Find peace and serenity in your world. Come join me at 10pm each evening to regain a focus and relaxation which will help the rest of your day!

10pm tonight - long deep breaths

It's 10pm on the dot! Time for daily meditation!

Close your eyes, take in long, deep breaths, and release your thoughts.

10pm on Sunday! I missed last night because of the gig.

Time to meditate!

It's 10pm on a Monday night! Time to meditate! Ohhhmmmmmmm

Last night was a BellaOnline editor chat so I was busy chatting.

Tonight I'm here!

Long, deep breaths

Ah, i will hopefully remember to join tonite. That will be 8pm Mt Time here.

Set your timer for tonight, 10pm EST!

Is this happening now?

Yup, 10pm, I am here! Close your eyes and take in a long, deep breath!

Still breathing...

Lol I left my computer and used Leela on my futon. I did the 8 minute energizing session, then the 10 minute "heart opening" session. It was quite nice. It had me breathing in thoughts for peace about myself, and then breathing out thoughts of peace for someone else. I chose you

Quite a lovely meditation session!

Oh, thank you! I really appreciate that. I really need to recharge after these last three days.

I sat quietly in bed with a back scratch brush and did deep breathing and back scratching. I tried not too think about anything - i just wanted to relax. Breathe in, breathe out...

well i could be mistaken but i believe when your meditating your not suppose to be doing back scratching at the same time jilly giggle...bet it felt good tho

Meditating can come in a wide variety of styles - for example walking meditation involves moving around, and there is meditation that focuses on sound or on a visual.

So a meditation of a back scratching sounds like one way to draw in focus!

It's 10pm on Saturday night - time to enjoy meditation!

Tonight I am going for a 20 minute meditation, letting thoughts that float into my mind float out again like a cloud.

well maybe you think back scratching draws focus but i can truly say ive never seen anyone anywhere at anytime advocate it or tell someone to do that while meditating...im certain you cant either giggle lets be a lilllll bit realistic here.

Ooops, I forgot about tonite. It takes a while to make a habit.

Let's stop talking about the back scratching merits. I will relate what I am doing with all honesty, k?

Dear Jilly

my comment was meant to by playful jilly, a bit of a chuckle or a smile once in awhile is also very medicinal in finding inner peace with oneself.

i saw no harm on commenting where it is a open discussion...and was drawing upon what i have known in many different types of meditational instructions.

also, there is no issue here about honesty being involved...as i was also being honest.

Illusive, I am not a newbie to meditating. I am a bit sensitive sometimes though when i feel like someone makes me look foolish. Not your fault; my problem with me.

Jilly -

Just a minor comment because people are finding and reading this thread, and others may want to do meditation involving objects touching their body.

Several of my meditation books do talk about touch being a key sense, and that meditating with touch can be a powerful way to meditate.

One category of suggestions involves your own body. Many suggest resting your hand on your stomach and sensing the natural activity that takes place there. Related to that is the set that has you rest your hand on your heart, for the same reason.

A second set of suggestions involves an inanimate object at rest. So you hold a non-dangerous object and meditate on it. It can be a smooth stone, a multi-facet angled rock, a twisted piece of wood, whatever connects with you at the moment. You explore the dimensions and textures of the object.

A third set of suggestions merges the two and has you interacting that object with your body and examining the sensations that result. So a back scratcher is an ideal form of this.

It's important when we respond to posts that we create an atmosphere that we encourage and welcome their progress. Our hope is to draw new, shy members into sharing their own thoughts.

If we set an expectation that a person will be told "you are doing it wrong", then that discourages why people from posting.

We want to strive to create an atmosphere where people feel they will be encouraged and supported, however they are choosing to begin.

Sorry for the delay, with the classwork I'm running a little late tonight.

It's 10:20pm and I'm ready to meditate! I desperately need it after today's stress Thank goodness I got all the papers in before that deadline. The teachers take a full grade letter off for papers that are submitted late.

