How to Meditate if You Have Mental Illness

Some peope say you shouldn't meditate if you have mental illness. They are partly right. You shouldn’t do concentration meditation, as that can easily worsen your condition.

However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t meditate at all, or can’t benefit from meditation at all. Meditation can relieve you of mental illness if you do the right kind of meditation correctly.

People with mental illness have an unsettled mind, which exhausts them. In this situation, you need to find a way to settle the mind. Let me suggest a way:

Breathe in. Feel the body. Relax the body as you breathe out.

That’s it. Yes, it’s that simple. No need to close your eyes or sit cross-legged.

For some people, no matter how many times they try the above, they just can’t relax. That’s okay; let it be. Here’s something else you can do.

Walk to and fro. As you do that, feel your body. After walking like this for a while, check whether the body is relaxed. If it’s not, that’s okay; let it be. Just continue to feel your body as you walk to and fro.

Apply this same awareness of the body to all your daily activities: What is the body doing? How does it feel?

Do this as regularly as you can throughout the day. It’s okay if you forget. That’s normal. When you know you’ve forgotten, just start again. Be kind to yourself. Remembering to meditate throughout the day takes years of practice.

As you keep practising this way, the length of time you remember will grow, and the length of time you forget will shorten. In other words, the time you will be practising will naturally become longer.

As that happens, you will notice that your negative thoughts become less. And so you become more energetic and more at ease. At this point, don’t become over-confident and then stop practising. Keep going. The practice will bring even more benefit to you. You may even become mentally healthier than most people.


Note: I’m setting up a place called Spiritual Retreat Centre, where people can step away from the pressures of daily life and devote to cultivating themselves. See https://web.facebook.com/SpiritualRetreatC/

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