A Game That Will Help You Meditate…

I didn’t always love meditation, and to be completely honest, I’m still not sure how I feel about it.

What I am sure of is how great I feel after I’m finished meditating – and how crappy I feel when I avoid the quiet time with my thoughts that I know I need so badly.

After some reflection, I realized that I had a very narrow idea of what meditation involved.

For some reason, I had convinced myself that I needed to be all in when I meditated, or else I was wasting my time.

30 minutes, seated, legs crossed, incense burning, robe-wearing – no thoughts allowed in my mind and I can only focus on my breathing. That’s not sustainable, is it?

My idea of meditation changed once I started playing this game.

It’s now the pursuit of mindfulness that I’m after.

Here’s what I did to mix up my meditation practice.

The Game

I started with a few pieces of paper and a mason jar. I felt like I was preparing some cringe-worthy party game that only I would be playing, but I continued regardless.

Instead of maintaining my ultra-rigid definition of meditation, I opened my mind (with the help of a few google searches) and came up with some easier, more digestible meditation practices.

I wrote down 5 different mini-meditation exercises on small pieces of paper and put them in the mason jar. Then, when I wanted to spend some time meditating, I would pick a piece of paper (or a few) from the jar, find a quiet place to sit down, and follow the guidelines.

Here are the 5 exercises I used when I first did the activity.

1. Take 10 deliberate breaths. Repeat up to 3 times.

2. Choose 1 yoga pose and stay in it for 4 minutes with your eyes closed, focusing on slowing down your breathing rate.

3. Slow down your breathing as much as possible – try to make every exhale a few seconds longer than the last.

4. Write down something you are grateful for. Then, set a 2-minute timer, close your eyes and meditate on what you wrote. Repeat up to 3 times.

5. Pick something positive and something negative to use as mantras. When you inhale, think of your positive word filling you up (ex. courage). When you exhale, think of your negative word leaving your body (ex. fear).

How This Helps

Some of the exercises have time limits, and some are more open-ended.

I like this game so much because it allows me to reap the benefits of meditation without getting down on myself because I didn’t meditate in the exact way I imagined an enlightened person would.

After a few times of using my home-made game to push my meditation practice in a different direction, I returned the mason jar to the kitchen and put the pieces of paper in the recycling bin.

I no longer use the game, but I keep the principles that I learned very close to me.

The truth is, the benefits of meditation may very well come from the intention to meditate, and not just from the act of meditation itself.

Try out this meditation game and let me know what you think!

How do you meditate?