Walking meditation is a good entry point into for a more formal meditation it does not however provide all the benefits of true meditation.
Two major benefits of a formal meditation is a you enter into the relaxation response and you start to become in touch with your inner wisdom.
To properly meditate you have to learn to properly breathe, this is not chest or thorax breathing or abdominal breathing it's learning to breathe with the diaphragm. The chest and the gut state virtually motionless while the diaphragm expands the lower floating ribs.
Dr. Andrew Weill teaches the 478 method, this is an inhale through the nose to a count of 4 hold breath for a count of seven and exhale very slowlyeither through the nose for the mouth to count eight.
As you begin to enter the relaxation response breathing rate will go from 12 to 18 breaths per minute down to 4 to 6. This starts to conserve more carbon dioxide and as it does that calms every nerve in the body and allows vasodilation for more oxygen to reach every organ and you begin to enter into parasympathetic relaxation.
While you focus on mantra or a point of observation which could be as simple as the breath you begin to shut down the cortex which allows inner wisdom and what I feel this connection with my inner spirit to emerge.
I use the mantra, So Hum which means I Am in Sanskrit.
I have found that the majority of breathing instruction for meditation is incorrect, people have simply repeated the same for information over and over and because of this many people never get to enjoy the real benefits of the deep meditative relaxation practice.
Here is a website that describes accurately the process of proper breathing for meditation and relaxation and healing:
For some reason sober recovery will not let me post this link if you're interested you can email me personally
Doctors understand the true healing comes from a process that is our birthright and that they only help facilitate. It is my belief that the healing process comes from our spirit and as addicts we have lost the connection to our spirit and meditation is the doorway to regaining that connection and our healing.
It also allows us to reconnect with ourselves on a deep level and begin to listen to our own inner wisdom and hear the healthy voice our core self has always maintained in spite of self hate - self loathing and acting out on these anger generated conditions.
My problem is discipline, to enjoy the benefits of a meditation practice we need to do it a minimum of twice a day for at least 20 minutes. I know people that needed some profound healing in many areas of their life and meditated many times a day. While this is not for everyone I have a good friend who has serious medical problems, she goes to meditation intensive in a place called spirit rock where she and a large number of other people meditate from seven the morning until 7 PM for 10 days without speaking. She attributes this practice once or twice a year to profound emotional and physical healing that physicians and psychologists were never able to provide her.
Since the core practice of AA and NA is reconnecting with our spirit I hope everyone who is interested learns proper meditation, for me it is the daily grounding point, the place where I meet myself and speak to my spirit and listen for my spirit wisdom and messages to guide my life.
This part of ourselves has information and guidance that no book, doctor, therapist, friend, or program will ever be able to provide. It comes from our core self, is totally unique to us and knows and always has known exactly what we need.
In our addictions and certainly in mine we lost contact with this or we never knew it existed to make contact. Nowhere in our education or training in this culture were ever taught that we have a direct contact to our spirit, to God, or to our higher true self.
If anyone else is on this path to discovery I would love to connect with you.
Namaste'