Discovering Your Deeper Potential
The Hidden Benefits of Meditation
Is there an answer to the constant pressures and stresses of modern life? Describe our growing reliance on pharmaceuticals. Perhaps the most effective remedy might not rely on prescription medication at all. Perhaps the answer might be much simpler because it can be found in the daily practice of meditation and mindfulness.
Do you make time in your busy schedule to meditate? Most people acknowledge that meditation is a very useful practice to adopt but, with so many pressures and distractions to cope with, they’re usually too busy to find the time. Does that sound familiar to you? If you’re anything like the rest of us, you’d love to be able to kick back and relax and meditate. The problem is that, at the end of the day, you’re just too tired to do anything other than recover from another long, hard grinding slog at the workstation.
Yet the health benefits of regular meditation have long been recognised and it’s a fabulous method for improving the quality of your life. It’s a completely natural alternative to life’s constant round of pressures and it doesn’t require a doctor’s prescription. It’s also safe and offers extraordinary benefits without any of the unwanted side effects of prescription-based pharmaceuticals. In fact, it’s one of the most effective ways to combat the stresses of modern life.
And that’s exactly why meditation is so important. It’s an incredibly powerful way to restore balance to your mind and your body. But what exactly is meditation?
If the ocean can calm itself, so can you.
For we are both saltwater mixed with air.
― Nayyirah Waheed
This is probably where the subject becomes unnecessarily complicated. Meditation used to be a simple concept, easy to learn and easy to use. But it’s become a very crowded field with a great deal of contradictory advice and ideas. Today, there’s an entire industry dedicated to churning out books, podcasts, videos and recordings – all about meditation. So how we can simplify everything and start to enjoy the benefits of this extraordinarily beneficial practice?
To understand the immeasurable, the mind must be extraordinarily quiet, still and centred.
― Jiddu Krishnamurti
Perhaps, for the sake of simplicity, the best starting point would be to consider two basic styles of meditation. This helps us to divide the methods into external and internal techniques.
In the first instance, we rely on an external source to guide our mental and emotional state. Many people enjoy using guided meditations. This is where they listen to the words and instructions from a teacher who’s recorded their message so that it can be repeated and used on a regular basis. These recordings often employ music to promote a state of relaxation. They’re both simple and effective in helping people to calm down and free themselves from the stresses and tensions of a busy day. Most people tend to use these popular recordings just before bedtime as a way of preparing the mind and body for a restful night’s sleep. It’s a great way to surrender yourself to a wonderful state of inner calm and fill your thoughts and feelings with gentle, relaxing and restorative suggestions. Is this something you’ve tried? There’s a huge selection of material online and it’s a very convenient way to discover some of the benefits of regular meditation and relaxation.
The second method, however, requires more practice but it delivers a broader range of benefits. It’s obviously closer in nature to the older traditions which pre-date our modern technology and the possibility of listening to someone else’s recorded words and guidance.
It requires the essential ingredient of training the mind to become calmer in order to free your consciousness from the stream of thoughts and feelings that crowd every waking moment. This practice allows us to become more aware of how our thoughts and feelings arise in a seemingly chaotic jumble of uncontrolled images and emotions. By relaxing the body and breathing more deeply, we can develop a sense of detachment from our stream of consciousness and enter into a state that is – to a greater or lesser extent – free from this constant flow of unbridled energy.
Meditation is a way for nourishing and blossoming the divinity within you.
― Amit Ray
The discipline required to master the thoughts and feelings bestows enormous benefits on the practitioner and helps to develop a robust resistance to the old habits of stress and anxiety that are the source of a great deal of distress in our modern world. It promotes the ability to determine how you think and feel under all circumstances. It promotes a wonderful sense of detachment from the constant stream of distractions that bombard our senses every second of the day. You no longer feel like a leaf being blown around in the winds of external events. It’s the source of an abiding sense of inner calm, peace and strength and a refreshingly new way to see the world around you.
As you disarm your old stress response, you’ll lower your blood pressure, release the old muscular tensions that lock your body in a restrictive, defensive framework, you’ll lower your elevated adrenaline and cortisol levels and start to look and feel better than you ever thought possible.
And here’s another simple but disturbing fact: stress accelerates ageing. The simplest answer is to meditate. Turn down your stress. Give your body a chance to recover, renew itself and feel amazing.
The busier you are, the more important it will be to find a few minutes every day to meditate. It could be the powerful thing you will ever experience and, on a purely practical level, it could save your life.
Beautify your inner dialogue. Beautify your inner world with love, light and compassion and life itself will be beautiful.
― Amit Ray
Greg Parry created The Wellness Foundation and the Cognitive Empowerment Programs specifically to help people master their stress, overcome their limitations and explore the power of their true potential.
If you enjoy these blogs, you can imagine how much fun it is to have Greg in the room as an inspirational and highly perceptive speaker. If you’d like to invite Greg to talk to your company or organisation or event, feel free to get in touch.
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