 Meditation, meditation, meditation. It’s everywhere. Everyone is talking about it. You’ve heard them say how wonderful it is. You want to give it a try, but it seems a little mysterious and “out there” to you; and you don’t know where to begin, or why you even should.
Let’s start with what it is. Meditation could be defined as a process: At first, it is the act of focused attention on a single subject. Eventually (and I do mean eventually), it is merging with the Infinite. You only need to be concerned with the first part, which is the discipline itself. Before you jump into the discipline, it is important to know why you are doing it. What are the benefits of meditation? Surely they are innumerable, and outcomes can be different for you than your friend who meditates. You are a unique soul that will receive unique benefits from your practice! There are, however, a few given benefits from a consistent meditation practice:
Does it sound worth it now? Excellent! Next month I’ll walk you through some steps and methods to support your meditation practice. In the meantime, explore some times of day that would work best for your meditation practice. Look into a space in your home that would serve as a spiritual refuge for you. Get ready to commit to your soul!  Since the transition into the new year, there have been many scientific revelations around the practice of mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness is focused attention, the observing of sensations and thoughts without getting caught up in them. Often the breath is the focus of mindfulness meditation, and yoga is an example of mindfulness practice. Meditators and yoga lovers have known the power of focused attention, stillness and breath awareness for a long time—thousands of years, even. Through many recent brain scans studies, science now acknowledges several physiological benefits of taking just five minutes every day to pay attention to the breath:
Convinced like a scientist yet? So, where to begin? All you need in your busy schedule is five minutes. Try to pick the same time each day so it becomes part of your daily routine. Think of it as necessary as brushing your teeth, except you are “brushing” away stress from your brain! Sit comfortably. Begin taking normal breaths. Make sure you are breathing from your diaphragm (“belly breathing”) rather than your lungs only (“chest breathing”). Rest your hand above the stomach and below the ribs, which is where your diaphragm is approximately located. As you breathe normally from your diaphragm, you will feel your belly rise as you inhale, and retract as you exhale. Continue for five minutes. If you find your mind wandering (which you will!) during this time, gently bring your attention back to your breathe. Notice any sensations in your body, but do not let your mind have a conversation about them. Simply bring your attention back to your breathe. Notice sounds around you, but again, don’t let your thoughts go on about them. Let your belly breathing be your primary focus. Keep a journal of the changes you notice over time. People have told me that their doctors asked them why their blood pressure was lower than their last check up. Others have noticed emotional equilibrium that wasn’t there before they began practicing. Others appreciate the sense of overall peace throughout their day. What benefits are coming to you through your practice? Further reading:
"'Mindfulness' Meditation Alters Gene Expression, Study Suggests", The Huffington Post | By Jacqueline Howard Posted: 12/09/2013 7:53 am EST | Updated: 01/19/2014 11:49 pm EST "The science behind meditation, and why it makes you feel better", GEORGE DVORSKY on IO9NEUROSCIENCE 4/04/13 11:28a "The Power of Concentration", By Maria Konnikova, Published: December 15, 2012  Every summer at our house, we go through the entire house, top to bottom, and get rid of things that are no longer necessary to us. The kids go through their toys, papers, dvds, clothing--everything! And we do the same. When we are done, our home is lighter and delightfully decluttered! Then we are better able to tackle the daily clutter more easily.
Did you know we have to declutter our consciousness, too? We certainly do! There are things coming up every day for us to look at, understand, forgive and release! As we do this decluttering, we are lighter on the inside and better able to make choices that are clear and support us. Here are five tools for your inner de-cluttering that you can use daily, and enjoy the fresh air that peace of mind brings! 1. Meditate. For five minutes a day (at a consistent time and location), observe the thoughts that go through your mind. Don’t push them away, judge them, or feel ashamed; just notice what they are saying to you and let them pass. 2. Journal. Write about the time during the day when you felt frustrated, hurt, sad or angry. What were you feeling and thinking? Get to know your reactions and look for a pattern in them. Writing about your feelings can help you understand when to back off, and when to stand up for yourself. 3. Forgive. Jane Elizabeth Hart’s Seven Steps for Successful Life Transitions is an excellent forgiveness method. Unforgiveness balls you up in body, mind and expression, while forgiveness frees you to experience more overall joy. 4. Use difficult people to learn about your hidden issues. Take that guy at the office that grinds you like fingers down a chalkboard. Get your journal and list all the qualities and behaviors about him that bug you. Ask yourself who this person represents to you. You can learn a lot about what is blocking you from your potential by embracing those you find difficult to be around. Forgive them even if you don’t know what it is that you don’t like. The health benefits of this action alone will be worth your effort. 5. Trust yourself above all others. The best spiritual teachers out there will encourage you to listen to your own inner promptings. As you watch your own thinking and journal out your feelings, you will begin to understand more about who you are. This is a wonderful and scary thing! Trust that your inner wisdom will reveal itself and support you as you work to resolve fear and false beliefs.  Sad news for all of us multitaskers out there: We’re not as effective as we think we are.
