've never done it? And if you have done it, amazing. I love it. If you want a short little meditation, I'm going to provide you one at the end of this podcast, towards the end anyway, and you can listen to it as often as you like. But I want to provide some little insight on what meditation does for you, how to even do it, and its benefits, and also like little small steps that you can do to get started and challenges that may come up as you get into your practice. So meditation is a lot like a prayer, for example. and I say that very loosely because I'm not one to try to attach a specific religion to anything that I do in my life um spiritual sure godly believe in something higher than myself 100% absolutely I will walk that walk and I do walk that walk all day every day but um Meditation is a very personal, intimate thing that you can do with yourself. And for me, I use it as a way to connect to this higher being, this God-like figure for me. And also, it's a way for me to genuinely settle the nerves, calm my body, and scientifically it's proven to do so much more so trying to understand what meditation is like at its core is basically just a practice of focusing your mind cultivating awareness and oftentimes we want to achieve this like mental clarity and emotionally calm state so i naturally i Have a calm voice. I have been told that and I feel like this is my calling to bring that in to the world and provide episodes like this here and there that can bring you this mental clarity, this calmness, and this reminder that you, again, are your most important project. So why not give yourself this loving attention, the kindness that yourself truly, it's a birthright, you deserve this. And meditation can be achieved in so many ways. There's so many different ways that you can get into meditation. One of those ways is by sitting still, of course, and trying to anchor into your breath and doing some breath work. Breath work is so much fun. It's a true cleanse of your system. You can do mantra chanting. That's a different type of meditation. If you've seen people in groups that come together, they may close their eyes and they may say the same thing over and over and over again as a little mantra chanting. You can also do this like with words of affirmation. So you don't have to be meditating or sitting still for 30 minutes to eight hours a day to say that you meditate. That's also... just ridiculously false. Like who has time for that? What we are trying to achieve, like the goal here is like starting small, like three minutes, moving into five minutes, perhaps 10 minutes. If you can get up to 20 minutes, that's great. I personally might do that once a week. And that's a big capital might, you know, like even italicized, yeah, kind of pushing it, might get into 20 minutes a week. But either way, there's different types of meditations you can do. Let me get back to that. There's like walking meditation. And you can take this practice literally anywhere, except if you are driving. That's really pretty much the only time I would just 100% not recommend partaking into meditation. So it's also a common practice. belief that meditation you have to stop thinking it's like telling a dog not to bark when it sees a stranger and all it knows to do is bark like no that is not possible it's not going to happen take that belief out of your brain that is not real it's not true okay it your mind is a mind your mind's going to wonder that's what it's made to do it is here for that your mind is made to wonder The cool part about meditation is the more you practice the witness side of that wondering, the disassociation of being a part of the wondering, that's when you can begin to really seize the benefits. And it doesn't have to be for long periods of time. Again, like if you can do this and you can become a loving witness to yourself for like one minute, two minutes, these things are very doable and they're very important to the mind. They're very important to the body. The benefits of meditation are endless. You can do a simple Google search yourself and you will always see that meditation is scientifically proven to reduce stress and anxiety, improve focus and attention, enhance your emotional well-being. can lower your blood pressure it can lower your cortisol levels your stress and it can even boost your immune your immune system and like just by having your cortisol lowered you're automatically boosting your immune system like those two things your cortisol your stress levels and your immune system they work in opposites. So if you have a high cortisol level, you're probably suppressing your immune system. You're probably one of those people that's really easy to get sick. You're probably one of those people that are as easy to get depressed, right? And it's just like, no shame, no shame at all. It's just noticing yourself, right? It's noticing that emotional balance, that awareness that you carry. So when you have low cortisol, your immune system goes up. It's kind of like taking a vitamin D supplement every day, but you don't even have to do a medication. You just have to do a meditation. Oh, look at that. Dad joke of the year. Yeah, you don't have to do medication. You just have to do meditation. I cracked myself up. But anyway, yeah, let's see. See for yourself. Check in with yourself. And meditation is a really just amazing way to get grounded in your body. Do some emotional check-in every day. Do this connection awareness. And does it have to be to a spiritual being, higher power? No. No, if that's not... part of you, if you're not into that, okay. But you can make this a part of connecting to your inner self. And I want to stress that because that's where it starts, right? Connecting to your inner self. Meditation is that awareness of who you are, what you're thinking. It's just awareness. It's that witness aspect, okay? And you can get started in meditation in any way, shape, or form. Like I mentioned, there's different ways. Walking, sitting in a quiet room. You can mantra. There's all sorts of different ways, right? And to get started, this podcast, step one, right? If you're listening to this podcast, it is the podcast for beginners of meditation, right? Because I'm going to lead you through one at the end. And it's going to be real simple. It's nothing to be scared of. And it's nothing to be overwhelmed by. If you're the type of person that's like, oh, I can't sit still for more than five