The benefits of meditation

Meditation

Mindfulness, whatever you want to call it, is an incredible tool we have at our disposal. I don’t think most of us use it as much as we should. 

As it looks like we may be heading into yet another period of restrictions due to covid 19. It is a tool a lot of us would benefit from using. 

I can hold my hands up and say honestly that until recently I was a really lazy meditator. I would maybe grab five minutes here, two minutes there. The occasional yoga nidra session. Just enough to satisfy my ego, so I could say to myself and anyone who asked, yeah I meditate. All the while recommending meditation to others when they were looking for a way to calm their mind or reduce anxiety.

I think part of my laziness was I felt pretty balanced I had a rough plan and my life was ticking along nicely in that direction. I didn’t think I needed to be calmer or develop an understanding or a practice in these techniques which didn’t serve me at that time. 

Well I that was a mistake but hindsight is a wonderful thing. If I had taken the time to appreciate this major part of yoga, then when I stopped feeling balanced and calm then I would have had much more in the way for techniques in my life to deal with things when life stopped going the way I hoped it would. 

Over the last couple of months, I have been making a real effort to get into the habit of meditating. I have been waking up 30minutes earlier going through my morning routine and then sitting down with my thoughts. Usually for around 20 to 30 minutes. Some days I just focus on my breath, some days I use mantras, sometimes I do some visualisation. Mostly I do a combination of all of these, breath, then mantra, then visualisation. I have to say sometimes it can feel like a battle while my mind runs all over the place, usually to the places I don’t want it to go. But the difference in how I feel in myself is amazing! For me my anxiety levels have really reduced I don’t have that gut-churning sensation all the time and my mind has almost stopped going to those places I would rather it didn’t. It is not a magic cure but it has really worked for me I would recommend giving it a go.

If you would like to know more about meditation check out the link below.