What if I told you that you could transform your life and experience more happiness than ever before simply by sitting still! In as little as five minutes a day you can feel more joy and inner peace than you ever knew was possible.
If you hear the word meditation and immediately think it’s not for you, read on! It’s powerful stuff! Meditation is changing lives all over the world from CEO’s in Fortune 500 Companies, to school children, and even prisoners coping with incarceration. Meditation is for everyone and it can change your life in the most profound way. It literally changes your brain and there are scientific studies that prove it.
I feel like I want to shout it from the rooftops for everyone to hear. People have so much going on in their lives these days! Between working hard, relationships and other commitments it’s easy to become stressed and anxious; depression levels are phenomenally high and the status quo seems to be to treat the symptoms, usually with a pill. It’s seems so simple yet millions of people are still suffering. The amazing thing is meditation is a tool freely available to all of us which actually makes you more productive while easing the tensions you are trying to avoid. By sitting still for a short amount of time you are better equipped to kick your goals and live your dream life. It sharpens your mind and creates more focus and clarity. Who wouldn’t want more of that!
While meditation sounds simple in theory, it’s easy to run into obstacles and that’s often where people give up. I don’t want that to happen for you. So here are my top four tips to support you in your meditation journey.
1. Meditation is not a religion, it’s for everyone. Meditation can be a deeply spiritual practice – connecting you to a place within yourself that feels love, compassion and peace – but it is not a religion. If spirituality doesn’t resonate with you, then focus on the scientific aspects of meditation. Studies show through MRI imaging that meditation changes the structure of the brain providing numerous cognitive and psychological benefits. The pre-frontal cortex is stimulated during meditation opening up a greater level of creativity and intuition to the meditater.
2. You don’t need to meditate for one hour. This simply isn’t realistic for many of us and sadly the belief that we should sit for one hour stops many people from trying meditation. Start out simply by sitting for 5 minutes. 5 minutes isn’t a long time and is achievable for those that lead a busy life. As you get more into meditation and notice how much better you are feeling, sitting for longer will come naturally rather than trying to force it in the beginning.
3. You won’t get rid of your thoughts. Meditation shows us just how busy the mind is. When we sit in stillness, we notice that it’s virtually impossible to get rid of our thoughts. In fact, you won’t get rid of your thoughts. The key is to recognise the thoughts that come into your mind but not attach to them. Don’t let yourself get lost in the story of your thoughts. Once you acknowledge the thoughts, your mind will soften and your thoughts will drift away. Trying to force your mind to stop thinking results in stress and anxiety, so drop all of that and relax into it knowing that you can’t do it wrong. This in particular can be very difficult to those just setting out on their journey into meditation, so try not to be hard on yourself!
4. You don’t need to sit in lotus position on the ground. For many people, your body won’t have the range of flexibility to sit comfortably in the traditional pose of meditation. It’s perfectly ok to sit in a chair with your feet flat on the ground to meditate. The important thing to note is that your spine needs to be straight. You need to be able to breathe freely with your body in an uplifted position.
The greatest gift meditation has given me is the realisation that I’m not controlled by my thoughts and emotions. We CAN control how we want to think and feel and that’s incredibly liberating. In today’s fast paced society we need meditation more than ever! Stress, worry, anxiety and depression are at an all time high. Meditation brings about a greater sense of mind body awareness, helping us to live more in the present moment.
I’ve created a YouTube channel where I’ll be adding weekly guided meditations to support you in your meditation practice. Be sure to subscribe to get all the updates. Please share this with anyone you think will benefit from adding meditation to their daily life.
Have you meditated before? Share your experience in the comments below
Happy meditating!
