Short But Sweet 10 Minute Meditations for Healthy Aging

by Baxter

Even though I'm away leading a retreat this week, I'm thinking of all our readers at YFHA (kinda' wishing you were here!), as I'm focusing a good portion of our practice time here on developing a home yoga meditation practice. Since we have two yoga practice sessions a day here, we begin and end each if them with a 10-minute seated meditation practice. Monday was our first full day of practice together and the overriding focus was on the feet, anatomically, and the idea of "starting”—whether that meant starting something new, starting again, starting over—about taking the first steps on that new path. For me, the feet represent the base of our overall strength, as well as stability. So I suggested that the group might use the phrase "strong and stable" as their mantra (a repeated word or phrase for mental focus), during the final seated meditation of each class.

As you might have calculated, by doing four 10-minute meditations in class, my group is getting 40 minutes of time to practice this powerful method in manageable amounts of time. (I happen to have them doing two more 10-minute sessions on their own for a total of 60 minutes a day). This is a sweet amount of time, but at home, you can easily practice just one or two sessions in a day and still reap benefits. Try the "strong and stable" mantra for your sit today! I'll try to share other ideas this week as well.

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