There are so many benefits to meditation it’s hard to believe we don’t spend ALL of our time sitting in silence, soaking them all in. The truth is, not many of us spend any time or at least any consistent time meditating, and that means the non-meditator loses out on some significant mental and physical health benefits.
“It’s hard”, “I can’t focus”, “I tried, it didn’t work”
These are some of the answers I get when I ask my clients if they meditate. I ask because I know meditation relieves stress, lowers anxiety and reduces negativity. It increases feelings of inner peace, equanimity and clarity. And on the physical side, a daily meditation practice increases heart health, has a positive impact on blood pressure, memory and concentration. When thrown into the mix with chronic illness such as cancer or diabetes, meditators have better pain management, better sleep (better healing!) and overall significantly better results.
There are many ways to meditate.
There are walking meditations, body movement meditations (yoga, qi gong, tai chi), mindfulness meditations, open awareness meditations, eating meditations — just about anything you do where you maintain a focal point in a non-analytical way, where there are no thoughts about it, just being with it could be considered a meditation. Looking at an apple and observing that apple (focal point) and everything about that apple (it’s redness, it’s roundness, it’s smell) WITHOUT analyzing it, just being with it, would be a meditation.
The mind wanders.
We are conditioned for our attention move from the focal point and to react to the focal point. A typical interaction with the apple might be seeing the apple, you react to it and take yourself to last time you ate an apple or how you might like to cook that apple.
Meditation is the re-training of your attention.
Do you want to meditate your way into positivity?
Join me on Thursday evenings from 6:30PM – 7:30PM PST on ZOOM for a 6 week series of Meditation and Mindfulness for Positivity. Starting November 10 2022 and running until December 15 2022, in this weekly class you will learn meditation and mindfulness techniques and exercises and participate in a 20-30 minute mindfulness meditation to calm, relax and soothe your body and mind. Each week you will build on your skills and learn to let the stress and anxiety go!
This 6 week Meditation and Mindfulness for Positivity series will focus on:
- Self awareness
- Positive emotions and presence
- Non-reactivity and loving kindness
- Your authentic self
- Self compassion
- Positive relationships
- creating a sustainable meditation practice to expand positivity and improved mental and physical health
Can’t join live? Each week I will post a recording of the evening’s session so you won’t miss out. Recordings of the individual meditations will also be posted so that you can access/download to continue to build your meditation practice through the week.
For more information and registration, check out the event here:
I hope you will join us!