What Meditation means to me
Hi everyone. It's been a while since I've posted anything- first I was away for a few nights and then I had a change of medication which brought with it some rough withdrawals which meant I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to be writing and uploading stuff.
So today, feeling for the first time in a while that I am able to write, I was really keen to post something, and when thinking of what I could possibly write my mind quickly went to meditation as it's something I do most days.
The first thing to clear up is exactly what meditation means.
I'd often wondered about meditation and it's benefits and had tried to do it in different forms since about ten years ago, but it was about five years ago that it really started working for me. The change for me was reading a book that changed my whole concept of meditation. As it happened I never had to read any further than the first chapter of the book because once I had read that chapter in which the author lays out his view of meditation; what it is and how to do it, I learned a completely new way to approach meditation. When I began practising it the new way it instantly worked for me.
What is meditation? As I thought for many years, meditation is usually seen as the practice of totally clearing the mind, ridding yourself of all thoughts and feelings and being able to settle on a completely peaceful state of passive nothingness which then lets you focus your thoughts or strengthen your mind and spirit. The thing is, meditation doesn't have to be that. It doesn't have to be an absence of thought. Maybe for some people that is how it works, but for others it can be looked at in a different way. For me, meditation is calming the mind to the point that I can pick out individual thoughts from the mass of thoughts that are clouding my mind and focus on that one thought to the point that I can identify exactly what it is about it that is stressing or worrying me and I can then deal with the thought and rid myself of the worry associated with it.
So think of it like this; the point is not to rid yourself of thoughts, the point is to analyse and deal with your thoughts. In this modern world, our lives are so full of problems that we can find ourselves overly stressed, our minds so fretted that we can't concentrate on anything. It can be one predominant thought or idea that relentlessly berates us inside our own head, or as is mostly the case with myself and many others I've spoken to, it can be multiple thoughts that swirl around and create the sensation that we are overloaded with worry to the point that we can't do anything about it.
So for me, the goal is to get to the point where I can identify each individual thought and process it, and thus my mind goes from a tangled mess to a streamlined flow. And this is how I do it:
Firstly, it's important to relax and calm down, and get in a generally peaceful state to let the following process of meditation take place. Sometimes I start the process with a warm bath, but not always. The next step for me is to lie in bed, in a dark and quiet room, and play some soft relaxing music. I then do breathing exercises whilst focusing on relaxing every part of my body. After doing all of this, I find myself in a very peaceful state, my breathing is slow and calm, and my body feels relaxed and weightless. The routine you take to relax yourself might be different, but for me I like to count to one hundred very slowly, and each number I count is a breath in or out, and as I'm counting I also rotate and stretch my muscles and joints, starting with the feet, then up the legs, then the body, then the arms, then the neck and head, and I also visualise positive energy entering me with each breath in, and negativity leaving me with every breath out. By the time I get to one-hundred I am relaxed.
The next thing I do is to begin the meditation by turning to my minds eye. I slowly become aware of all the thoughts, at first nothing more than a swirling mass. I don't try to instantly pick out any thought, I just let them flow. I act like a casual observer, not interfering, I just let the thoughts flow by. Slowly, I visualise standing on a bridge over a motorway, looking down at the speeding motorway below, and each car on the road is one of my thoughts whirring by. Still I don't try to identify each one I just let them fly past. Slowly I begin to reduce the speed of them to the point that I can identify each individual thought.
Then I pick one. I look at it carefully and first acknowledge what it is. I don't place any judgement or burden on the thought, I just say what it is. Then I break down why it is a problem to me, what is it about it that is so stressful or is causing me to worry. From there I can ask myself why I am looking at it that way, look at the reality of it, decide how important it really is, possibly change my view to a more realistic one, and most importantly decide how to deal with the problem so that the thought or idea and the associated stress goes away.
For each individual thought I calmly set out the list of actions that will tackle it, and I can then safely put it away, knowing that it is in hand and no longer worthy of the stress attached to it. I can then go on from there to do the same with each individual thought, or if the first one I've tackled is so draining I can leave it there for the day and come back to it again.
Every time I go through this process it helps my well-being and organises the muddle that is my mind. Even if you only tackle one thought a day, it leaves your mind that much more free and peaceful. With many things, as soon as you actually take the time to look at them and question why they are so important, they suddenly become much less severe and you realise how much you are overreacting.
I hope this method assists anyone who is stressed and struggling with their thoughts, and I'd remind everyone to keep persevering with working on a healthy mind even if one or two methods don't first work for you. Good luck and good health!
