We all know the stereotype. A person that wanders around barefoot, flowy tunic, uncombed hair, with a strand of prayer beads around their neck. They only talk like Deepak Chopra and believe that the universe will pay their rent. If you’ve never used mala beads for meditation, this may be your only image of them. 

Now, a lot of us are not interested in being nouveau-hippies. We are not interested in going into the office without combing our hair or wearing a pair of flowy parachute pants that could save us in the event of a plane crash. But have you discounted using prayer beads because of this “hippy” image? I know that I used to.

I used to think that mala beads were only objects used to posture your “spiritual,” status in public. I completely discounted this useful tool until I used them for the first time.

And now I’m not sure if I can live without prayer beads in my meditation practice ever again.

What Are Prayer Beads?

Beads have been with humans all throughout history. Used for trade, status, talismans, and prayers, beads have been intimately connected with our bodies and spirits. In fact, the word bead actually originated from the word prayer (“bede” in Anglo-Saxon). 

We’re not quite sure how long prayer beads have existed, but it’s believed that people around the world held them as important for thousands of years. Strings of beads and “worship garlands,” have been found in the remains of various pagan cultures, such as the ancient Minoan civilization that existed thirty-six hundred years ago.

We know for certain that they became widely used in the Hindu tradition over twenty-nine hundred years ago. From there we know that they were adopted by most major religions- Buddhism, Muslims, and Christians all eventually incorporated them deeply into their spiritual actions. 

No matter the religious space, these beads have all had the same function. Their job was to help the wearers count and recite holy words. The goal of prayer beads is to change individual consciousness and state in an effort to bring the user closer to the Divine.

The goal of prayer beads is to bring us closer to the Divine.

Why Use Prayer Beads?

I remember once living in a Tibetan refugee colony in India. The monks and Tibetan people in this community were unbelievably inspiring in their spiritual practice. These refugees can’t live in their own homeland because of spiritual and political persecution, and so they live in whatever country will take them.

I have this vivid memory of walking around a corner and seeing this elderly woman on the stairs of a temple. She was hunched over a pair of vibrant turquoise prayer beads. With every prayer she would rock back and forth, moving the worn smooth beads through her hands. 

I knew this woman would never make it back to her homeland. Her country’s immense political issues would not be resolved in her lifetime. But her faith was so powerful and sincere that it almost knocked me off my feet. You could tell that her Mala necklace held such power, years of comfort, and connection to her faith. 

This brings me to one of the reason that you need Mala beads in your life- Objects hold power. The more you put energy into something, the more power it will hold. The more you use an item to call in the Divine, the faster it will help you get there.

The Science of Prayer Beads

Quantum physics is just starting to figure out how molecular vibration works, but we do know that it’s possible to change the vibration of something. Even if the science hasn’t quite figured out how to back this up, the phycology is real. The more importance you place on an object, the more it will get you to that feeling quicker.

When it comes to your spiritual practice, having an object that moves you into a spiritual connection is essential. We all have limited time. Billions of distractions. When you sit down to meditate it probably takes you a while to get into the zone. Prayer beads help you jump the wait time by giving your monkey mind a task and energy to focus on.

Prayer beads help you meditate by giving your monkey mind a task.

Why Prayer Beads Work

Mala beads help you commit to your meditation. We’re all guilty of it- we have a harder time committing to something on our own than when we’re with other people. If you practice yoga at home, it’s easy to hit your third sun salutation and decide you’ve done enough for the day. But if you’re in a yoga class, you know you’ve committed for the full time and you relax into the flow. 

Mala beads work the same way. You have 108 beads. There’s no cheating. You either finish your mantra (or breathing) 108 times, or you have to be honest about the fact that you didn’t do your whole practice. It also helps you get into the flow because you don’t have to count. The beads do it for you. 

The Different Parts of the Mala

Traditionally, there are 108 beads on a mala necklace. The number 108 comes from the Buddhist tradition and represents the 108 challenges or ”defilements” of the mind that we must overcome to reach nirvana.

The beads are all tied together, which reminds us that we’re all connected. The thread that’s chosen represents the way the Universe links us all. In between each bead is a knot. This helps us feel the separateness between the beads so we don’t have to open our eyes. It also ensures that the beads are silent during our meditation. 

Prayer beads are broken up into 4 intervals with something called “marker beads.” These beads help you stay focused during your meditation so that your mind doesn’t wander off. The counter beads also give you a great visual indication of where you are in your meditation. 