minutes. I got to go, blah, blah, blah. Or you're like, oh my goodness, my kid's recital is next Tuesday and my other kid's baseball game is this afternoon. Or I have to make sure I have dinner on the table by six o'clock or my wife's going to come home and the house is going to be dirty and I haven't taken out the trash or whatever it is that is running through your brain. Just stop. Stop. Take it, put it in a bag and put it in the back seat for a minute because you're the driver and you are the most important piece of all of those puzzles that are running through your brain. So stop. Let it go. How? Yeah, like how? How? You breathe, right? You breathe. First and foremost, you have to find this anchor. Just like with walking meditation, with mantra meditation, breathwork meditation, sitting still meditation. Every single one of those has a common denominator. Breath. Right? Breath. I teach this in my yoga classes. And as a matter of fact, I teach this to myself on the regular when I'm in my, for real, like project executive role at work. Like, it is so easy for me to get caught up in somebody's negativity because I'm a human. And I am an empath and I'm a sensitive person. But it's also really easy for me to just let it roll off. And honest to goodness, I never know which one I'm going to get on any given moment and any given day. I never know which thing is going to trigger me until it happens. All right. So it's not like I'm out here preaching to the choir because I'm perfect. I'm out here preaching to the choir because I know about being in the choir. Like I'm like out here telling you, I got to go to breath too on every part of it. Every time I turn around, I can get triggered by a family member. I can get triggered by a coworker. I can get triggered by a client. I can get triggered by friends. The list is endless. But what I do, how I react, that's on me. And if I can come into my breath first, then I know I'm confident to make them move, right? I'm confident to make my first move. So how do I even get to knowing that I need to come to the breath first? Well, I've done meditation for years now. And I'll tell you what, my very first time going into meditation, I was like, how do you meditate, you know? I've been self-medicating for years with alcohol. That's not working. How do you meditate? Well, I walked into this workshop and it was a meditation workshop. And I'll never forget being so surprised when I left there. Because all we did was light a tea candle and The facilitator led us through this body scan and taught me that everything, the things that I'm teaching you right now in this podcast for free. And I paid$40 for this session. So, you know, I'm just going to give this out to you guys. I paid$40 for it, but she gave me a tea candle and we lit it. But it was really cool because the experience was totally worth it. And I highly recommend if you've never done a meditation or started anywhere, get yourself a little tea candle and just sit there and notice the flame. You can watch it bounce. You can watch it move. And you can watch it grow. If you're real intense with it, The fire feeds off your energy, and you can genuinely watch a candle grow. And that is real. I've had that happen several different occasions. So that's one way, and that's how I learned to quiet the mind, quiet the self, come into clarity, that anchor of breath, that mental awareness without judgment. Right? And that's also like so important. And I say that all the time because it's that important. And I'm going to keep saying it all the time because without judgment, that is the key. Thoughts are going to come up. Good thoughts will arise. Bad thoughts will come up. And they will stay as long as you allow them to. But the cool part about being aware is that you can notice, hey, I'm really thinking some bad thoughts. Or hey, I'm really thinking some good thoughts. And depending on where you are in the situation, like if it's taking you out of the present moment, that's when you can say, oh, where's my breath? Is it shallow? Is it, I don't know, is it shallow? Is it deep? Is it warm? Cold? You know, like start naming, start identifying. There you go. Start identifying the breath, right? So that is one way to get started is just noticing. I am noticing I have been hung up on the same thought about Susan down the street. And I cannot get over the fact that Susan did XYZ to her yard. And I've thought about it for five days. And you start talking about it to people. And the next thing you know, you and Mary are having a conversation about Susan in her yard and blah, blah, blah. And then like, are you listening to yourself ever when this conversation is going on? Are you putting a pause on yourself? Like it's important. Can you get your mind out of it? If you're thinking about something for two or three days in a row, can you just like shift the perspective by anchoring into your breath and realizing, hey, I'm thinking about this way too much. It's time for something new, right? So when you get started in meditation, Ideally, you would want to find this quiet place. No distractions. And I know as a mom, that's really hard. I think as a parent in general, that's really hard. As someone like my partner, he has to drive a while. He has to drive anywhere from an hour to an hour and 15 minutes away to go to work for eight hours a day and then drive back. So it's getting up at the... as crack of dawn and then going and rushing out the door to rush home to make sure we're making t-ball games or whatever is going on in the afternoon because he gets like three hours of time with my son and that's it right so it's like finding and carving out that time and I know he's not alone in trying to find and carve out that time I'm very lucky I get to work from home I know that is a privilege. So because I get to have that privilege, I'm going to share, I'm sharing with you on how to carve out the time, how to create this for yourself. So then you can have the privilege for meditation. So some common challenges, of course, that you're going to get into, like I said, is when that mind starts racing. And you start shaming it. Maybe you would feel bad about it. But we're not doing that. That's not part of the game. That's not included, that shame, that guilt, that overwhelming of, I'm so bad at this. Those things aren't invited to the meditation party. So just drop it at the door. Again, put it in a back seat, in a bag. Because meditation