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Loading...8 Ways Meditation Can Change Your Life
- a Care2 favorite by Ed and Deb Shapiro
- 159 comments
We can’t imagine what life would be like without meditation. It has seen us through tough times and many life changes, keeping us sane and grounded and real. Life is challenging enough; we can never know what will arise next and only when our minds are clear and focused can we make the best decisions.
How are you able to deal with the madness and chaos that occurs daily? How do you deal with the challenges of life? Meditation is highly misunderstood and often under-rated yet is perhaps what it takes to be a truly sane person. How does meditation affect us? How does it shift our priorities, enable us to make friends with ourselves, to find answers to our questions?
Here are eight ways meditation can make your life more meaningful and enjoyable!
1. Living With Kindness
No one deserves your kindness and compassion more than yourself. Every time you see or feel suffering, every time you make a mistake or say something stupid and are just about to put yourself down, every time you think of someone you are having a hard time with, every time you encounter the confusion and difficulty of being human, every time you see someone else struggling, upset, or irritated, you can stop and bring loving kindness and compassion. Breathing gently, silently repeat: May I be well, may I be happy, May I be filled with loving kindness.
2. Lightening the Load
In a stressed state, it is easy to lose touch with inner peace, compassion and kindness; in a relaxed state, your mind is clear and you can connect with a deeper sense of purpose and altruism. Meditation and medication are derived from the Latin word medicus, to care or to cure. A time of quiet calmness is, therefore, the most effective remedy for a busy and overworked mind. Anytime you feel stress rising, heart closing, mind going into overwhelm, just bring your focus to your breathing and quietly repeat with each in- and out-breath: Breathing in, I calm the body and mind; breathing out, I smile.
3. Letting Go of Me
Stillness is always there between the thoughts, behind the story, beneath the noise. What keeps us from experiencing our natural state of being is the habitual and ego-dominated monkey mind. Meditation enables us to see clearly, to witness our thoughts and behavior and reduce self-involvement. Without such a practice of self-reflection there is no way of putting a brake on the ego’s demands. From being self-centered, we can become other-centered, concerned about the welfare of all.
Read more: Blogs, Ed and Deb, Guidance, Inspiration, Mental Wellness, Self-Help, Spirit, Yoga, awareness, consciousness, happiness, meditation, stress
Ed and Deb Shapiro
You can learn more in our book, Be The Change: How Meditation Can Transform You and the World, forewords by the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman, with contributors Marianne Williamson, Jane Fonda, Ram Dass, Byron Katie and others. Our 3 meditation CD’s: Metta—Loving kindness and Forgiveness; Samadhi–Breath Awareness and Insight; and Yoga Nidra–Inner Conscious Relaxation, are available at: EdandDebShapiro.com
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may
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lovely and easy. there's nothing like fresh flowers
oh and the cat went out and hunted mice birds and whatever else she would naturally eat as a carnivo…
159 comments
+ add your ownVery interesting, thank you. The only thing I didn't like about this was the part about meditating on the "animals that tave their life" for the chair you're sitting on. I don't buy leather furniture, and presenting animals dying for our furniture as something positive that we can meditate on and be grateful for is just wrong to me. Instead, I think you should encourage appreciation of the wonder of living animals, pets, wild animals and farm animals, which could lead to more respect for their lives and hopefully less animals dying for furniture and other unnecessary things for humans.
what is vipasana meditation?
Thank you for sharing.
"Be still and know that I am God"....Sitting in meditation allows one to calm their mind, which in turns lower the heart rate, affects all bodily functions in a positive manner, releasing the stress and emotional reactions to the world around us. It is a demanding world which has lots of pulls and if we don't take the time to "be still", it affects our Being..and others Beings. When we are calm those around us also have the opportunity to become calm. So lets meditate to help not only ourselves but the whole world. Peace is the name of this game of Life. May peace permeate our Being..Be Still and let Peace Be.
I would love to be able to clear my mind and feel a sense of peace, but I've tried quite a few times and it just doesn't come to me, I always have thoughts whizzing around my brain :(
Interesting
I've just started meditating. It is so difficult sometimes, but others it is complete bliss
Meditation can do lots of great things.
Very grateful with the article. Just Love IT!
Thank you.
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