A while back, I promised techniques for brief meditation and brief prayer. If you’ve got a life overwhelmed by demands—small children, a noisy space with no room for quiet—than traditional meditation instructions that require twenty minutes of peace and quiet might seem laughable. But if you have such a life, you need the peace that meditation can bring even more than the rest of us.
First, work on grounding and centering. I mean, focus your meditation entirely on getting good at that, until you can do it in about five seconds. That’s easier than it sounds and it’s crucial for brief meditation.
The trick to the five-second grounding and centering is, first, to practice, and second, to leap in. Ground and center as if. As if you could do it in five seconds. Don’t say, well I’ll try, simply know you can; the resource is, truly, already within.
It is helpful to have a trigger; a crystal you hold, a picture you gaze at, a visualization you use. Imprint that trigger by using it whenever you ground and center; ultimately, simply using the trigger will start the process, as if you’ve pushed a button.
Once you have relaxed your mind and body into the centered moment, you can use that moment for prayer or meditation. Sometimes all you have time for is the centered moment, but even that can bring benefits to you.
The easiest place to find a meditation moment is in the shower. Even the most harried among us has to shower, and the relaxing feeling of hot water, the sound barrier as it rushes about us, is ideal for taking that deep breath in, finding your center, and remembering who you are. This is a moment when you can reach out to the Goddess, or ask for inner wisdom, or for strength. This is the moment when you can find the compassion that lives within you, and bring it to your day.
Another good moment for brief meditation is when you’re getting dressed. Instead of just throwing on whatever, take a moment to look at your closet or dresser and know that beauty is of the Gods, and bring beauty to yourself.
And again, when you open the refrigerator. Nourishment is the Earth Mother, it is the Harvest and the Hunt. Ground and center, and from a centered space, open the fridge and let the feeling of sustenance and satiety become a part of you.
If you can commit yourself to seeing the sacred in the ordinary, then there are many such moments you can find, and they will become a source of strength and peace for you.
