Meditation is one of those self-defined exercises of the soulful spirit that’s been so clearly defined by so many in so many ways, yet so ill conceived in its manner and through its function. In one of the seminars I once conducted on meditation, the greatest bit of feedback that I received more than anything else from the participants was that they found the ability to engage in any meditative exercise was usually thwarted by their own seemingly consistent inability to calm themselves enough to discover any sort of comfort zone within which to exist long enough for it to do any good in their lives.

Before too long after any stated they had attempted meditation, they found their minds too racy, filled with all sorts of thoughts of their days, their weeks, their families and of course their own fears be these rational and more often irrationally based. This is when I found myself grasping at the basics of progressive muscle relaxation and presenting these to people in a simple and functional way.

Many carry through their lives the mis-belief that meditation is something that takes either an immense amount of time, or an uncanny discipline thus enabling the person to transcend the more common aspects to ones consciousness. Nothing is further from the truth! Meditation can be practiced in both long personal sessions of ten to sixty minutes, or in short bursts of anywhere from thirty seconds to several minutes. The prime factor involved is one's willingness to perceive one's inner self, one's inner sensations and feelings instead of endlessly running from them. This is one of the prime keys to reaching beyond the simple sensations of the tactile, the olfactory and the auditory senses. What comes beyond this is worth the practice!

Resources that I personally have found helpful in the early days of my own attempts at meditation spoke clearly of the usual difficulties that halt most people at the onset of the practice of meditation. Most of these include a naturally racey mind due to the usual demands that life and family and friends tend to kick in our directions. Others include the natural and understandable fears that people have connected to visualizing ones own thoughts and forbid having to face any of the dark corners that might exist in the mind. I've personally had them all and like everyone else, I still do.