Meditation.

What an awful day it was yesterday for me.  My husband and I have been having some difficulties relationship wise for some time now, they had calmed down but yesterday they just flared right up.  Of course the first thing to go out of the window was my witchy-a-day thing.  I couldn't think straight and the last thing on my mind was anything like that.

Finally, the tension subsided and I decided to meditate.

Meditation is something I came to do very late on in my witchy life.  I was aware of it, but it was something I thought I couldn't do - just like the visualisation ;)
About 2 or 3 years ago I was working on something and meditation was a huge part of this work.  In the beginning I tried to get away with not doing it, but it soon became impossible and I ended up giving it a go.  I surprised myself with just how easy it was.  Now don't get me wrong, I do not go in for long and complicated meditations; firstly a lack of privacy means I am unable, for now, to play them back and just go along with them.  Secondly, I have a habit of falling asleep if they are too long; this was an issue I had right at the beginning but I was advised to sit up and meditate rather than lie down and I would be less likely to fall asleep!
I have to admit that this actually does work, but if a meditation is really long I often do find myself drifting off, even sitting up.

Before I got sick I used to go to yoga with my friend and we had a blast!  Towards the end of each yoga session we did some meditation, but usually I couldn't concentrate on what was supposed to be happening and would drift off and have very strange experiences, nothing remotely related to the meditation.  This was why I thought I couldn't meditate at all, but obviously I was wrong.

A technique that I use when I just want to calm my mind and maybe gain some clarity is to sit comfortably, usually on my bed.  Then when I have stilled my mind I picture myself standing up, walking towards the bedroom door and then down the stairs.  Then I see myself going outside into my garden, sitting down on a bench and relaxing.  I imagine I can hear the birds singing and a gentle breeze rustling in the trees.
Sometimes this is enough to clam me down, I maybe spend around 5-10 minutes doing this before bringing myself back inside, back up the stairs and back into the bedroom.
But sometimes I need an answer to a puzzling question and other forms of divination have not revealed anything.  This is when I use the above technique, plus I imagine an older version of myself comes to sit beside me and we chat about problems; or I have other techniques where I go down my street to the field at the top end and once in the field I walk a shirt distance before a mist descends on me.  Once the mist clears I am some place else - I usually have decided beforehand just where I am going to visualise myself being once the mist has cleared.  Once the mist has cleared I have a few techniques, such as choosing a path to go down to discover an answer, or meeting a person who then gives me advice, or being led to a pool of water where I get clear images of what I need to know.

I much prefer to imagine myself in my back garden, or in the field near my house because these places are very familiar to me and I have no trouble at all recalling them.  Sometimes, even when it is a guided meditation, I find it difficult to picture everything in my mind and that is why I tend to use these methods.

I think anyone who has difficulty with meditations should develop their own technique using familiar surroundings.