Journey to Serenity: Exploring Meditation for Mental Clarity

I speak to many people who tell me they cannot find peace or calm in their life.

Some people find it very hard to sit stil, or be in their own thoughts. Many people tell me they need to take their phone to bed, they cannot fall asleep without the glow of it. These tend to be the same people who tell me they cannot sit, they cannot be in their own thoughts. . As a society we are becoming conditioned to constant stimulation. There always something there to entertain us, whether it be video music or messaging we have the world at our fingertips. These constant stimulations are actually damaging our attention span.

Whether it be scrolling on TikTok or flicking through YouTube. We always go down rabbit hole which leads to us getting further and further from peace.

We don’t know how to stop,how to be at peace and or be in the moment. I teach my clients two simple coping techniques to help them find a little calm. The first one is box breathing, I advise them to breathe in through their nose for four, hold the breath for four and blow out through their mouth for six. Most of them find it very calming.

The second technique I advise involves turning one of your hands so you can see your palm, then taking your index finger you stroke down from the thumb into the centre counting to 7 very very slowly. I ask them to do this for each finger being slow each time they do it. I then advise them to take the same finger to the middle of the palm already outstretched and draw a snail shell on the palm very slowly. Some may know this as the nursery rhyme for children round and round the garden. This can help self soothe. After this we discuss meditation, as a practitioner of it I do advise it. I fully accept not everyone finds it easy. I find a great deal of mental clarity in it.

My favourite kind of meditation is a walking one. I set a timer, clear a path and then close my eyes. I walk very slowly thinking to myself heel, ball of the foot, toes, heel, ball of the foot, toes. This simple mantra allows me to walk very slowly, very peacefully, finding mental clarity as I walk. I walk backwards and forwards within my hall, outside in my garden or simply in the forest on a nice day. The mantra disappears and I just find peace. Thoughts come and go by ignore them as I focus on slowly walking one foot in front of the other.