The basics of meditation for the beginner (understanding meditation)
See your body as the servant of your mind; it doesn’t matter if you are deliberate with it or not, your body will obey your mind whether consciously or unconsciously. If your mind is filled with impure thoughts of fear, failure, depression, and despair, the product will be a sickly and weak body. However, if you can fix your mind on healthy thoughts of peace, and happiness, your body will respond in grace, beauty, and youthfulness.
Meditation is one of the practical tools you use to sharpen your mind and bring it to become the king of your life and the master of your destiny. If you know how to harness the power of your mind, you would have found the most excellent tool that you will ever have and the deadliest weapon to combat sickness and the general weakness of the body.
Meditation helps you to understand yourself more and to see your circumstance in the light of positivity; this helps you to empty your mind of vile and debasing thoughts that weaken the body. It helps you to empty your mind and release all the stress and tension. This will enable your body to restore itself to vitality.
Though it was never a debate, science has shown again and again that mediation has the power to heal the body even in cases where modern medicine has tried and failed. From improved brain activities to efficient weight loss, enhanced muscular functions after paralysis, to full recovery of heart functions, the use of meditation has always proved to be the deal. If you practice meditation, you will notice an improved all-around fitness, you will fall ill less often, your creativity will soar, your happiness will grow, you will be able to better control your appetite and weight in no time, you will be able to increase your concentration and you will witness a spike in your brain activity.
In the management of cardiac-related diseases, Doctors are beginning to prescribe Tai Chi, yoga, and other forms of meditation because they generally relieve stress and stimulate parts of the brain that improve healing and tissue repair.
When starting your journey of meditation, here are the tips and steps to follow:
Take a break
The first primary source of stress is work. Manual or mental, the best form of relaxation is to take a break from your work. Remember the rule: divert daily, withdraw weekly, and abandon annually.
Pay attention to yourself
One of the best ways to relax is to just pay attention to yourself. Feel the gentle beating of your heart, listen to your breath, and feel the blood move through your veins. It works like magic.
Listen to music
The truth cannot be overemphasized; music is one of the best tools to relax. Get your best music and allow it to lure you into its beauty.
Imagine yourself somewhere else
Take a trip in your mind to one of those places you would love to be at that particular time. Choose a memory of somewhere you have been or just concentrate on an image of a place where you hope to be; as long as it produces that calming effect, you are good.
Alternative relaxation
What if you don’t really like the sit down kind of relaxation? The correct definition of relaxation goes beyond the boundaries of a chair or a bed. You can decide to take a walk, ride a bike gently, try yoga, or any other form of active meditation.
Converse with nature
One of the best ways to get a reset is to go to a garden and spend some time relating to the greens. You can take a trip to the countryside and feed your eyes with the awesomeness and the calmness of nature; the plants, the trees, the animals, the flowers, the water, and even the flying birds. It is difficult to resist the feeling of peace.
Just turn off your phone
I know how much ICT has contributed to helping us stay connected and all that, but sometimes you just need to take a break. You may be so addicted to it that it is adding to your daily stress, go for a tech break. Switch off all your gadgets and take a rest. If you feel up to the task, you can choose a day within two weeks that you just turn off your phone for the whole day, you will realize that the world will not come crashing to an end.
Extend this to the TV and your emails and social networks too. You will be amazed to see how much your rest will improve within that time.
The basic principles here is to make sure you have that quiet time when you take a comfortable position in your body and in your mind, calm yourself enough to let go of all the negative energy and to be able to renew your entire being with freshness and happiness.
PRACTICAL STEPS FOR MEDITATION
- Sit in a comfortable position: The traditional position for mediation is the lotus or the half-lotus positions. However, just make sure you sit, stand or lie down in a comfortable position that will help you relax and still keep a sharp focus. The goal here is to position your body in such a way that your mind is free to dive deep into the currents of life and eternity.
- Follow your breathing: Focusing on your breathing is the most basic skill in meditation and it is very effective in helping you start your journey. Pay attention to your breathing in and breathing out. Imagine the air(life) enter into you and the stress expelled out as your chest rises and falls with your breaths.
- Focus on a mental image: Having a mental image is one of the ways to connect your mind to what you are doing and getting faster to the point of experience while meditating.
- Repeat a mantra to help keep focus and channel inner energy. This may be in the form of a chant or a set of words you believe in. Most mantras start with words like “peace”, “float” and “silence” among others. They help you connect faster with a deeper experience of those words.
- Concentrate on a simple visual object to relieve stress: This may involve opening of eyes and it is an effective tool when you are contemplating nature. Focusing on a grain of sand, a simple flower or flowing water can carry you on its wings into a deeper consciousness.
- Perform a body scan to relieve tension: This is one powerful technique to relieve stress and heal the body faster. You do a mental scan of your body and feel yourself releasing the pain, strain, swelling or stress from that part of your body.
- Practice visualization if you prefer to focus on some inner force or energy source. When you are setting a goal or getting ready to perform a task; this method is like channeling your inner powers to get something done.
Whatever methods you choose; remember that it will not be perfect at the beginning, you will need a lot of practice to get to the point where your mind becomes elevated and your spirit deepened. However, meditation has the capacity to turn your life, health and even finances around if you embrace it and religiously follow it.
