There is a internal freedom that meditation brings into your life that is soon reflected in your external life. It is hard to see how sitting in one place and doing absolutely nothing can bring about any form of a positive result. However, what comes through practice is a series of side benefits that alter your interaction with your life and, in turn, life gets easier to manage.
I live my life as an adventurer and I crave as many different activities I can without causing harm to myself or to my community. I set about each year defining for myself what sorts of interests I wish to engage in. This goal of life explains my dogged 34-year journey to meditate daily despite the demands of career, family and community. In my single-minded pursuit to find my own philosophical answers to Life, the Universe and Everything, a slew of beneficial side effects from mediation started affecting my life. It is these unintended consequences that have brought about the most significant, positive change for me.
With the amount of press meditation has received over the past few decades, I’m sure at some point you have asked yourself the question:
Why should I meditate?
Here are just a few of the advantages I have found by meditating a small amount each day.
Slowing down: meditation allows you to slow life down and focus on the most important person in your life. You. How can you hear the “small, still voice within” when you have so much stimulus coming from thoughts, your 5 senses, and emotions?
Receiving Clarity: You deserve the clarity that meditation brings. In our highly engaged, busy lives, it is important that we take the time to learn all that we are experiencing and notice the people and events around us with deeper attention. The effect of meditation will improve your experiences and your relationships as you come to understand your own reactions and behaviors.
Quieting the Mind: Meditation by its very practice calms the mind in a gentle way. You are implementing a structure of practice that will guide you into thoughtful solutions you need to create the life of abundance you desire. The power of changing your life rests in these introspective sessions that meditation brings.
Calming the Emotions: There are times in life when your emotions get the best of you. Anger, Fear, Distress, Excitement, Anticipation, Eagerness; our emotions come with a complex bag of flavors and reactions. Through meditation you can calm those choppy seas and use special breathing techniques to pull yourself out of the darker emotions. Over time you harmonize the emotional rollercoaster you may be experiencing and you notice that life’s challenges no longer affect you so drastically. Your thoughts and emotions begin to harmonize with practice.
Growing in Self-Awareness: In order to bring about the life you crave, self-awareness is key. By learning more about yourself through meditation, you’ll be able to make life-altering decisions from a solid foundation of understanding. By examining your words and your choices in daily life you can’t help but become better each day as you make small adjustments in your behavior with the world around you.
Communicating with the Divine: The most important function of meditation is communication. The ability to communicate with the highest good we can achieve while on this planet. To do that it is necessary to get the bird’s eye view on our life and that is done through viewing our lives through the lens of our Soul or Higher Self. That form of super-conscious communication does not come about through to our awareness through physical or mental means; you need the intuition on this one. That is the territory of the heart and emotions, hence the need to calm them as well as the mind.
As you move about your daily life, observe the words you use to describe yourself, your life situation and your desires for moving forward. What do you want for yourself, your family, and your community? Meditation creates the steady ground for expressing the changes you need to make your future life.
Start meditating today. If you need some guidance. I offer a 6-week, self-paced, online course 3 Minute Meditations.