Meditation

Can’t Sit Still? Here’s How Moving Meditation Can Help You Find Your Bliss

By Alana Fairchild | Posted: October 01, 2019

Recently I was asked a question that I suspect rests unspoken in the hearts of many a newbie to meditation. I was facilitating a gathering in Salt Lake City, Utah. A participant raised her hand and bravely expressed that she felt like a failure because sitting still in meditation eluded her, no matter how hard she tried.

It’s my belief that there are as many ways to meditate as there are humans on the planet - and then some. Whilst I enjoy a still, seated practice of meditation, sometimes it can be difficult. My first-ever yoga teacher told me that she did an hour of yoga every morning for the sole purpose of being able to sit comfortably in meditation for forty minutes afterwards. I find that my own meditation practice after a yoga class is often considerably deeper and more still. I also find that seated or reclined meditation after a dance meditation is often quite deep.

Dancing meditation is easier than you might think

This is one reason why I often offer dance mediation as part of my work (although I tend to call it ‘moving meditation’ so as to not trigger unnecessary fear in people who don’t think of themselves as dancers). The body is rhythmic by nature. The heart beats, the blood pumps. Humans can naturally meditate to music. Moving meditation is not about being a great dancer or performing certain moves. It is about allowing the body to express itself authentically in the moment, held and guided by the music but not instructed in choreography. For that reason, trained dancers who are used to telling their bodies what to do can struggle just as much as anyone else when it comes to giving the body permission to be free. Authentic movements might be small sways back and forth, spontaneous yoga postures, dancing like a tribal goddess, groaning or crying or yelling or squealing, or running back and forth from one side of the room to the other, while laughing in ecstatic glee. I’ve seen (and heard) it all.

I love feeling and witnessing what happens in groups when I facilitate moving meditation in such a way. Even for those that have never tried it before, there is so often a sense of a deeper experience than one thought was possible. For those that struggle to enter into stillness and emptiness, moving meditation to music can a vitalizing, honest and often very enjoyable way to bring body and mind and breath into unified presence. We can discharge excess energy, ground the mind in the body, and more easily pay attention to the flow of the breath beneath the fluctuations of our every-wandering (and ever-wondering) mind. It can prepare us for seated practice, but it can also be a legitimate form of meditation in its own right. I have friends who are dancers, and that is the only way that they can meditate. I have clients that dance with their children at home in their lounge room to foster authenticity, connection, and presence in their relationships. Meditation is meant to be attainable. The next step for you on your meditation journey is whatever is practical and accessible.

Meditation through mantra

I also explore meditation through the repetition of Tibetan and Sanskrit mantras. That could be barely speaking them aloud as I close my eyes and settle myself in my body, or by singing mantras and prayers while playing crystal singing bowls, which I find to be particularly engrossing to the mind, so that it stops darting about from one thing to the next and rests fully in the joy and presence of what I am doing in that moment.

Meditation through yoga

Another way that I practice an active form of meditation is through dynamic vinyasa yoga and especially Yin Yoga. The success of yoga as meditation, however, does depend somewhat how the yoga teacher ‘holds’ the space for class. The essence of yoga, from my experience of the practice over the past twenty five years, is breath connected with inner body awareness. If a teacher is distracted, barely mentions breath, or demands your attention, rather than allowing you to drop into your inner practice, then it might not be so meditative. Fortunately, your practice will still have benefits! You’ll just need to source your meditation practice via a different route. I know of people who choose gardening and cooking as meditative practices, though I confess, given my personal aversion to both of the above, I am not sure how effective they would be for me!

Finding your own path

In order to explore, we need to trust our intuition and the validity of our own soul path without needing it to look a certain way. It is intelligent to be guided by those we recognise as holding greater wisdom, yet any teacher worth their salt will not ask for your blind obedience, but instead encourage you to test, trial and discern for yourself the type of practice that best suits you at this time in your life. We have more choice to get creative with our spiritual awakening that we might expect. Many sage teachers will advise us to choose something and stick with it. This is not about curbing our creativity. It is an understanding that for a practice to bear fruit over the long term, we need to commit to it. It is not unlike a physical exercise practice - find what you like so that you’ll stick to it enough to gain results. So we balance an exploratory attitude to find what resonates with a willingness to stick to our practice on those days that we really don’t want to do it. This is the magic formula through which we access deep healing and awakening through meditation.

May your exploration of meditation be comforting and joyful. May you reach out, turn within, and recognise, be and express the divine beauty that you are in truth.