Only Have Two Minutes? Try These Simple Meditations

Four Meditations You Can Do Almost Anywhere

In last week’s post, I shared how meditation works.

You can meditate for just a few minutes or for much longer, depending on what feels right for you and your practice. If you're new to meditation, starting with two minutes can make the practice feel much more approachable. As it becomes more familiar, you may naturally want to sit for three, five, ten, or twenty minutes—or longer. There is no duration you have to reach. A meditation practice doesn't become more meaningful simply because it lasts longer. What matters is finding a practice you can return to consistently.

1. Focus on Your Breath

One of the simplest forms of meditation is focusing on your breath.

Sit in a comfortable position and keep your back straight. You can sit on a mat or a cushion and fold your legs into a crossed-leg position. You can also sit in a chair and place your feet firmly on the floor. Make sure your back is ’t leaning on the chair; sit up with a straight back. In either position, you can place your hands on your knees or in your lap, palms up or down, based on what feels most comfortable. You can close your eyes or gaze at a stationary point just below the horizon. Keep your gaze on that point for the duration of the meditation.

Take three slow, comfortable breaths, allowing your breath to deepen without forcing it.

Then inhale for three counts and exhale for three counts. Count one. Inhale again for three counts and exhale for three counts. Count two. Inhale for three counts and exhale for three counts. Count three. Continue doing this until you have counted to 20.

End the meditation by taking three more deep breaths. Go back to your normal breathing. Open your eyes or look away from the stationary point.

If you prefer not to count your breaths, you can use a timer. Once you’re in a comfortable position, set the timer for two minutes. Breathe slowly and comfortably, noticing each inhale and exhale. Continue inhaling and exhaling in this manner until the timer rings. If you’re using a phone or tablet as a timer, make sure it’s in non-transmitting mode so you aren’t interrupted during your meditation practice.

2. Body Scan

Sometimes focusing on your breath isn’t a strong enough anchor, and it may be useful to add an additional component to your meditation. Body scanning involves focusing on different areas of your body and releasing tightness or tension.

You can keep your eyes open or closed while you sit in a crossed-leg position or in a chair, but if you’re so inclined, you can lie flat on a mat, facing up in savasana pose. Make sure your neck and head feel supported; your arms lay about 45 degrees away from your body; your hands are turned palms up; your back feels comfortable; your legs are equally apart from the midline of your torso; and your feet are turned outwards.

Close your eyes. Take three deep breaths. Notice cool air entering your nostrils and filling your lungs as you inhale, and warmer air leaving your lungs and your nostrils as you exhale. After a couple of breaths, return to normal breathing.

Then, with each inhale, imagine radiant white light entering your body and moving through you. With each exhale, imagine any tiredness, tension, and tightness in your lungs leaving your body.

As you inhale, more white light enters, and as you exhale, tiredness, tension, and tightness exit. Inhale and imagine white, radiant light moving to other parts of your body. Exhale and imagine tiredness, tension, and tightness leaving that part of your body.

Start with your head, move down your face, down your throat, through your shoulders, down your arms, into your hands, filling up your chest and back, coming into your heart, moving down your abdomen, into your hips, down each leg, and into your feet.  On each inhale, light fills that particular part of the body, and on the exhale the tension and tightness leave.

Once you have completed the body scan and your body is completely filled with white, radiant light, hold that vision for a few breaths, making sure all tiredness, tension, and/or tightness are out of your body, and you are filled only with white, radiant light.

3. Use the Chakras

In yogic and Hindu traditions, chakras are understood as energy centers located along the body's central axis.

It is best if you do this meditation in a seated position, but you can also do it lying down or even standing. Each chakra has a specific color, and in this visualization you move through each chakra and think about its corresponding color.

Begin the meditation by bringing awareness to your first or root chakra. Imagine red light coming from your root chakra, located around your sit bones or groin area, softly surrounding your whole body. Once you feel you are completely covered with red light, move on to your second or sacral chakra. Imagine orange light coming from your lower abdomen, below your belly button, and softly surrounding your body. Once you feel you are completely covered in orange light, move on to your third chakra, and visualize yellow. Imagine yellow light coming out of your solar plexus, located above your belly button, just below the ribcage, and surrounding your body. Once you are surrounded, move on to the fourth chakra, which is above your sternum, parallel to but not on top of your physical heart, and visualize green coming from your heart to surround you. When you are surrounded, move on to the fifth, or throat, chakra with the color blue. Imagine blue light coming out of your throat and surrounding you. Then focus on the sixth, or third eye, chakra in the middle of your forehead, and visualize the color indigo softly surrounding your body. Finally, focus on the seventh, or crown, chakra at the top of your head, and imagine violet light coming out and covering your body. Once that is done, visualize this purple light turning into a bright white light. Close the meditation by visualizing a bright white light surrounding your entire body.

4. Walking

Walking meditations are particularly enjoyable in nature, especially along the beach or in the woods, but you can do them anywhere, even on a treadmill. Set a timer if you want to keep the practice to approximately two minutes, then put the device away and give your attention to walking.

During the meditation, focus on each step you take. Notice how each foot feels as you set it down on the floor, how it feels as the weight comes off, and how it feels as you lift it up again. Every time your mind wanders, bring your attention back to your feet and every step you are taking.

Creating Space to Hear Yourself

One of the best aspects of meditation is that you need nothing but yourself and your intention to meditate. One of the things I love most about meditation is its simplicity. You don't need special equipment, an elaborate ritual, or hours of free time. You simply need a practice that feels accessible to you and a willingness to begin.

Try these meditations and notice which one feels most natural. You may connect with all of them, one of them, or none of them. That's okay. Meditation isn't about finding the "right" way to practice. It's about discovering what helps you become present.

Start with two minutes. Give yourself permission to be still, breathe, notice, and listen. Then see where the practice takes you.

Meditation isn't only about becoming calmer or learning how to focus. For me, it is also about creating enough quiet to hear what is happening within. When we spend our lives surrounded by expectations, responsibilities, information, and other people's voices, it can become difficult to distinguish our own inner guidance from everything we've absorbed.

Even two minutes of stillness can give us an opportunity to notice things like:

What am I feeling?

What am I thinking?

What does my body need?

What feels true to me?

This kind of awareness is an important part of the work I explore in Uncaged: Free Yourself, Reclaim Your Life. Before we can begin releasing the beliefs, expectations, fears, and identities that keep us confined, we have to become aware of them.

Sometimes that begins with something as simple as giving ourselves two minutes to listen.