OK. Long breaths. Bob is playing Skyrim so I think I will go meditate upstairs where there are no sounds of screaming monsters

I did about a half hour of meditation, that was just what I needed. I did a candle meditation in my room. I lit a candle and focused on it. It flickered a lot on the beginning and I thought about getting another candle. But then I thought that this was part of the lesson, to deal with things that might normally seem annoying, and to learn to accept the way they are. So I began to think of the flickering candle as a twinkling star, and I was able to relax with it. And the candle settled down, and it was lovely

that is quite nice! I like that!

I was sitting around a fire this evening and missed the meditation time. Staring at a fire is nice, though, and has it's own meditative qualities.

Yes definitely staring at a flame is a classic form of meditation. Well done!

10pm on Monday! Time for relaxing meditation! I think I may do sound meditation tonight. I want to try a variety over the days.

oh starting at a fire is very nice to meditate and at live coals on how the fire within them dance...

Oh, yes, a real fire. Beautiful!

10pm on Monday! Meditation time! What haven't I done yet. Touch meditation. OK, I'm going to meditate with something in my hands to examine.

Crud. I missed it again. I need to stick a post-it to my face saying 8:00 !

ROTF oh jilly ...sometimes we both are so much alike giggle...and i want to do a head slap...if its meant to be it will be...all in universes times ...when your ready it will happen...dont stress over it ...

obviously what your doing must be more important and has your attention for that reason at that time because its something your suppose to be doing...even if its nothing...sometimes nothing is a profound thing ...

I try to meditate every night when I'm soaking in a bubble bath...sorry Jilly...no reading, no music, just me and the bubbles. But then I start to think, with nothing else to do with my brain, then pretty soon I'm either stressing out or upset about something. I suck at meditation.

you dont really suck at meditation...as soon as your mind starts to drift...thats when you need to redirect back to ...how that bubble bath feels ..and your pampering yourself...take a facecloth at that moment or just cup your hand and drizzle the water over yourself and watch the droplets ..be aware of how it feels an looks...swish the water...maybe add a bit more warm water...and listen to it fill the tub more...have some music on...close your eyes feel the steaminess things like that...

Dear Kathy -

Illusive is exactly right. Meditation is the *practice* of learning to tune your mind. You can't suck at it. You are just at a different stage of practicing which is fine. Every human gets distracted thoughts, and the practice of meditation helps us to learn how to let those drift away again.

There will always be times that we get sucked into our thoughts, and that's normal! When we realize we have been, then we smile gently at ourselves, praise ourselves for realizing it, and refocus on our breath and the bubbles.

One step at a time!

Dear Jilly -

I have a timer on my PC that goes off every hour. It's the only way I'm aware of time passing. Without the timer I'd never remember that I want to set aside time for meditation. Maybe your phone or PC can have a timer on it?

OK it is 10pm on Tuesday. Time for a meditation.

Maybe tonight I will do a moving meditation - walking heel to toe around the house. I wish I had snow - last year I made a labyrinth spiral in the snow and adored it. I was really looking forward to doing it again this year, but no snow!! It's unfair, winter is supposed to be about beautiful snow.

But I need to remember that nature is varied and that is fine With this year's lack of snow I will appreciate next year's snow even more than usual. So I will make an indoor labyrinth.

dear Lisa...i remember last year all too well with the snow...forgive me for saying...glad you cant do that giggle...this is nice toooo...instead go out and do a visual as if there were snow...sigh...

I've never ever thought of snow as having an upside. LOL. But the labyrinth idea is a cool thought.

I *adore* snow. You can ski! You can sled! It looks absolutely gorgeous. Snow snow snow. I think we're getting some tomorrow! Hurrah!!

I wouldn't live in New England if I didn't adore snow It's why I'm here!

