To start meditating today you need three things: somewhere to sit, ten minutes, and a willingness to come back. You sit with your spine upright, close your eyes, rest your attention on the breath, and every time the mind wanders you bring it back. That is the whole practice. Coming back is not the failure of meditation — coming back is the exercise.
What meditating is, and what it isn't
Most people quit in the first week because of a wrong idea about what should be happening.
Meditating is not emptying the mind. The mind thinks the way the stomach digests: asking it to stop is asking it to stop being a mind. It is also not about feeling good — some days are calm, some are noisy, and both count the same.
Meditating is training attention. You choose a place to rest it — the breath, almost always — you notice when it has drifted, and you bring it back without scolding yourself. That gesture, repeated, is what eventually changes something.
In the language of this house I would say it like this: to meditate is to make enough silence to hear yourself again. You are not bringing in anything new. You are remembering something that was already there.
How long should you meditate at first?
Less time than you think, more often than you think.
Ten minutes a day for a month does more than one hour on a Sunday. Regularity is the active ingredient.
If ten feels like a lot, start with five. A short session you keep builds a habit. A long session you skip builds guilt.
| Week | Daily length | What to focus on |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5 minutes | Just sitting down. Let it happen, even badly. |
| 2 | 10 minutes | Noticing the mind drift and returning without judgement. |
| 3 | 10–15 minutes | Holding the posture instead of moving at the first itch. |
| 4 | 15 minutes | Finishing slowly and carrying some of that calm into the day. |
| After | 15–20 minutes | Maintaining. You don't need more than this for it to work. |
The full practice, step by step
No app, no music, no special cushion.
1. Choose the place and the time
A chair by the window works. The edge of the bed works. In Medellín the city is still quiet at half past five in the morning, and quiet again by nine at night. Pick your window and defend it.
Put your phone on silent, face down, out of arm's reach. If you use it as a timer, switch on airplane mode.
2. Set the body
Posture is not decoration. It is what holds attention up when attention gets tired.
Sit on a chair with your feet flat on the floor and your knees roughly at a right angle. If you prefer the floor, sit on a firm cushion with your hips higher than your knees.
Spine upright, not rigid: imagine a thread lifting the crown of your head, with the rest of the body hanging from it.
Shoulders loose, back and down. Jaw soft — let it separate a millimetre from your upper teeth. Hands on your thighs, palms down to settle, palms up to open.
Eyes closed. If closing them makes you sleepy or uneasy, leave them half open, gaze resting on the floor a metre ahead, not focusing on anything.
3. The first two minutes: arriving
Don't start meditating straight away. Arrive first.
Take three long breaths through the nose, letting the out-breath be slower than the in-breath. With each one, release something specific: the shoulders, the tongue, the forehead.
Then scan the body from head to feet with your attention, correcting nothing. Just looking.
Finish arriving by noticing the contact points: the feet on the floor, the weight on the chair, the hands on your thighs. The body is the only part of you that is always in the present. That is why we start there.
4. The centre: the breath as an anchor
Stop breathing on purpose. Hand the breath back to the body and simply watch it as it comes — short, long, uneven. It doesn't matter.
Choose one single place to feel it, and stay there for the whole sitting:
- the cool air moving in and out at the nostrils;
- the chest opening and closing;
- the belly rising and falling.
The nostrils sharpen attention. The belly calms more. If in doubt, start with the belly.
Now just keep it company. A whole in-breath. A whole out-breath. And the next one.
If it helps, count out-breaths from one to ten and start again. When you notice you're at thirty-seven, you know what happened. Go back to one, no drama.
5. When the mind wanders (because it will)
It will. Many times. For everyone.
You'll remember an unanswered email, yesterday's conversation, the shopping. You'll build entire plans without noticing.
The moment you notice is the valuable moment of the whole practice. It isn't an interruption — it is attention waking up.
Do this, always the same way:
- Acknowledge silently what happened, with one word: "thinking", "remembering", "planning".
- Don't chase it and don't shove it away. Don't argue with the thought; arguing is also thinking.
- Return to the spot you chose.
That's it. No reproach. If this happens forty times in ten minutes, you have done forty repetitions of the exercise. That is a good day.
The image I have seen work best: you are the sky, not the weather. Clouds pass. You don't leave with them.
6. If discomfort shows up
Tell discomfort apart from pain.
Discomfort — an itch, a numb leg, the urge to move — is practice material. Watch it for three breaths before moving; it often dissolves on its own. If it stays, move slowly and consciously, then return.
Pain is not to be endured. Sharp, growing, in a joint or the lower back: change position. Stretch your legs. Move to a chair if you were on the floor. Meditate lying down if that is what your body needs today; it beats not meditating.
