Using Meditation to Realise our Potential

Applying meditation to our values

I want to talk about how meditation can help us to actualise our values, particularly around realising our potential. 

I became interested in meditation many years ago and have since developed an on off relationship where I can go through periods of regular meditation and times when I don’t practice on a regular basis. However, when I do meditate I do experience profound benefits; an expansion of thinking, greater clarity and more freedom in how I respond to everyday events. 

I often talk about mindfulness, which I believe is different to meditation; mindfulness is about being present and using techniques like calm breathing, and ways to slow our thoughts and be present in the moment. Meditation, however, is a focused activity of normally closing our eyes, sitting for extended periods of time and following a mantra or simply following our breath. 

Using meditation to transform thinking

YuLife’s Chief Wellbeing Officer Dr Rangan Chatterjee spoke with prolific author and meditation advocate, Deepak Chopra, on his podcast this week, exploring the benefits of and their own journeys with meditation in-depth.

Deepak Chopra talks about three different states of being: sleeping, awake and a state in between, where we’re physically awake but our brain is still asleep. He claims that most of us are oscillating between the first two states and that we're either sleeping or half awake where our decisions are made by following societal norms or expectations. 

In this third stage, which involves being fully awake mentally and physically, we are awakened to our full potential. This third state can be accessed directly through meditation. In this state we experience a deeper sense of freedom and begin to craft our own life narrative. 

He provides a recommendation of four questions to ask ourselves when we sit in stillness. 

Quietly ask yourselves the following four questions, one at a time, slowly and allow a few minutes in reflection for each question: 

1. Who am I?  We are our bodies, our minds and our thoughts. 
2. What do I want? We have to ask ourselves what we want from our lives, without others telling us what to want. 
3. What is my purpose? Ultimately, we're here to align to a bigger purpose.
4. What am I grateful for?  We are grateful for life itself, and to be on this journey together - Each individual will have their own reasons to get out of the bed, their Ikigai.

And he says that if there's only one we've got only time for one thing, then just focus on what you are grateful for as it can centre and focus us. These four questions can also be applied to companies who are looking to make a change.

Realising business potential with meditation

We can continue to ask ourselves those four questions, both individually and as a company, to keep us rooted and aligned to our purpose so we will truly manifest our vast potential.

YuLife was built with the mission of being a different kind of insurance company: one that does good both for ourselves and the world as a whole. Being present, to give back, and to “love being yu” - these are all at the centre of what we do. We want to create an environment where we feel each individual is manifesting their potential in order to ultimately make a difference in the lives of millions of people. 

How can we do this in terms of coming up with something new, rather than following the norms? Being reflective and focusing on these four questions as a company can help us manifest our full potential.