OK, on to meditation. Hmmmm, what kind of meditation to explore tonight. Taste! I've done sight, sound, texture, touch, movement. Now taste. I will meditate with a glass of wine next to me, and explore all aspects of its taste.

there are many places that have snow...you dont have to live in new england to have it ...and thank goodness ...it wont be much snow at all...an poof it will be gone in a blink...yipeee

Edited
wow...was that snow...giggle barely a dusting even a ant couldnt ski or slide in that...

It's 7pm here. In one hour it will be 8pm and I can meditate with you guys. Slapping a post it on my face! OK, on my monitor.

Two minutes before minimum safe distance.

Okay, doing Downward Dog with some rainsounds starting now!

okay, that was lovely. It got a little harder to hold the pose at the end, but i did keep reminding myself to relax into it, and listen to the rain sounds.

i think i will do the same things again tonite it if i can remember to be here at 8pm MST.

Okay, i am ready to go. Anyone else here?

Whew. i am all woozy from being inverted. I had to switch up downward dog with other poses to keep a whole ten minutes.

Sorry sorry I'm here - Bob was having challenges with the holopchi cooking process so I had to call my mom on the phone (we're Ukrainian) and get the low-down on how this is supposed to work. So now the cabbage is cored and I'm back to my desk.

I'm ready to meditate! I'll go with Jilly's idea and do yoga moving meditation tonight.

Okay, ten minutes of quiet sitting, while holding a pretty stone, begins now!

i love Golompkies...what you call...holopchi...i make them often during the winter and have a recipe from a very old full polish woman...some call them pigs in the blanket or just plain old cabbage rolls...such a comfort food i think...and they sound like a lot of work but i find prepartion to go quite smoothly and quickly enough...

the real challenge is to find in some store cabbage large enough so when you need to cut away the vein you still have a large enough leaf to roll the contents in. I however, dont use saurkraut or ham ...therein lies the cultural differences in recipes.

I'll post the recipe when we are through with that set of testing!

It's meditation time on Valentine's Day - a perfect day to have a loving-kindness meditation!

hey thanks appreciate it

OK it's nearly 10pm on Wednesday, I am being prepared this time. I have my Wii turned on and Leela all powered up. I've got it ready to do a 12 minute guided meditation.

I'll send a link to this thread out to my Twitter and Facebook page - hopefully we'll get some people to relax with us tonight!

Okey dokey! Exactly 10pm! And Leela is live and waiting! Hurrah

I will go with my lovely ginger twist tea and do the 12 minute guided meditation, and then whatever one unlocks after that which may be a 15 minute one.

Chime in if you're meditating too!

Okay! I am here and sitting quietly!

With candles lit and holding my two small stones from the previous two bellaonline getherings.

That's great Jilly! I did the 12 minute meditation and then a 14 minute meditation after that. I've now unlocked a 17 minute meditation, the final one. I need to get my logic schoolwork in before midnight, but I think once I do that that I'll go back and do the 17 minute one, they were really restful.

OK it's 10pm on Thursday! I have Leela up and ready to go. I did do the 17 minute meditation yesterday - today I think I'll go through a section of each meditation, to better document what each is about. Each one uses a different focus, to help users learn about a variety of techniques. I'll post the summary when I'm done!

I did mine later in the evening - i was actually taking a nap at 8pm. I know, weird schedule. I had a very emotional day so i needed that nap.

Here's the full review of Leela, along with descriptions of each of the meditation sections :

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art175245.asp

10pm on Friday night! I got caught up in my schoolwork and somehow missed my chiming alert. OK I'm ready! It'll be good to take a break, I'm in finals week so I have two final papers due on Sunday. Lots of stuff to do.

OK, meditation. Bob has taken over the TV so no Leela. Hmmm. I think I will do a walking meditation, heel to toe, that can be a nice break from sitting.

I missed Sat and Sun for various reasons, but here we are on Monday and I definitely need it! I'm helping a friend of mine proof his book for publication. I did a full sweep of his book and fixed NUMEROUS typos in it. Now he just gave me a fresh version and all my typo fixes are gone! He accidentally did his polishing work on an old version of the document. So I had to run a "document compare" between the two and am manually redoing my typo fixes. Again. It's frustrating to do the same work twice. At least this time I don't have to find them again, just make the fixes indicated by the Word compare.

