5 Reasons to Start Meditating Today

recovery warriors - 5 reasons to start meditating today
A wise woman once told me that the mind is like a lake – a nice calm and peaceful lake. When someone throws a rock into the water or a boat passes its way through it, the lake creates ripples and waves that will rise until they reach the shore and disappear. Now imagine your thoughts as waves inside your mind. Just like throwing something into the lake produced ripples and waves, being constantly exposed to negative thoughts and overthinking the past or the future will distort your mind’s calmness and leave you feeling tensed, anxious, stressed and worried.

In a desperate attempt to conquer our thoughts and restore calmness, we often end up allowing our thoughts to control our mind instead.

Each time you find yourself plagued with negative thoughts, worry or anxiety, it’s important to remember that the thoughts in your mind come and go like ripples in the water and waves hitting the shore, and just like waves they rise and fall in intensity. Instead of judging your thoughts or trying to push them away and stop your mind’s chatter, you allow them to come and go and watch them float away.

As you allow yourself to watch what comes up in your mind without becoming involved in the stories, you may find it difficult to not fall into the judgment trap.

When you catch yourself criticizing what you think or acting upon thoughts in a destructive manner, ask yourself: What’s really underneath these thoughts? Is it pain? Anger? Shame or sadness? In order to get to the root of your mind and uncover hidden emotions, you have to calm your mind and experience a deep state of relaxation. One way to do this is through meditation.

In its purest definition, meditation refers to the way, the practice, method or process by which you are led from the peace within, to a universal center of calm awareness and inspired intuition. It isn’t just a method for calming the mind. Meditation can be the pathway to self-discovery and a healing and restorative process for the body, mind and soul. While there are many different types of meditation, they share common benefits. Here are 5 of my favorites.

Reconnect with your body

Meditation reminds you to be fully present in your body and rediscover the parts you’ve been neglecting. Allowing yourself to listen to your body’s cues and signals will help you to reconnect and make peace with your body.

Improved concentration

Concentration is taking your mind off many things and putting it on one thing at a time. Meditation helps you to become an impartial observer in your mind. You don’t try to focus on ten different things at the same time with the result of doing nothing and you don’t try to change or control anything, all you do is observe. This will help you to move beyond the chatter and move into a peaceful state of being. It’s within this state that your mind will become recharged, enabling you to focus your full energy and attention on the things that enrich your life and help you to achieve goals.

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Increased confidence and awareness

Meditation helps you to recognize your own behaviors and recurring thought patterns and become more detached from them. It simply allows you to tap into your own awareness and clears your mind. Self-awareness makes you more comfortable in your own skin and it enables you to make space for healing, self-exploration, and inner peace. As a result, you will feel grounded and confident, which helps you to feel less guided by limiting thought patterns and more in touch with your intuition instead.

Self-Compassion

Meditation helps you to tune in and get in touch with your emotions. You pay attention to how you’re feeling without judgment. At first, this may be challenging, but with enough patience and practice you’ll be able to reconnect with your real source of energy – your soul, allowing you to enter the process of healing and transformation.

Deeper connection with yourself

Often there is a disconnect between who you think you should be and who you really are. Meditation allows you to tap into your own strength and listen to that inner voice that knows who you really are and helps you to reconnect with your true and authentic self.

The more you practice, the easier it is to silence distracting mind chatter and create space for life to happen.

How can you incorporate meditation in your daily life? All that you need is to take a couple of minutes each day to sit quietly free of self-judgment and without rules or expectations. The only rule that exists is to break all the ones you set. Image Source: Weheartit

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