At the start and end of your meditation chain, you will find your “guru bead.” It’s the bead that the tassel (or another beautiful object!) is attached to. The guru bead is the 109th bead and represents the teacher or tradition that supports you. This bead reminds you that you’re not alone in your spiritual search, but are surrounded by a support system! 

After the guru bead comes your tassel or pendant. This is an integral part of your mala. It connects the string of beads and reminds us of the way that we’re connected to the Universe and each other. It represents the wearer's wish to cultivate prana or pure consciousness.

How To Use Prayer Beads for Meditation

How Do You Use Mala (Prayer) Beads for Meditation?

The goal of using beads is to calm your monkey mind and help you focus. But how you use your prayer beads is up to YOU! Remember, this is your spiritual practice. Feel free to use your mala in whatever way feels the best for you. 

To use your prayer beads for meditation, hold your mala in one hand and let it drape in a way that’s comfortable. Start at the first bead after the guru bead and hold it between your fingers. Most traditions use the thumb and middle finger to hold the bead. 

Most people choose either a single mantra or to work with their breath. Hold the bead and breathe in and breathe out. (Or say a mantra, or start a prayer, or whatever feels good!) Once your breath or mantra is completed, slip your fingers onto the next bead. 

Go bead by bead in a rhythm that feels comfortable. Use your marker beads to help you refocus if your mind has started to wander during your meditation. Once you hit your guru bead, take a second to remember what the guru bead is for: gratitude! 

Take a second to be grateful for a spiritual practice that holds and supports you. If you have a special pendant on your mala, you can meditate on what that pendant means to you. You can either end your meditation here or go around the chain again! 

If you want to bring more mindfulness into your day, you can wear your prayer necklace even after your meditation is done. Every time you feel it or notice it around your neck or wrist, take that second to draw in the energy from your earlier meditation. 

How To Choose The Right Prayer Beads

Choosing the right mala necklace is important. Take your time!

This is an object that will bring energy into your spiritual life and mindfulness into your day. Take your time to find one that will bring in the energy you want. You can have different mala necklaces for different purposes, but make sure that whichever ones you choose are useful to your meditation practice. 

Choose a necklace that’s made out of stones or seeds that are meaningful to you. (Not sure what crystals mean? Check out the A-Z dictionary!) Is the mala necklace design beautiful to you? Does it seem like something that would feel good to hold and touch? The goal is to trust your intuition and choose something that feels right.

The tassel or pendant is also something that you should consider. A tassel is the traditional form of Buddhist or Hindu necklaces, but many other traditions added a pendant so they could carry a powerful symbol with them. Does the pendant have a meaning to you? Will it help you remember something important to your spirit?

Once you’ve considered all these things and you’ve found one that is a resounding YES, then you can start integrating your prayer beads into your meditation practice! 

Prayer beads are a perfect tool for meditation.

Mala Beads Are A Powerful Meditation Tool

Prayer beads are more than just trendy or spiritual posturing. They are an incredible tool (that has been perfected over THOUSANDS of years!) that can help you with your meditation practice. This tool can be added to your meditation kit to guide your spirit and calm your monkey mind. 

Interested in the mala necklaces that I make? You can find all those here! I make each and every necklace with intention and prayer. With every knot, I say a prayer that aligns with its intention, and when it's complete I infuse it with reiki. They’re carefully packaged with love and carefully shipped to you! 

Don’t see one that’s perfect? Ask me about making something custom for you at no additional cost! 

We live in a remarkable world. 200 years ago, “finding your passion in life,” wasn’t a priority for humanity. But then came automation, airplanes, subsidized universities, the internet. Suddenly we live in a world with enough free time, education and movement that we can choose what we do. 

But with that freedom also comes exhausting responsibility. In a world of infinite choices, how do we narrow down what will make us feel the most fulfilled? How do you find your passion AND make money? How do you find a career you love AND have security? It can feel exhausting to begin.

But finding your passion is essential to wholehearted living. Especially now. This recent world crisis has made people stop and think about what makes their best lives. We have become a little more conscious that our time on Earth is limited. We need to make the most of it. 

So it’s time to learn some skills for how to find meaning in life. Here are your 8 steps to finding your new direction.

What more tips on How To Find Your Passion? Listen to this podcast I did with Christy Pritchard on EQ Cast!

How Do I Find My Passion?

