Better Me with BodyByBree
Better Me with BodyByBree
Meditation for Beginners
What if you could transform your frazzled, overstimulated life into one of peace and presence? Join me, Bree, as I take you through my own journey of finding serenity amidst the chaos of motherhood through the practice of meditation. Discover how meditation can be a game-changer for reducing stress, enhancing emotional health, and fostering a profound sense of purpose. I'll walk you through the essentials of starting your own meditation practice and offer practical tips on making it a seamless part of your daily routine.
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Are you looking for a space where you will learn to improve your mental strength, emotional health and heal your insecurities from the inside out? Take the first step to living a more meaningful life with the Better Me with Body by Brie podcast. I'm your host, brie. I'm a certified personal trainer, entrepreneur and mother of three. I've helped empower thousands of women to take action through fitness, nutrition, meditation, personal development and aligning thoughts with action. This podcast is for those who are ready to feel inspired and motivated to live a more purposeful life. Let's grow together.
Speaker 1:Meditation has changed my life. Before learning how to meditate, I was an overstimulated, stressed, scattered mother that felt like I was reactive in my life and I didn't know how to cope or how to ground myself Fast forward. A few years later, after I learned the benefits of meditation, I'm more grounded, I have less stress and anxiety. I'm a more present mother, I wake up with intention, I feel more peaceful and calm, and it's honestly been the biggest blessing in my life. I cannot wait to share this tool with as many overstimulated moms as I can. In this podcast, I'll share with you the beginner's guide to meditation why it's beneficial, how it can help transform your life and how to apply it to your daily routine and, the best part, it only takes five to 10 minutes a day. Let's learn together. Okay, I have had a lot of questions from clients on how to meditate. If you're a beginner, if you've never done it, it can seem very foreign and it can seem kind of woo woo to some and you don't really know why you need to do it or how it can help. But I'm telling you that meditation changed my life and it has made me a more patient, loving, present mother. It has helped me connect to my higher self. It's helped me connect to God. It has helped me have the most incredible answers to some questions that I've been struggling with. I've been connecting with my body more and I just wake up with an intention and a purpose and I feel more present in my life. Like I'm telling you, the benefits of meditation have completely transformed my life, and so I actually ended up incorporating it into my eight week coaching programs because I just wanted to share this knowledge with others, and it's so fun to read the testimonials of our clients when they say, like I didn't even know about meditation before, or like I didn't even give it a second thought, and now I can't go a day without it because it's transformed my life. So it's really fun to see other people just enjoying the benefits of it, and I thought that I'd do a podcast on beginner meditation tips and how to get started and what a meditation can kind of look like and just walk you through that process. Now I do have actual meditations on the podcast. If you're looking for like a sleeping meditation or a body love meditation, I do have those.
Speaker 1:But this is kind of if you've never meditated before and you just kind of want to know the flow what's it all about, why is it important and how to incorporate it into your life. So I will say it was hard for me at first, like when I first started meditating. My brain just sometimes has a hard time shutting off and I always thought I was too busy or I'd sit in silence and my brain would just wander and I'm like what's the point of this? I don't get it. And it's true, if you don't understand the why behind it, you have no motivation to do it right. So I would just sit there and be like this feels like a waste of time. But then my mom did a meditation retreat for three full days and my life changed and I, just like I said, I just became so much more calm and peaceful and, kind of, the vibration of my entire life shifted because I was able to learn how to ground myself and how to visualize and how to tap into what I'm feeling and tap into my body and ask these like incredible questions and get answers and give myself space to be still. And so I'm here to teach you the basics. So, first off, why should you care? What are the benefits of meditation?
Speaker 1:And I kind of told you like I tend to be scatterbrained, so before I learned how to meditate, I used to wake up and I would always be late, I would procrastinate. I'm like yelling at the kids. It's just like, hurry, get in the car, grab your shoes, get your lunch. I'm like trying to make it to the gym and like I'm trying my baby's crying and like my whole energy just felt like this rushed, anxious energy that I just did not, I just didn't love, quite frankly. So I was just in this constant state of chaos and it was horrible. It was bad for my adrenals, it was bad for my cortisol levels, it was bad for my stress. I don't think I have anxiety, but I felt like I was kind of becoming anxious just from this pattern in my life. And I think if you have kids, you just wake up and you're just stimulated from the get-go. The second you wake up the kids are crying or they're just like wanting your attention or like mom, mom, mom, look at this, look at this. I mean I have four kids and I can tell you there's not ever a moment of like quiet time in my house. It is so loud and so chaotic.
