Meditation has become one of the most important practices in my life.
It has helped reduce my stress and anxiety and live more in the present moment.
I have never felt more connected to myself than when I am meditation. Simply put, meditation has changed my life.
If you knew how meditationHow will your life change for the better? If you are ready to live more mindfully and experience the benefits of meditation, take a deep breath and read this.
Watch the video below:
(Click here to watch on YouTube)
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Why should you meditate?
The global pandemic caused by COVID-19 has changed our lives forever. Isolation, job insecurity and fear of the future have affected people’s mental health. In these uncertain times, meditation is a powerful Mindfulness-based practice To find the calm in the chaos.
On a daily basis, most of your thoughts are focused on the past or the future. In this sensitive state, it is easy to fall prey to your mind. Meditation takes your focus away from these places and brings you back to the present moment.
If you’ve never meditated before, figuring out how to get started can be overwhelming. For years I was resistant to meditation.
Why?
I didn’t understand how the meditation process worked.
Intellectually I knew meditation was good for me, but I couldn’t connect with it. I decided to change my approach. Instead of getting discouraged, I decided to get curious about meditation. I forced myself to meditate every day for an extended period of time.
Not surprisingly, I began to notice the profound benefits of meditation on my mental and emotional health. There was no turning back then. I was hooked.
something Mental health benefits Meditation includes better focus, improved self-esteem and lower levels of stress and anxiety.
As an entrepreneur and overachiever, my mind is constantly racing.
I have many responsibilities in my business, which can create anxiety. Meditation helped me relax my mind, while still being productive. It gave me more clarity and less brain fog when reading, learning, listening and talking to someone.
Why is meditation difficult?
The reason many people resist meditation is because they are addicted to thinking. Your brain doesn’t know how to slow itself down. Did you know that from the moment you are born, you process anywhere in between 60,000 to 80,000 thoughts a day?
If ruminative thinking is familiar to you, quieting your mind and sitting in silence can be incredibly challenging. It’s normal to feel bored when you first start meditating.
Meditation challenges you here and now Instead of trying to escape or avoid. I have struggled with a variety of addictions throughout my life, everything from video games to pornography to binge eating.
The root cause of addiction is the inability to be comfortable being. Meditation helped me move from doing mode to being mode. While in the mode, my mind is forced to slow down because it has nowhere to go.
In this state, I learned to be fully present, which gave me a heightened sense of awareness. If I have thoughts, feelings or sensations in my body, I don’t feel the need to change or resist them.
Instead, I observe them in a non-judgmental way.
Meditation teaches you to watch your thoughts and feelings come and go instead of being attached to them.
If you are new to the world of meditation, I recommend you read on Meditation for beginners By Jack Kornfield. Inside his book, he has some great guided meditations. Having someone direct and guide you through the meditation process is extremely helpful when you are first learning to meditate.
When I first started meditating, I used headspace And calm down. These apps helped motivate me to meditate and keep me on track until I had the willpower to meditate on my own.
Meditation Technologies
Muse Meditation Headband
With the Muse headband, you listen to a guided meditation while the headband scans your brain waves. It will detect when your mind is overactive versus when it is calm. When your mind is active during your meditation, you will hear birds chirping.
Conversely, when your mind is calm, the birds will stop chirping. At the end of your meditation session, you can identify how your meditation experience was and track your progress.
Brain Tap
Brain Tap uses frequencies of light and sound to induce brain waves. You wear a headset over your closed eyes and headphones in your ears while experiencing these frequencies.
Basically, it’s a guided visualization and meditation that helps your brain experience higher levels of alpha brain waves. Visualization puts you in an incredibly relaxed state of mind.
Heart Math Inner Balance
It’s a heart rate sensor that attaches to your ear. It is accompanied by an app that teaches you how to change your state of mind and create harmony between your mind, body and heart. Not only does this device help reduce your stress, it also helps bring awareness to your breathing and heart rate throughout the day.
how to meditate
You want to make sure you’re in a comfortable sitting position, whether it’s in a chair or cross-legged on the floor. If you prefer to sit in a chair, I recommend sitting upright so that your back is fully supported.
There are many ways you can meditate, but one of the most common ways is by closing your eyes. Take a deep breath and let your body relax completely. Do a scan and bring attention to each part of your body.
I go through this process in the video above!
If you notice any tension, focus on melting into the tension. Doing this body scan will bring you into the present moment. Once you do this, focus on your breathing. Do not try to control your breathing. Just look at it and observe.
With this practice, you will notice that your mind will start to get busy.
This is your monkey mind in action.
When this happens, it’s important that you don’t get frustrated and react. Your only goal is to observe your thoughts. Return to your breath as you become aware of what your thoughts are.
Although you may enjoy 5 seconds to 1 minute of pure awareness, soon after that, more thoughts will arise. Again, you want to observe your thoughts and stay with them. While you are meditating, certain emotions will also arise.
I want to identify where in my body I’m feeling emotions and be curious about them. Sometimes, the feelings will be so strong that I will have the desire to stop my meditation altogether. However, if I sit with emotions long enough, they eventually fade. The same thing happens with physical sensations arising.
This is how to meditate for beginners.
Meditation teaches you a lot about yourself. It brings awareness to how you think, feel and act throughout your life. If you are a beginner, I recommend meditating for 10 minutes every day.
Studies have shown that many of the long-term benefits of meditation occur after you meditate for 20 minutes a day. If you can work your way up to that, fantastic.
A daily meditation practice changed my life and it can do the same for you. Connect with your breath and go within. The answers you seek are found in silence.
Are you ready to connect with your mind, body and spirit on a deeper level? Click here Get instant access to my free 21 Morning Rituals cheatsheet!