1- Explore

How can you know what you like doing if you’ve never tried it? You already know what you’re interested in. It’s the stuff you love to watch on tv, the social media channels you follow, the things you talk about with your friends. 

But liking something is different than doing it. So write a list of all the things you enjoy. Then pick the top 4 things that you feel the most excited about, and commit to trying to do them yourself. Love horses? Take a riding lesson. Obsessed with sports? Join a team. Fascinated by crypto? Invest 20 bucks.

2- Start Small

In the beginning, it’s important to not put all your eggs in one basket. The goal is to cast a web and see how different activities feel. Focus on your curiosity and where it leads you. 

Try each new thing at least 3 times. The first time you try a new thing it will always feel awkward. The second time you will start getting the hang of it. By the third time, you’ll have an idea if this new thing is something you could commit to.

3- Follow Your Joy

Most people have grown up believing that life is about responsibility. We’re taught that it’s normal to hate our jobs and live lives that aren't fulfilling. But the whole point of this new type of life is that it's all about doing what you love! 

That doesn’t mean that it won't be hard (in fact, quite the opposite.) It means that what you do every day should give you a sense of joy. Joy is different than happiness. Joy is calmer, more persistent and more fulfilled. So of the few things that you're pursuing, what makes you feel joy most often? 

4- Find Guidance

By now, you should've narrowed down your focus to either one or two things. It's time to start going deeper. You may feel overwhelmed at this point about how to make this new direction sustainable, but don’t fear! 

The most amazing thing about our world today is our incredible access to information. If you can imagine something, someone else has already done it. And if they’ve done it, they’re willing to teach you about it. Often for free! Find resources online and learn the stepping stones that others use to create success. 

5- Make It a Habit

The only thing that you need to make something work is persistence. The people who are the most successful in the world aren’t the most talented, intelligent or even lucky. What they have is a commitment to show up and do what they love every day. 

You don't need to jump off the cliff and quit your day job yet. Just put effort into this new project daily, with whatever time you have. Never underestimate the power of cumulative results! If you do something small every day for 10 years, when you look back, suddenly you have something huge! 

6- Surround Yourself With the Right People

Fear is a fact of humanity. It is an essential thing that we need to help keep us safe. If we didn’t feel fear when a tiger jumped at us, we wouldn’t run away and we would die. But listening to the helpful things in your fear is very different than letting it drive the bus. 

When we start a new project, the most common response from those around us is to respond in fear. People will tell you all the things that could go wrong and all of the reasons you will fail. Hear this fear with love, they’re just trying to protect you! Then find other people who are used to living fully and willing to encourage you and support you on your new path. 

7- Get Comfortable With Discomfort

It’s not just the people around you who have to deal with their fear! Resilience training is part of following your passion. After all, you’re trying to live in a new way, the newness is bound to be confusing and difficult at times! If you don’t train yourself to deal with this discomfort, you’ll give up your passion before you've even begun.

Do something every day that scares you. It should be something small, but it should make you feel a little nervous. The more you practice getting over that fear, the more you’ll realize that scary things won’t kill you. When you deal with your discomfort, you can take on bigger and bigger challenges.

8- Believe in the Best Outcome

Yes. You can do this! I promise! You may have a hard time believing that living your dream is possible. Research all the people you can find who are living the type of life that you want. If they can do it, so can you!

Ask yourself what’s the worst that can happen? The worst outcome is probably not as bad as you let yourself think. And at the end of the day, it's so much worse to live a small life devoid of daily joy and fulfillment. Think of the life that you’ll have when you accomplish your dreams! 

Go Find Your Passion!

Finding your passion is not the easy way out. It will take commitment and resilience, but we only have this one shot. Having the life of your dreams is worth it to try. 

“What will you do with your one wild and precious life?” - Mary Oliver

Let’s be honest- the holidays can be tough. Sometimes they’re even tougher because we think that they SHOULDN’T be tough. 

This time of year is a complicated one. We get filled with all this propaganda that this is a time for everything to be perfect. Christmas movies always end in joy and fulfillment. Pinterest boards of people with perfect holiday decorations. Family or friend visits where you’re supposed to feel connected and happy. 

But then suddenly we find ourselves turning into our 13-year-old selves around our family, getting deeply disappointed about a gift we received, feeling disconnected and stressed, feeling overwhelmed by an expectation that didn’t turn out the way we wanted. 

