Meditation, Understanding Ourselves, & The State of Our Lives
There are times when our circumstances appear to be more than we can handle.
Our minds tend to become harder to focus, as we become overwhelmed by situation at hand.
Before Yoga I remember constantly feeling like a victim of my circumstances. When I would face obstacles, I would become overwhelmed, often visualizing the most terrible but unlikely outcomes or having future discussions and playing both sides. I would imagine unrealistic scenarios, and re-live old memories, which made it difficult to be present in my actual life. When my mind was in that state, my thoughts would jump from one concept to the next, and my ability to focus on a task would falter, causing a significant impact on my ability to efficiently get through even the simplest of daily tasks.
Meditation and my ability to slow down and become the observer of my thoughts was a life changing practice.
Through consistent practice, I developed the ability to bring my awareness and focus where I desire. Learning to focus on my breath is where I began the practice. My breath offered a great place for my focus to anchor to as I begin to practice becoming the observer of my thoughts, instead of becoming identifyed with the thoughts themselves.
What is Meditation?
Meditation is an ancient practice where we deliberately direct our thoughts, silence our chattering minds and center focus our intentions in finding peace and calm. This may seem tough when we are in a negative or repetitive mind pattern, but like everything, with practice, you may develop this ability to calm yourself. Then you can start to understand your thought patterns and where they are stemming from.
What is the Purpose of Meditation?
As we gain more awareness of our thoughts, we can start to see their patterns and what triggers them to repeatedly arise. The ultimate goal is to notice our thoughts and the patterns we perceive to gain understanding of whether or not they are serving us. Once we understand our thought patterns, we can question them and then we can decide if we want to keep them or alter them. We choose to alter them when they are no longer working for this version of ourselves.
“The relaxation response helps decrease metabolism, lowers blood pressure, and improves heart rate, breathing, and brain waves. Tension and tightness seep from the muscles as the body receives a quiet message to relax.” – Dr. Herbert Benson
Benefits of Meditation
Having the ability to focus our thoughts on a task serves us greatly as we move towards creating any type of change in our lives. When we take the time to find space and lessen the disturbances of our thoughts, we may relax the tense state of our bodies that is caused by the mental stress of never-ending mind chatter. Therefore, meditation also increases the state of harmony between our bodies, our spirit, and our minds. Once this cycle begins, this harmony creates less mental chatter in our brains, which allows more space to relax your body and come back to any project or task with a relaxed and fresher mind.
Meditation also opens the door to manifesting your deepest desires. Manifestation happens when you have a clear vision of what you desire. It then gives you the ability to hold that vision in your mind as you ask the universe to send you what you’re looking for. Remember, you have the ability to calm your thoughts and focus them anytime, anywhere — This is the power meditation brings us in our life.
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