How to Meditate for Beginners at Home: A Full Guide to Get Started

When I was younger I had no clue what meditation was. I thought it was like some weird thing they do in the East while sitting cross legged and making the 0 sign with their hands.

So that you don't experience the same confusion I did, and to avoid that pain for you I wrote this article that shows you how to meditate for beginners at home.

No joke I wish this article came up when I was looking up how to meditate at home for the first time.

First off, if you haven't read the other articles go check those out, they have useful information if you're interested in meditation (especially for a beginner) : 

I've already made a page about How To Meditate, this is like a slightly simpler version of that.

Note #1 : This is ultra simple to do, I'll hold your hand and tell you what to do

Note #2 : If you want everything you need to know about meditation packaged into one place check out the FREE class I made. It basically teaches you everything I wish I knew when I first started out meditating, it even has a day-by-day tracker with action steps so that you'll lock in the habit for the long-term and not something you do for a week and forget about.

This is the link : FREE Meditation Class (you also get 1 month free of skillshare)

Alright, let's start (finally)

I wish I had this 'how to meditate for beginners at home' guide when I was in your position, it would have saved me a bunch of time and frustration.

This is set up in 2 different stages;

The Preparation and The Execution

The Preparation

There are some things that you must do in order for your meditation practice to be worthwhile.

This is what you'll do so that your meditation practice is effective and fruitful.

1. Make sure you are in the room alone. Now, I used to share a room with 2 other people, before I start meditating I used to tell them, and if they're good people they'll automatically understand not to bother you for that time.
2. Make sure the place is quiet, ideally no type of sounds, I know you can't make it perfectly silent, just work with what you've got.
3. Set timer. On phone or an app works fine
4. Wear something comfortable. Don't wear something you need to stay adjusting, like a shirt that is too tight, or shorts which are too short

The Execution

After you set up the environment now you can actually start meditating at home (or wherever you are, I probably should clarify that, I've meditated in the school bathroom before haha)

1. Sit in a comfortable chair. Make sure you can sit still without adjusting or moving
2. Close your eyes. Close them calmly, no need to 'lock' your eyes shut, just keep them relaxed but closed, a good indication of this is if they form the wrinkles on the eye lids you're closing them too strongly (don't worry you'll feel it)
3. Put your attention on 1 thing. This is what meditation is all about. This is how to meditate for beginners at home, that's the secret, focus on 1 thing. Meditation is the training for your focus and attention, we practice that by focusing on 1 thing, makes sense right? 

         You can focus on different things, sometimes I switch mid-meditation. There are 2 main things you can focus on; your breath, and your senses (these split into a further 5 things, yes even sight).

So what you're gonna do is put 100% of your attention on the thing that you chose, let's say you chose the breath (most common), you just focus on the breath, how it feels going in (your nostrils, you weird guy), how the breath feels as it 'inflates' your body like your belly, chest, back, shoulders, pay attention also to where you feel pressure/tightness when you breath in. And then focus on a long, slow, relaxed exhale.

Then do it again and do it repeatedly until the timer rings. It's simple but it's hard to maintain focus for a long period of time, but that's what meditation is for.

You'll notice your attention starts to go to your thoughts and maybe you go on a little adventure in your mind, don't worry, it happens, just take your attention back to the breath.

Later I'll explain how to react in a positive way when you lose your focus, rather than crying over it (like how I used to do).

Picking The Senses

Now let's say you picked the senses to focus on, or you just want to try them out. First of all pick one at a time, you can switch later, after a couple of minutes.

The senses you can use are

• Smell
• Touch (my favourite)
• Hearing
• Taste
• Sight (yes, actually)

I feel like they are quite self explanatory but I'll explain them just for you💛.

So, smell. What do you smell? Maybe your Mum is cooking your favourite lunch, or there's a certain smell in your room🤨. Or you just smell nothing. Just notice it.

Touch, now this is my favourite because it's the one I use the most, it's the easiest to do. What do you feel? How does your body feel? Does it feel light, heavy, tight, back aching? It's also the easiest to do because this is probably the one you'll have the most feedback in; what can you feel with your sense of touch? Your feet on the ground, back against the chair, arms on arm rest, or maybe they're resting on your lap, hamstring on chair, back straight or curved, calves touching leg of chair maybe etc. There are many basic things you could feel. Just put your attention on them.

Hearing, what do you hear? School kids (I live next to a school), birds chirping, wind, rain, trees moving, construction from the far away etc, you get the point.

Taste (least used one) : do you taste anything? Maybe an after taste you have like from coffee, a dessert, some food stuck in your teeth, the tiramisu your sister made that you devoured...

And finally, Sight. Yes this is actually part of meditation, even with your eyes closed. What you're going to do is paint a picture inside your head of what you can 'see', what you will see if you open your eyes, make it vivid and include details, even colours.

This one always gives me a slight challenge as I try to remember the small details like how my clothes are folded, what position I left my pen in or the exact shade of colour of my wall.

Meditation Mindset

This is what I spoke about earlier,

This is the meditation mindset you should have. This eliminates the annoyed feeling you get when your mind wanders, so you can focus better, enjoy it more, and get more benefits from it.

Now we are people, humans, we mess up and lose our focus, now there's a good way and a bad way to react to it.

And you know how we discussed how meditation is the practice of a skill right? (focus and attention). Well, we are not perfect when we do things, even things we are used to doing, look at professional athletes, they make a lot of mistakes, doesn't take away from how great they are at their sport. 

So when we lose focus during meditation it's just like losing the ball while playing football or basketball, just win it back. Your skills aren't perfect, and neither are your focusing skills.

The Good & The Bad Way To React

The bad way, the way most people react is that they get offended that their mind betrayed them and start getting defensive over it, ''No, I didn't lose focus I was just thinking about work'' (cope).

Another bad way people react to losing their focus while meditating is to get angry at themselves. This is useless for obvious reasons. What good will come out of that type of anger? NOTHING.

So what you should do is, immediately when you notice you mind straying away from your point of focus, grab it, and with the breath slowly bring it back. Don't judge yourself for losing focus, that won't help you.

Treat it like any other 'mistake'

This is by far the best mindset for meditation.

How to Meditate for Beginners at Home : Summary

• Meditation is a life changing habit
• This is the article that teaches you how to meditate at home for a beginner
• There are 2 phases to meditation : The preparation and The Execution
• When meditating you can focus on 2 things: The breath or The Senses, pick one
• The best meditation mindset there is : Treat meditation like any other skill, if you mess up, no big deal, refocus