Meditation for Beginners

Reading two spiritually-themed books in the previous month - the novel The Seekers' Garden by Isa Pearl Ritchie and self help guide Humanity's Cry For A Change by Kate Heartsong - revived my enthusiasm for learning to meditate properly so it seemed particularly apt timing when TCK Publishing offered me a review copy of Meditation For Beginners by Ntathu Allen. As Allen herself mentions in this book, 'when the student is ready, the teacher will appear' and that sentiment rang particularly true. Previously I have enjoyed meditating after a yoga class, but I wanted a way in which to also meditate without that hour-long lead-in. Surprisingly, Meditation For Beginners felt as though it was particularly tailored for this situation with Ntathu Allen understanding exactly the catch-22 of people needing meditation in order to gain calm in their hectic lives yet those selfsame lives being the reason meditation seems impossible!

I loved how Allen pitches Meditation For Beginners. Reading her words is calming in itself which put me into a great frame of mind to begin practice. I also realised that through the way in which I achieve mindfulness doing two of my favourite hobbies, walking and crochet, I have effectively already been meditating. Tapping into those mindsets helped immensely with my first few sitting still meditations so I'm immensely grateful to Allen for pointing out the link. Allen's reassuring observations on incorporating meditation into my daily routine without requiring specific equipment or settings, really struck a chord too. It's too early yet to say whether meditation will root itself fully this time, but I already feel far more confident in my practice than I have done in the past and, after a week, am still eagerly anticipating my meditation time rather than it beginning to feel like a burden.