Recently on NPR’s Science Friday, Clifford Nass, professor of communication at Stanford University, discussed the benefits of multitasking. Bottomline: There aren’t any. Here are some interesting highlights from the interview:
Here’s the interesting part: Nass says, “The research is almost unanimous…people who chronically multitask show an enormous range of deficits. They're basically terrible at all sorts of cognitive tasks, including multitasking…People who multitask all the time can't filter out irrelevancy. They can't manage a working memory. They're chronically distracted. They initiate much larger parts of their brain that are irrelevant to the task at hand. And they're even terrible at multitasking. When we ask them to multitask, they're actually worse at it. So they're pretty much mental wrecks.” So, once we convince ourselves that this is indeed true, what can we do to support ourselves being effective and present? Mindfulness meditation, a Westernized form of Zen Buddhist meditation, has been shown to help focus, memory and the ability to handle multiple jobs at once. One study showed that people trained in mindfulness meditation, versus those in the study who weren’t, stayed on tasks longer and made fewer switches between tasks, as well as experiencing less negative emotion when they were done. Improved memory was an additional benefit to those in the meditating groups. Here's what you can to for your own multitask recovery: Take 15 minutes each day to still your mind. Even if you don’t feel successful, you will be making great progress in retraining your mind to focus, concentrate and listen for divine ideas. Anything you do for those 15 minutes that allows you to think of as few things as possible will benefit your practice. You can listen to music and try to focus on the sounds rather than thoughts. You could watch a candle flame, focusing on the dancing flame instead of the many thoughts going through your mind. Some people like to listen to a guided meditation and follow along with the visualization. Other people like to use a mantra or affirmation that gives them a single idea upon which to focus. There is no wrong way to do it, as long as you find something that allows you to be as still as possible. Turn off Facebook, email, talk radio, television and your busy mind; and gain the benefits of focus and being present with yourself! The power to imagine will ease you into something greater than where you are right now. Let your imagination awaken you to new possibilities!  REVAMPED RULES FOR RESOLUTIONS
So we made it to 2013 after all! Maybe you put off your New Year’s resolutions until now so let’s take this time to look at a few rules for your New Year resolutions. First take out any resolution that begins with "I want a better …" We all want to enjoy where we are no matter what, and if we don't like something, we think we have to jump to something else. So many desires building on each other keep us from listening within to what our soul is trying to tell us. Perhaps we are supposed to stay and learn something from our current job, relationship, house, car, and so forth. How will we know what we are truly supposed to do when we are somewhere already making our exit plan? Try the good ole standby Serenity Prayer instead: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Now that is a beautiful resolution for 2013! Next, add meditation to your daily self-care routine. Are you tired of hearing about the importance of meditation? Increasingly, meditation is shown to reduce stress, physical and mental illnesses, and even increase successful decision-making in daily life. Commit to making the centeredness of your soul as important as the care of your physical body! Ten minutes a day will change you at depth. Now commit to learning to observe yourself. Hold one part of yourself in a listening and watching position within you, while the other part of you is in "doing" mode. You will be amazed at what you learn about yourself and how much easier it is to make changes when you discover something you don’t like so well about your own motives. This helps us to be more in tune with our intuition as well, and who doesn’t want that for their new year? Finally, resolve to forgive – any time, anywhere, for any reason. Do it just once, and you will discover how much lighter you feel, how much happier you can be! It’s worth the regular maintenance, but even if you forgive two out of three times, you’ll be lighter when the time comes to release this year and prepare for 2014. Service to others adds a nice extra credit touch to your list of resolutions. It allows you to share all the good vibes that lift you when you do all of the above actions. There is nothing more fulfilling than supporting our own soul. Then we have much, much more to give to others. For 2013, resolve to evolve!  Your potential is far greater than you could ever imagine for yourself!