Speaker 1:So for your own mental health, you have to have some sort of practice that grounds you and centers you and you can turn to to help you find that peace. And, um, some like the six facts that you may not know about, meditation is number one. Meditation makes you happier. So people who meditate generally lead happier lives than those who don't, and I think it's just because, like, meditation is known to enhance the flow of positive emotions and constructive thoughts. And even if you just spend a few minutes a day meditating regularly, that can make a huge difference. And they even have scientific evidence that supports this claim, that even when they did a study on a group of Buddhist monks as they were meditating, they found that the prefrontal cortex of the monk's brain, which is the part that's associated with happiness, was found to be extra active, was found to be extra active. So if you want to be happier, meditate, like, meditate, okay.
Speaker 1:Number two meditation helps you manage anxiety, stress and depression. So the transformative potential of meditation is is actually well, okay, let me back up. So studies conducted at the University of Wisconsin proved that meditation has psychological effects on the brain. So, for example, researchers found that the part of the brain that regulates stress and anxiety shrinks when meditation is practiced consistently. And by focusing on moment by moment experiences, meditators are training the mind to remain calm even in stressful situations. So, along with this, they also experience significantly less anxiety due to uncertainty about the future. So if you struggle with anxiety or depression or stress, meditate five to ten minutes a day.
Speaker 1:Number three you don't need to be a religious person to meditate. So a lot of meditation practices is beyond any type of doctrine. It's really just about developing calmness and practicing awareness through being still and decluttering your mind. Being still and decluttering your mind and when you contemplate your life, you don't have to adhere to a certain religion or practice or meditation. It's really for anyone that just wants to kind of tap in to their mindfulness, regardless of what you believe. Number four is that the benefits are almost immediate. Um, a lot of the studies have shown that certain benefits can start making themselves known very quickly after people start sitting. Just the sense of calmness and peace of mind, like you know how you just kind of start hearing spa music or you walk into a spa and you're just like, oh, like you can breathe and you just go into this relaxing Zen state. That's exactly how I feel when I start meditating. If you feel like your brain can't turn off, just keep practicing. The more you practice, the better you get at it.
Speaker 1:Number five is that meditation helps you fall asleep. So insomnia is the worst. Right, everybody dreads a sleepless night, but a third of the American population suffers from some sort of sleep deprivation. So if you're one of these people who are kind of struggling with it, I want you to try meditation, because an article from the Harvard Health blog confirmed that meditation triggers the relaxation response, which is why some people actually have the opposite problem and they fall asleep as soon as they begin to meditate. So try a sleeping meditation or a relaxation meditation before bed instead of grabbing your phone.
Speaker 1:And then the sixth reason why you should meditate is that meditation sharpens your memory. So apart from enhancing your happiness and improving your overall well-being, meditation also helps your memory stay sharp and your concentration remain steady. So with mindfulness meditation, you train in remaining aware of the present moment in a nonjudgmental manner. So because you're doing this, then distractions are less and less likely to kind of pull you away. So just one more reason why you should meditate. So let me give you kind of a little bit of a breakdown.
Speaker 1:One thing that I like to do is I start small. So I want you to start by like keeping it at five or 10 minutes because, again, this is a beginner medication meditation. So if you're a beginner you can. What I like to do is I like to have music, because it really puts me in that kind of mindset. So I'll get music either from iTunes or Apple, or even just listen to like spa music. It just helps me put, like I said, just put me in that headspace. Then you're going to sit up because you want to be awake, unless you're trying to fall asleep. But if I lay like in bed, I'll fall right to sleep. Sometimes I do like to lay on a yoga mat or something if my spine is feeling like it needs to rest, but I usually like to sit up, cross my feet, and if you put your hands up, then you're ready to receive. If you're feeling scattered, then you put your palms down and you are grounding.