is a whole lot like training a puppy. They're going to wander off. They're going to get in to all the things. So just expect that it's not going to be perfect and be okay with that, right? Like, can you be a C student for a minute? Can you do something new that's not going to be perfect? Yeah, it's a place of curiosity, right? It's an experiment. And that's exactly like it is when I do my yoga classes too. You come into my class and you are going to be filled with curiosity. How far can you go without causing pain, right? And discomfort's okay. It's not going to be comfortable when you do something for the first time, when it's new. It's not supposed to be comfortable. Right. Yoga in my class, I'm going to teach you something new every single time you walk in there, whether it's mental or physical. Every single time you will find a place of discomfort that you will get to stay in and your body will regulate and you will find that you can settle in to your body and you can find that you can calm your body. And that's exactly what meditation does. So before I get into my meditation that I'm going to walk you through, I will let you know about some free ones you can do, podcasts. There's a really awesome meditation that I listen to on my podcast, and it's literally called guided meditation. I love that one. My son and I listen to it and she starts out, hello, good morning. And she is great. She's got this like beautiful, beautiful voice that's free. It's on your podcast. There are apps you can pay for. When I interviewed Michelle McGinnis, she told us about her app and she uses that Calm. Calm is great. It also does all the affirmations that she was talking about too. And there's this app called Headspace. I really liked Headspace. It's kind of how I got into meditation. That guy has a British accent. I think he sounds absolutely divine. And when I started meditating right after that candle class, that's the app that I used. I paid$50, I think, at the time for the year, something like that. I don't really know. Totally, totally worth it. And so... When I started with my meditation as well, I got to a point where I was able to just do it on my own without the apps. So then I stopped using the apps, which is fine. You may get to that point. It is literally like building a love muscle for yourself, right? Like, it's like going to the gym. It is a muscle. It is a focus point, right? So I, when I would find time after using the apps, a lot of the times I would sit in my car. First of all, I'm parked and it's at the end of the day and I'm drained. And before I go in and I have to deal with feeding the dogs or helping with my son or whatever it is, I can sit in my car for 10 minutes and do a meditation. But there's a bunch of free ones on YouTube. There's a bunch of free ones all over the place. So anyway, if you're into it after this, after testing it out, testing out the waters with me, if this is your first time, I first of all want to thank you for trusting me to guide you through your first time. I feel extremely honored that that is happening. And wow. Yeah, it's a another privilege of mine and a gift. So thank you for doing that with me. Hey guys, remember when I told you in an episode not too long ago that I would let you know when I was making some moves and some headway in my fits in project. Thank you so much. I just wanted to let you know I've made some moves. I'm really excited to share them with you and I hope to see you join the newsletter and much more to come. All right, so let's go ahead and get started. And today we are going to do the one where you're seated and you're just practicing on being a loving witness to yourself and that's it. So... Get seated here. Plant your feet down on the ground, both of them. Make sure we don't have anything crossed here. Let's get real tall in your spine. You can let your hands lay on your lap. We'll begin in to some music. Go ahead and roll your shoulders up to your ears and roll them back and down your spine. Let's do that with a breath in. And let it go. Let's do that two more times. Breathe in, roll your shoulders up. And exhale them back and down your spine. Let it go. Come into your normal breath. And if you feel safe here, you can begin to lower your eyes to a gaze or close them all together. Turn up tall. Notice your breath coming in and out through your nose. And begin to notice the breath. Give it some identity. around its texture, maybe its speed. If it's short or if you're able to breathe in fully and then fully breathe out, you're just noticing without judgment. And take your attention into your sitz bones. Notice here if you've got an even sitz bones, like if your left side's more intense on the chair than the right. Get them even here. And come back into the breath. Notice the rise and fall. Rise and fall of your chest. the rise and fall of your belly. And just begin to bring awareness, like are you breathing in deep? Are you able to breathe normal without effort? And just notice like how calm can you make this breath? Can you fully let the breath go when you breathe out? For every inhale that you bring in, can you let that exchange happen through your lungs and fully breathe out? And it's just to notice, it's just a question. and allow your mind to travel this breath all the way down into your belly and then back up again and out your nose as the breath comes in through the arch and all the way down it exchanges to then come back up and out your nose Just notice, follow. Be along for the ride. Follow that breath. And take a full breath in. Breathe in deep. Let's hold it for three, two, One and release through your mouth. Let's do that one more time. Breathe in. Hold. Let it go out the mouth. You can gently open your eyes. There you go. A three minute meditation just for you. And if you would like a longer meditation, I'm sure I'll put more out maybe once a month. And I think this would be a lot of fun just to see where you can go with your journey. And if this was something that resonated with you, I am super happy and I hope that you can share that. The music was provided by Purple Planet. and it's a free music for podcasts so if you even want to go out there and just listen to it yourself and try to do your own meditations I'll put that link in our show notes as well so otherwise I hope you enjoy and you know at least a little bit more about self-awareness and how to gain some clarity and calmness in your life thank you guys