How shall I meditate tonight. When I tried my walking meditation, I kept getting distracted by the clutter everywhere. So that wasn't ideal. Maybe a feet-up-the-wall quiet one tonight.

Tuesday I was sound asleep, my sleep schedule is getting unusual even for me Today I'm here! I had a lovely dinner with my mom, then an hour of PS3 dancing, and now it's a great time for a mental break!

Maybe a breath meditation tonight, that is always a good one to work on.

ok it's a half hour til meditation time. I am going to do a quiet sitting with lots of soft blankets around me for ten minutes, when the time comes.

That sounds awesome Jilly! Soft blankets bring a great texture into your meditation.

Bob is off shopping so I actually have a silent house. I think I will do a sitting breath meditation again. That is very restful for me.

I woke up at 6pm today and pretty much all I have been doing for the past 4 hours is sorting my email. I really need to get this under control, there is SO much mail deluging me that I am falling further behind. So a focus break would help me a lot.

OKay, I was distracted by my reading. Will start meditation now!

Yesterday I was caught up in dancing and went right past meditation time. I guess I was doing a dancing meditation! It's good for my health at least

Today I am busy reloading my first four medieval novels up. I had found a few minor typos in each one once they went live, and I waited until now in case more were reported. But it seems that's all there was. So they all get shiny new versions for going forward.

I have three done, and will take a meditation break! I think a sitting meditation will do nicely.

I will do tonite's meditation now. Sitting down with a smooth stone. This always attracts the cats - me sitting still!

I'm so sorry I've been away. Things have been absolutely hectic in my life. I am finally feeling like I can breathe again. My mom keeps asking me to visit to see a show or something, and I can't even imagine doing it. Every second is already backlogged; I can't possibly take 5 hours to just sit and watch entertainment.

I need to get my life back under control. This is just too much, with the school and work and books and everything else.

OK, I really need to be able to *breathe*.

Meditation today. Sit on the couch. Close my eyes. Even ten minutes would be a blessing right now.

Lisa, have you decided how to ease back on things?

I completely fell out of practice on my meditation. And I do miss it immensely. I need to work it back into my schedule. I am making good progress on the house decluttering project so I think that will help a lot. I would love to have a much less filled house.

I will set my alarm to do a meditation tonight at 10pm - so in an hour and 20 minutes. I'd love to have people join me!

OK I am here! It is 10pm! I will strive to do a 5 minute meditation. I think I need to start in a small dose - it's been a very long day full of lots of coding, and it's not done yet. Still, progress is being made.

So here I go, turning down the lights and breathing deeply. Come join me!

OK running a little late tonight because Bob needed some help, but here I am!

Aiming for 5 minutes again tonight, it will be a challenge with Bob disassembling the living room as I type Challenges are good!

That was very nice. I am SO glad I am getting back into a daily meditation practice. It does refresh me and give me more energy to continue tackling my tasks.

OK my hard drive melted down early this week and I'm barely getting it back running again. One of the replacement hard drives we brought home didn't work either. So it's been a long, stressful week.

I can definitely use some moments of quiet here, to relax and regroup!

I will aim for five minutes tonight. My computer is busy doing windows updates anyway

I know I normally start the meditations at 10pm EST but the mailing is still running so I'm holding off until it finishes. If you're here for the meditation, I'll be starting it soon! Read through a few of the posts to get into the meditative mood

OK a bit of a delay but it's 11:11 (that magical time I love) and the newsletter is completely sent. So I'm starting my meditation now! Everyone who is around, join in for ten minutes of quiet meditation!

Wow that was quite lovely. And now I'm inspired to test out a tangerine bath salt recipe! Deep breathing and relaxation can really help to bring down stress levels.

It's 10pm, meditation time! I welcome you all to join in a few minutes of rest and relaxation.

