I’ve spent the better part of my life (and meagre finances) on spiritual books, teachers and retreats, and like to think I’m an aware soul. But sometimes, when life hands me lemons, I still struggle to make lemonade. Meditation is the one thing that brings me peace.
This blog is about my love of all things meditation: short meditations, tips for your own meditation practice and the journey of self-discovery meditation can provide.
Hmmm, I hear you say. Why meditate?
Here are three key things meditation has taught me.
1. The truth of the soul
After all my spiritual questing, I finally understand that what’s motivated me to search for meaning is really my soul calling me home. Remember where you came from, it whispers in my cells. Remember who you really are.
For me, meditation is the pathway back home. When I meditate, I really get that I am not my body, or my thoughts, or even my emotions (thank God for that!). My soul’s true nature is pure awareness. It is vast, infinite and eternal. When my thoughts and emotions run wild and I feel lost (which happens most days), meditation brings me back home.
2. Healing
Harvard research has shown that meditation increases serotonin and growth hormone which repairs cells and tissue. Meditation can also lower the heart rate, boost immunity, lower blood pressure, increase blood circulation, create emotional balance and lower the body’s inflammatory response – and it does this in mere seconds!
Meditation has the potential to bring many things into your life. Peace, resilience, presence and, yes, healing. Real. Measurable. Physical. Healing. I use meditation to help manage my autoimmune disease and adrenal fatigue, among other things.
3. Letting go
=Q=
Meditation is continually teaching me to let go and be okay with however life is for me right now.
I can’t tell you the relief I feel when I realise that, in life, I don’t always need to know why. When I meditate, everything ceases to exist and I can simply, be. This moment is the only one that matters. Meditation gives me a grounded space from which to act in times of both stress and joy and, boy, does it help with those hairy challenges with the kids!
My own story is a journey to meditation for healing. I first learned Vispassana meditation growing up at home. I practised on and off during university where I studied law and psychology and then during my 12-year career as a human rights lawyer and executive coach. Then, a few years ago, my beautiful daughter was diagnosed with an extremely rare disorder and we almost lost my ever-smiling son from a complication with a pre-school bug. I am happy to report they are doing really well, but I just about fell apart from the stress and my own health went down the proverbial tube.
Meditation truly helped me to recover. I began to sit (to meditate) and found a holistic practitioner who helped me use meditation to heal. The fog lifted and each day became more manageable. I re-trained as a meditation teacher and now sit twice a day.
These days I consider meditation to be as essential as oxygen. If I don’t sit, I don’t remember.
Next post: How to connect to your intuition
