"Sometimes I feel as if it's easiest if I focus on something really intentionally," Anakin suggested.
They were sitting in the living room of their home, and he was teaching his mother some meditation techniques. It was a really basic beginning start, but he thought it might help her some with some of the dreams that she had been having, and honestly it felt good to be doing something that felt like a Jedi again.
"When we first started Uncle Luke used to have us focus on one particular sense, like what we heard, or what we were touching. Eventually the Force will tell you more, but just learning to quiet your mind and pull focus on one thing is a starting point."
Leia had begun some meditation efforts when Obi-Wan Kenobi was here, not the most recent time but before then. But she told him the same thing she was going to tell her son, too: that her mind is never quiet and her focus is never on a singular thing. She would try, of course, because she saw the merits, especially when it came to the use of the Force with meditation. Some days it was easier for her to manage some time in meditation than others.
"My mother used to try and get me to meditate. Of course, she wasn't Force-sensitive and while I know now she probably hoped the Force would help me with it, at the time I was impossible with it. She gave up pretty quickly." Leia smiled at Anakin as she settled and relaxed, her palms on her thighs. "So I wish you more luck than she had with me."
Anakin smiled, and settled in. "Hey, if I can figure it out, I'm pretty certain you can. And it doesn't happen overnight either. It's not like you just sit down and suddenly meditate well, it's something that comes in practice. So what do you think would be easiest for you to focus on? Breathing? Something that you can touch or feel?"
She shook her head a little and sighed, but nodded all the same. "Perhaps we can start with the breathing and if I need something more tangible, we can move to that." Leia rubbed her knees a little and straightened her back, squaring her shoulders. "What works best for you?"
"Breathing works," Anakin smiled. "It's something where you can at least go through something that's really intentional. In some ways I think it's the easiest place honestly?" He reached out in the Force a bit, to check that Leia might be ready. When it seemed that she was, he reached a hand over to offer for her. "Alright, I'm going to walk you through the process - or talk you through it - and if it's easier for you to close your eyes and just listen to me, that's totally fine. Okay?"
Anakin had found it easier in the beginning, but now he found that he could stare off into space and ignore everything if he needed to. He didn't know which would be easiest for his Mom, so he was going to give her options as he talked her through the process.
Leia's fingers curled around her son's and she smiled as she nodded at him. "That sounds fine," she told him, and she breathed out and did close her eyes, if only because if she kept them open, she'd spend the next few moments looking around the room, focusing on too much rather than only on her breathing. "I'm ready."
"All right," Anakin said softly, and he began to take her through some of the earliest meditation techniques he'd been taught by Tionne. It was simple a focus on breathing, and even counting, on feeling the Force in your own body, not necessarily in everything around you. It was a grounding technique, something that could be useful to build upon, but which also genuinely pointed focus.
Anakin had struggled with it in the beginning, finding it difficult to sit completely still and to not let his mind wander from place to place. Some days, when he'd had particularly nasty dreams, it had been challenging for him to focus on just his breathing, and he'd wanted to reach out to other things around him. But he'd mastered it, eventually, and he had no doubt that Leia would as well.
"What do you feel?" He asked his mother after they had gone through it for a few moments.
She shook her head, slightly. "You," Leia told him. Her lips curled into a slight smile. "And I feel - calm, right now. For now." She tried to reach further into the meditation, maybe to reach into that dream she had and see what it was all about. She'd had it again since she woke up in the middle of the night and shared a pot of team with Anakin.
"Calm is good, at peace is good," Anakin replied softly. He wasn't always there, but he'd felt it enough in the past, well, in memories that he'd received anyway, to be certain of what it felt like when he was. It was hard to make decisions when he wasn't. He didn't say anything else, instead letting the meditation potentially carry itself further, letting his mother lean into it if she wanted to.
"The Force will sometimes try to show you things, like past or present things," Anakin said softly, eventually. "It can happen during meditations like it sometimes does during dreams."
Leia nodded as Anakin spoke, and she tried to clear her mind all over again. It really wasn't working, which didn't surprise her much. She had told him, after all, that she had never been successful with meditation of any kind. "Well, we'll see," she said softly, smiling a little, and letting her breathing even out again.