Meditate To Become Great

Personally, I have never seen the benefits or reasoning behind meditation. Sitting there with legs bent, feet touching one another, eyes closed, along with palms facing upwards and resting on one's knees, all whilst sitting there in silence and solitude, was never something I ever considered doing. I was always happy just to pause for a moment, and have some quiet time to myself, maybe just browsing through my phone, or listening to music, rather than doing the meditation stuff. Plus, I always had to be doing something, as I was never one to just sit still. That was how I spent my time away from the world, and all the dramas of life. Last week, however, I tried meditation for the first time, as it was highly recommended to me by someone successful and professional, to assist with my personal development, my mindset, my thought process, my awareness, and my behavior. Even though it always looked a strange practice to me, I knew it was something I needed to actually try for myself, and overcome that discomfort, as I continually want to better myself as an individual. Even just a week of trialing it, I have already found it to be extremely powerful and beneficial, and have certainly changed my opinion towards it. Like I had previously felt, there are undoubtedly many people worldwide who would see meditation as a bit of a waste of time, something that wouldn't be in any way helpful or beneficial, something that wouldn't yield results, and something that is just a little weird and uncomfortable to do personally. In fact, a lot of people would simply state that they barely even have time to scratch their nose, let alone spend 10 minutes of their day meditating.

Despite some of the reasons I just listed about why people feel negatively and hesitant towards meditation, the real truth is, there's no genuine understanding about it. Many people don't even know it's true purpose, or what the goal of it is. Meditation is defined as "a set of techniques that are intended to encourage a heightened state of awareness and focused attention, whilst benefiting our psychological well-being". Looking at that definition probably wouldn't clarify anything that most people wouldn't already know or believe. You'd look at the definition and think, well I still can't see anything about it other than it is just sitting down, closing your eyes, and doing some mindset stuff. There's nothing in the definition that would really encourage or attract people to engage in it daily, and there's really no elaboration on exactly what the benefits are. We would instantly think that no closing of the eyes and sitting quietly is going to help us deal with our circumstances, emotions, issues, adversities, or problems, that we are encountering. Even in reading this blog entry today, many people will likely still feel no different towards meditation, and that reason being is they just couldn't be bothered trying it, because it is something different, and it probably does make them feel a little uncomfortable to try it. Whilst so many people are so focused and intent on developing their muscles, by going to the gym and doing their daily workouts, the majority of people worldwide fail to work on strengthening the one component of their body that is the main contributor behind the results, outcomes, and the circumstances they encounter in life.

Let's take a moment to gain more clarity around meditation. There are three key words behind the purpose of meditation, them being awareness, perspective, and mindfulness. Now awareness, of course, is about having knowledge or perception of a situation or fact. It's about being conscious of something. So how does that fit into the meditation piece, and where is the benefit? Firstly, let's not confuse awareness with attention. During meditation, we are asked to focus on our breathing, therefore we naturally direct our attention to it. As the human mind often does though, it likes to wander, and we lose concentration, and we start thinking of something else. So where we are asked to be attentive towards our breathing, perhaps the thought of a task that's due at work the day after may come to mind, or the remembrance that we forget to take out the bins, or the concern of our financial situation may shift our focus, this is where the awareness piece comes in to play. It's about acknowledging that our attention of what we should be concentrating on has shifted, and then we need to regain control of our mind to refocus on our breathing once again. We start to gather a good understanding of where our mind is going, and what it is doing. Increasing of awareness then increases our ability to control. Through the continual practice of identifying the moments when we are sidetracked and distracted from what we should be focusing on, and then having the awareness and control to refocus, we slowly begin to strengthen our mind from such distractions. It's not about pretending that circumstances and events aren't going on in our life, but it's about being continually aware of our thoughts, which helps guide us away from being a prisoner of them.

Perspective is defined as "having a particular attitude towards, or way of regarding, something". In summary, it's a point of view. It's easy to view certain challenging, difficult, and adverse circumstances and situations, from a worse perspective than what they really are. Times of adversity, hardship, trial, pain, suffering, and the like, often has us forward thinking, leading us to thoughts of potential outcomes that may arise. With the way in which the human brain is wired, we always have a habit of primarily focusing on the potential negative outcomes in all situations and circumstances, because they could ultimately impact on our survival, or the way in which we live. This frightens us. We tend to exaggerate the thoughts of these negative outcomes however, seriously believing that our life will completely fall apart, that we won't be able to survive, and basically that it will be the end of the world. With meditation, again it's not about pretending that these situations, events, and circumstances aren't taking place in or life, nor are we pretending that they aren't seriously impacting on our life, triggering us to feel upset, stressed, and hurt. It's about thinking clearly about what's taking place, accepting what is going on, and creating a true perspective on things, not a manufactured one that we are guilty of forming in our mind. It's about pausing for a moment, breathing deeply, and understanding that in that present moment, you are okay. Rather than forward thinking and assuming that things will turn out for the worst, it's about putting things into clear perspective, and understanding that although it may not be a pleasant time, you are okay in that present moment, and you will be okay in the future also.

Finally, there is mindfulness. Mindfulness is defined as being "a type of meditation in which you focus on being intensely aware of what you're sensing and feeling in the moment, without interpretation or judgment". It's basically a way of connecting with your life. Like I said about perspective above, mindfulness is about understanding that you are in the present at the moment, and acknowledging that it is the only period of time in which you can actually do anything, that you are in complete control of, as the past has gone, and the future is still yet to come. With all that we have to deal with in life, it's easy to get overwhelmed by our thoughts. We are constantly processing pieces of information, and dealing with all sorts of tasks, actions, decisions, commitments, and obligations. It's hard to just switch our minds off from thinking, as guaranteed, there is always something that may be concerning us, or that we are focusing on. Mindfulness allows us both the peace and space to understand our feelings and emotions, and accept our circumstances to be exactly as they are. We have a bad habit of processing information that we manufacture ourselves, and adopt it to be the truth. It could be that we believe that we are unattractive, or that everybody hates us, or that we are never going to achieve success as we are not skilled or talented enough. These are nothing but manufactured thoughts that we adopt as fact, and ultimately, they mentally affect our behavior, our emotions, and our attitude. Mindfulness offers us rationality, helping us to better understand the relationship we have with ourselves, our goals, other people, our fears, and even our own body, whilst assisting us in how to better deal with the constant rollercoaster of emotions and events that come with life. Mindfulness offers us truth.

So we associate those three terms, awareness, perspective, and mindfulness, with meditation, but with some clarification around what meditation is all about, where are the benefits, you may still be asking? Well there's always the fact it helps us to manage stress, it helps increase self-awareness, it helps reduce negative emotions, it helps increase imagination and creativity, it helps increase our patience and tolerance, it decreases our blood pressure, and it improves our sleep patterns. I think there are an overwhelming number of benefits to meditation, and I am someone who has been converted from being hesitant about it, to becoming someone who now embraces it, acknowledges it's true power, and recommends it to others. Anything that can assist us with our mindset and our thought patterns are definitely a positive. I can honestly say that it's great to meditate. So if you haven't tried meditation yourself before, take the plunge like I did, and give it a go. Don't do it with the mindset that it's a waste of time, or that you feel silly doing it, but do it with an open mind. Embrace it, learn more about it, and discover the benefits for yourself.

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