No, you are not alone. No, you are not broken. The holidays are a hard time of year, precisely because we go into them believing that they will be perfect and joyful, so we don’t prepare any strategies for how to get through them. 

So, before you enter another Holiday season that leaves you in tears, let’s talk about some ways that you can make it through this season.

Manage your expectations

The expectations we feel at this time of year can often knock us off track and leave us feeling disenchanted. The holiday propaganda is real and it’s hard not to wish for the “perfect,” decorations, family, gifts, experiences. So, before you start your celebrations, take a step back and look at your situation realistically. 

If you tend to feel uncomfortable around extended family, don’t expect that things will go smoothly just because of the season. If your partner isn’t a good gift buyer, don’t get upset if you don’t receive what you wanted. If you only have 4 free hours this week, don’t be hard on yourself if you can’t bake all the cookies, have perfect decorations, AND buy the perfect present for everyone you know. 

When we take a step back, we’re able to be more realistic about what to expect this season. It’s okay for everything to not be perfect. It’s okay to feel uncomfortable sometimes. When we change what we expect to include the uncomfortable, we won’t get so emotionally thrown off when something doesn’t turn out perfectly. 

Meet your own needs

One of the hardest things about this season is that we expect the magic and connection we felt when we were children. However, when we were kids, we had parents whose job was to make sure that we were cared for. We didn’t have to stress about making food, organizing visits, or planning anything. 

But we’re adults now. Unfortunately a lot of the jobs of making the Holidays good fall to us. And our own needs can often fall through the cracks. Add to that the childhood feeling that someone SHOULD be caring for our needs, and we have a recipe for disaster.  

So, before you start your holidays, take a moment to figure out what you need. Write a list of what would make you feel good for the next couple of weeks, and then beside each item, write down how you can fulfill that need. Don’t be afraid to communicate clearly and ask for help from those who are close to you, but let go of the expectation that it’s their job to solve your problems.

Don’t bite off more than you can chew

The Holidays come with the expectation that we can do it all and be it all. There are more obligations at this time of year than at any other time, and it’s easy to get caught up in the stress of how much there is to “do.”

Go back to your list of what needs you need to meet this season. If someone asks you to do something and it doesn’t align with what you need to feel good, then say NO. You’re allowed to say no! It’s not selfish! In fact, caring for yourself will actually make the world around you better. 

When we practice self-care then we’re able to be more loving and giving to others. We do things from a place of joy, rather than resentment. If we rush around, all stressed out with our obligations, then we’re not able to do the one thing this season is meant for, which is to CONNECT with those we love. 

Get back in your body

When we’re surrounded by the energy of others, combined with all the obligations of the season, it's a recipe for stress. Stress moves us from our bodies to our heads, where we go into fight or flight to combat “danger.” When we use strategies to get back into our bodies, we get out of fight or flight and into a state of presence. 

When you feel yourself getting overwhelmed and stressed, the best thing to do is to BREATHE. Focus on the breath, deepen it and slow it down. Soften your gaze and count your breaths. This will bring you back into the state of mindfulness you need to be in connection. 

Make sure you take the time to move your body this season. Sitting around and overeating is the standard practice during this time. If you want to feel better and stay out of fight or flight, make sure you move your body! Take the time to go for walks, do yoga, or dance around. This will help you get out of your head and combat stress. 

Practice gratitude

No matter what situation you’re in, there is always something to be grateful for. Everything could turn out absolutely “terribly,” but there’s always something you can find that’s beautiful. Even if your holiday just blew up in your face, you’re still breathing and alive. Tomorrow is another day, and it just may turn out to be the best day of your life! 

The amazing thing about gratitude is that it actually rewires your brain. The more you practice gratitude, the more beauty you see in life. When you focus on the good instead of the bad, your physiology actually starts to change. You start to feel more feelings of joy and fulfillment and then see even more to be grateful for. 

So if you’re in a situation this season where something is uncomfortable, take a deep breath and silently list 3 things that you are grateful for at that moment. There will always be something good. It’s amazing how quickly that can change your perspective and reduce your stress. 

You’re going to be okay

The Holidays are just a condensed version of life. There is “more,” of everything. More experiences, more obligations, more people, more food, more desires. But that also means that there is more capacity for joy! 

When we approach the Holidays in a balanced way with good strategies, our whole experience of it can change. Rather than getting caught up in expectations and stress, we can experience the full gifts of the season.