Years ago, I was struggling with a need to make a change, but everything I attempted was not working out. Finally I said, "Ok, God, I can't do this anymore. I give up. What do you want?" and I let it go. Days later, I was speaking with a friend about a desire to help people, but not being in a position to do so. When she suggested I go back to school for my Master's degree, a light went on in me--I knew it was the right thing! Everything fell into place, and I started classes two months later. Another time, my family had moved to a new location and I was looking for a job, sending out dozens of resumes with no success. One day I said, "God, I know becoming a therapist was the right thing for me to do so what do You want me to be doing?" I sat down on my couch, and instantly an outline for a counseling center came into my consciousness. The divine idea of the Interfaith Counseling Center awakened in me. I knew exactly what needed to be done and exactly how to do it! In both of these instances, when I let go of my own efforts and asked for ideas, ideas came! Everything was then aligned: my desire, my will and my cooperation! If you have something that you are trying to accomplish, take time to release your current efforts and open yourself to new ideas. You can use the Spiritual Power Tool of journaling or the Seven Steps to help you release your current situation, clearing the way for a new idea that is greater than what you might have thought up otherwise.  Mindfulness, a form of meditation derived from Zen Buddhism, is quickly becoming a popular form of therapy. Being present with your thoughts, without action or judgment, is a quick way to learn what thoughts are going through your head, to disconnect from those thoughts as reality, and to be able to make new, objective decisions and actions based on observation rather than emotion or automatic, knee-jerk reactions to life situations.
Take this simple exercise: Sit in a comfortable position. Breathing from your diaphragm at a natural rate, begin counting each breath, with your first inhalation as “one” and your first exhalation as “two,” and so forth all the way to the count of ten. Each in breath will be an odd number, each outbreath will be an even number. When you reach ten, start over, and continue this for two or three minutes. If your mind wanders, just bring your focus back to your breathing and counting. Notice how you feel at the end of the exercise. Do you feel more peaceful? Do you feel energized? Do you feel more relaxed? It is amazing what a vacation from our thinking will do for us! By learning to observe and manage your own thoughts, you begin to understand the automatic nature of patterns that repeat themselves in your life. Once you are aware of a pattern, you can choose a new response that may give you the better result you have been hoping for. Try out the mindfulness exercise, and let me know how it worked for you! Spring cleaning is not just for Spring or your house! Here are five tools for your inner housecleaning that you can use daily, as needed, and enjoy the fresh air that peace of mind brings!
1. Meditate. For five minutes a day (at a consistent time and location), observe the thoughts that go through your mind. Don’t push them away, judge them, or feel ashamed; just notice what they are saying to you and let them pass. 2. Journal. Write about the time during the day when you felt frustrated, hurt, sad or angry. What were you feeling and thinking? Get to know your reactions and look for a pattern in them. Writing about your feelings can help you understand when to back off, and when to stand up for yourself. 3. Forgive. Jane Hart’s Seven Steps for Successful Life Transitions is an excellent forgiveness method. Unforgiveness balls you up in body, mind and expression; while forgiveness frees you to experience more overall joy. 4. Use difficult people to learn about your hidden issues. Take that guy at the office that grinds you like fingers down a chalkboard. Get your journal and list all the qualities and behaviors about him that bug you. Ask yourself who this person represents to you. You can learn a lot about what is blocking you from your potential by embracing those you find difficult to be around. Forgive them even if you don’t know what it is that you don’t like. The health benefits of this action alone will be worth your effort. 5. Trust yourself above all others. There is no teacher, master, therapist, guru, or life coach out there who is any good unless they are telling you to listen to your own inner promptings. As you watch your own thinking and journal out your feelings, you will begin to understand more about who you are. This is a wonderful and scary thing! Trust that your inner wisdom will reveal itself and support you as you work to resolve fear and false beliefs. |
Archives
April 2016
AuthorLynn Barrette, LCSW Blending psychology with spirituality, I offer tools for forgiveness, acceptance, meditation and relaxation, and positive parenting solutions. Categories
All
Archives
April 2016
|
RSS Feed