Speaker 1:And there's a few ways that you can meditate. So one of them is you could do a body check. So you take a deep breath, you're going to let go of all the anxiety and stress of the day, you're going to unclench your jaw, relax your shoulders, sit up straight, get as much oxygen back into your lungs as you can, and really all meditation is is a single point of focus. That's it. So maybe you're focusing on your body and you're noticing, like, where you're feeling tight or heavy or where you're holding stress, and you're gonna slowly imagine this bright white light coming down through the top of your chakra, your crown chakra, which is your head, and just clearing, cleansing, relaxing, whatever that looks like for you, just tapping into your body. You can focus on how the clothes feel on your skin. You can focus on if there's any tension in your shoulders or in your lower back or whatever you're feeling. You're just checking in with your body.
Speaker 1:Another meditation style practice is focusing on your breathing and all you're doing is count. You can either count in for five, so you'd inhale one, two, three, four, five. You can put your tongue on the roof of your mouth, hold for five seconds and then exhale for five seconds One, two, three, four, five. You can either manipulate your breaths. You can just simply breathe as you normally would and just focus on the air filling your lungs. Whatever point of focus you want to bring your attention to will be beneficial.
Speaker 1:I like to usually get a message. So whether that is connecting to my body, maybe I've been having issues with my stomach and I want to see what's going on and kind of see what my body needs. Is it deficient in something I really try to tap into my body? Or maybe my body needs some extra love. Maybe it's been sick and I want to tell it thank you for working so hard for me. Or maybe I'll get a message from my higher self or from God.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot of things that you can do in your meditation practice, depending on what you need, and mine changes every day. Sometimes I just need to clear my mind, like sometimes I don't want a message, I just want to be present and clear my mind and just de-stress. So after you've done this meditation practice and you've done it for about five to 10 minutes when you're done I want you to slowly start wiggling your fingers and your toes and come back to the present moment. And once you're back, if you can, I like to keep a little notebook wherever I am doing my meditation practice and I'll write down I call them my downloads, like I write down the messages I hear, the feelings that I felt, how I felt peaceful, I felt calm. I noticed I was holding tension in my shoulders, whatever it is you're reflecting.
Speaker 1:And then I want you to notice how you move through your day when you take the time to meditate. Are you more peaceful? Are you more calm? Are you less reactive to your children? Are you less triggered? Do you feel happier? Do you feel more present in your life? Are you excited to be with you feel happier? Do you feel more present in your life? Are you excited to be with your kids instead of feeling overstimulated and overwhelmed?
Speaker 1:I've had the most incredible experiences where 30 minutes have gone by and I don't even know how much time has passed, because I'm like in a different world, right, I'm just constantly in a different world, right, I'm just constantly or I'm just consistently checking in with my body and I'm I'm literally gone Like in. I, I'm in my body. Um, I've also received the most incredible answers and inspiration and I just really truly feel like this has changed my life. So, like I said before, we incorporate these meditation practices into my eight-week coaching programs and if you are not a client, you can always listen to my meditations. You can always practice this, whether you're a client or not. But if you want even more guidance on it, when you do my programs I will walk you through how to do this. And then when I do retreats with my mom, we take people through meditations and sound baths and it's just so fulfilling to teach especially overwhelmed, overstimulated mothers how to regulate and ground themselves Like that is just really helpful for people.
Speaker 1:So if you have any questions, I'm here to help. Obviously, my website is bodybybriecom, my Instagram is bodybybriefitness and I am here to answer any questions you have and I will talk to you soon. Thank you for joining us in today's episode. If you liked the content and want to hear more, remember to hit that subscribe button and write a review. As a small business owner, I appreciate it more than you know. If you are looking for a program to help with self-confidence, to lose weight, get in shape and work on your mental, physical and emotional health, check out my training programs on wwwbodybybreecom. My team and I help to hold you accountable through the Body by Bree app, where you log in to see all your workouts, custom meal plan made specifically for you and your needs, and communication through the messenger. You are never alone when you're on the Body by Brie training program. Click the link in the show notes to get more information on how to transform your life from the inside out.
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