What is Meditation?
Meditation is a personal practice of training the attention and cultivating awareness of thoughts and
feelings.
It's inviting stillness into everyday life and cultivating a sense of calm and inner focus to
the mind. We can use the breath to anchor ourselves to the present moment and create space to
observe our inner worlds.
It helps us build better awareness of our thoughts, emotions and reactions and can provide us with more clarity and choice on how we wish to live our lives.
Meditation is often called a ‘practice’ because it is very much a mental exercise of training the attention to build more awareness. It requires a certain level of commitment to take effect. It is certainly not a quick
fix, but with time and practice, it has the ability to offer us more connection to ourselves and the
world beyond.
What isn't Meditation?
Meditation is a practice that can sometimes be misunderstood. It is not a quick fix to our problems
and will certainly not act as a panacea for all issues in the world.
It’s true that meditation is often practiced by various religious and spiritual traditions. That said, meditation itself is non-sectarian and non-religious. It’s basically a mental exercise that has been tested by clinical science time and time again.
There is also no ‘perfect’ environment to practice meditation, and it is certainly not posture-
related as the media may often have us believe. You don’t need to be able to practise yoga, be
particularly flexible or sit in the lotus position in order to meditate. All you need is your body and
your breath.
Meditation is so much more than just stress reduction. It can give you a rare and
intimate glimpse into your mind and yourself. It gets you in direct contact with life and your day-to-
day experience.
Many people think that meditation is about creating a blank mind or switching the mind off. They have a hard time doing so and assume they are ‘bad’ at meditation. Instead, meditation is about setting time aside to guide your mind. You’re not sitting back with a blank mind. Instead, you are gently guiding your mind towards more acceptance, awareness, and choice.
Have you explored meditation with a qualified meditation instructor? I teach meditation every Thursday in my online classes which you can try here.
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