10pm is meditation time Meditation reduces stress and helps you sleep!

I am aiming for 10 minutes at 10pm tonight Join me!

LOL what's funny is I have an alert on my computer, and lately I get annoyed that the alert disrupts something I'm doing! It goes to show how much I really need the meditation, to regain some balance in my life.

I'll do my best to meditate tonight .

I have been bad about this. When the timer goes off it interrupts me and I ignore it. Clearly I need to work on this.

I wanted to do ten full minutes. I just can't take that long of a break right in the middle of my day.

I'm now going to aim for ONE minute . That won't slow down my coding too much if I'm deep into coding. Hopefully that can get me back on track.

I'm not even doing one minute. This is fairly sad. I know how important meditation is.

I will do one minute right now. I could definitely use it!

It is amazing how even the simplest things slip away when one doesn't pay attention to them.

I do try to meditate every night when I lay in bed, and I suppose that does count. But I would like something a little more deliberate, vs using the time I can't fall asleep for something useful.

I will strive to get back into this practice, starting tonight! One day at a time!

OK here it is exactly 10pm. I am going to meditate. Ten minutes. I am looking forward to this!

Join along if you're online!

That was lovely! During much of it I could feel the mess around me "pressing in" on me. It just seemed so powerful. I think that's an important sign for me that I have to clean up this office. I don't think I realize how much the mess affects me until I sit down and just sit in it like that.

We are about fifteen minutes away from our evening meditation! Get something to drink, settle down, and join me in a peaceful meditation!

It's OK if you have random thoughts during this. That's what meditation is all about. It's about dealing with those thoughts. Think of it like weightlifting. It wouldn't really be weightlifting without weights giving resistance to you. Those thoughts are the resistance and you're practicing dealing with them.

Here's an image to help us get into the mood!

I'm settling into my meditation spot - I hope you will join me!

That was quite lovely! And I opened my eyes exactly after ten minutes, without a timer or anything.

My boyfriend was watching the news so I played a Windham Hill song set to overlay it, and that was quite peaceful.

Meditation time is coming up in just over ten minutes! Get your environment set, get a glass of water or wine, and prepare for peace!

I ended up doing fifteen minutes - it was lovely! A bit cluttered thoughts at first, but definitely cleaning up my office has helped a lot. I feel much more serene in here. And over time the thoughts faded away. I focused on my breath this time, counting each out-breath up to 10 and then restarting. Then I ended with a visualization of my Tibetan temple with hyacinths and birds singing.

Reminder - our ten minutes meditation is coming up in just over ten minutes! Get your space ready - serenity is coming!

That was quite soothing! I highly recommend trying it. Even ten minutes can make a difference.

It's nearly ten pm EST! Time for the ten minute meditation at 10pm! Prepare your meditation area, for serenity is right around the corner!

Just finished my ten minute meditation exactly ten minutes later, without a timer. It's amazing how the brain can do that. Peaceful. I highly recommend wiggling a ten minute meditation into your schedule, it's amazingly restful.

I'm ten minutes away from starting my ten minute meditation at ten pm EST . If anyone is around to join me, that would be lovely!

LOL and again I stopped exactly at 10:10! I love how brains work

Ten minute meditation at 10pm is coming up - pull up a pillow and join me!

A lovely ten minute meditation, meditated to three songs by Enya. Have to take May It Be out though - it fills me with poignancy. It's the song from the first Lord of the Rings and I think I connect with that series too strongly to use it as a meditation song .

Ten minutes away from the ten minute meditation at 10pm. Join me! It will take my mind off the new poison ivy spots on my legs.

That was lovely. Once again I played Enya music while I meditated. I find it soothing. My current trio of songs is Orinoco Flow, Watermark, and Only Time.

I enjoyed my meditation at 10pm tonight - it was quite restful!

I'm ten minutes away from the ten minute meditation at ten pm! Get your water, your candle, whatever else you use to draw in bliss.