Emotional restlessness is discomfort too. If sadness, anger or anxiety rises, open your eyes, press your feet into the floor and take three breaths with a longer exhale. If it keeps growing, close the session. More on this below.
7. How to finish
Don't jump up when the timer sounds. Let three more breaths pass.
Widen your attention in layers: from the breath to the whole body, from the body to the sounds in the room, from the sounds to the space around you.
Move your fingers and toes. Roll your shoulders and neck slowly. Rub your palms together and rest them a moment over your closed eyes. Then open them.
Before you pick up your phone, stay one minute doing nothing. If you wish, form a brief intention or a word of gratitude in silence. In my own practice, that is the moment I ask that what was received not stay with me alone.
What the evidence says, said carefully
Honesty matters here, as it does on this site when the subject is Reiki.
Meditation and mindfulness have considerably more accumulated research behind them than energy therapies. The general consensus among public health bodies is that they can help with perceived stress, anxiety symptoms and sleep quality, with effects usually described as modest and study quality uneven.
What that consensus does not say is that meditation cures illness, replaces treatment, or works the same for everyone. Read it at the source: nccih.nih.gov/health/meditation-and-mindfulness-what-you-need-to-know, and see the honest comparison with Reiki in Does Reiki work?.
When meditation stirs something difficult
This is rarely said, and it needs saying.
Sitting in silence removes the noise that is often covering something. In sustained practice, and especially in intensive retreats or long sittings, emotional material can surface that you weren't expecting: unfinished grief, anxiety, difficult memories.
It is not a sign that you are doing it wrong. But it is not something to push through alone, out of discipline.
If that happens: shorten the practice or pause it for a few days; prefer open-eyed, walking, or body-and-sound practices; don't increase duration or start an intensive retreat at that moment; and if the distress persists, seek psychological support. That is not a spiritual failure. It is care.
If you are being treated for anxiety, depression, trauma or any psychiatric condition, tell your professional that you have started meditating. It is useful information for both of you.
What I see in my practice
When someone comes to me in Medellín after months of sleeping badly, the first thing I suggest is usually not another session. It is five minutes a day, sitting.
It almost always goes the same way. In week one they come back saying they can't, that their head won't stop. By week three they don't say that. They say they caught themselves clenching their jaw in a meeting, and let it go.
That is the real change, and it is small. Not light, not visions, not permanent peace. Room. One second between what happens and what you do with it.
In Santa Elena — the cloud-forest village above Medellín where I also work — practice comes easier: the surroundings are already still. But the meditation that holds a life together is the one you do on an ordinary Tuesday, in a chair, with traffic noise coming through the window.
Meditation and Reiki are not the same thing
In a Reiki session you receive and the practitioner holds the space. In meditation, you do the work. They complement each other well: the session is where people let go, and the daily practice is where they hold themselves steady in between.
To fine-tune the breathing side first, there is the five-minute conscious breathing practice. For the wider frame all of this belongs to, see self-healing and the self-healing guide. Sessions in Medellín, in Santa Elena and at a distance can be held in English.
Frequently asked questions
How long before I notice something? Usually the first signs appear between the second and fourth week of daily practice, and outside the meditation rather than inside it. They tend to be quiet things: falling asleep a little sooner, reacting less sharply, noticing you were tense. If you expect extraordinary experiences, you will probably be disappointed.
Can I meditate lying down? Yes, especially with back pain, deep tiredness or while recovering from something. The drawback is that the body associates that position with sleep. To stay awake, try one knee bent with the foot flat on the floor, or one arm raised and balanced on the elbow.
Are apps and guided meditations useful? Very useful at the start: the voice holds your attention while you can't yet hold it yourself. The risk is dependence. A good sign of progress is sitting five minutes in silence without anyone telling you what to do. Alternate guided and silent days.
Do I need to believe in anything to meditate? No. Sitting and watching the breath requires no belief, and people from very different traditions — or none — practise without conflict. In my case the practice has a devotional dimension, because that is my path. It doesn't have to be yours: your free will is not up for discussion here.
Morning or evening? Mornings train attention better and carry the calm into the day. Evenings settle the body and prepare rest. If you can only do one, choose the hour you will actually keep. The best meditation is the one that happens.
Disclaimer
This article is for educational purposes and does not replace diagnosis, treatment or follow-up by a healthcare professional. Reiki is a complementary practice: it accompanies, it does not substitute. If you are under medical or psychological care, continue it and talk to your treating professional before adding any complementary therapy.
If you would like to begin with company, or you have been practising and something has got stuck, write to me on WhatsApp at +57 314 811 7561 and we'll talk it through. Namasté.
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Sananda Reiki
Spiritual support and Reiki therapies in Medellín and online.
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