Getting into Meditation
For many years, I thought that I wouldn’t like meditation. I felt I probably didn’t have the patience and it would be “too quiet” for my busy mind.
So how did it happen for me? I started exploring meditation as a way to develop my psychic abilities and to get in touch with my “spirit guides”. I found that starting with guided meditations was incredibly helpful as my mind would be focused on the meditation and not thinking about all of the other things I needed to do that day.
With practice, I have been able to find a quiet, patient place in my mind so that I don’t always need to follow a guided meditation.
The benefits of meditation
Meditation produces an altered state of consciousness - it is on a spectrum and can be at the light end or a deeper altered state. The more you practise, the easier you will find it. It is a powerful tool, which you can navigate and effectively use to your maximum advantage.
By entering into a meditative state, you can bypass the ‘rational mind’, which interferes with deep inner transformation, and communicate with the ‘subconscious mind’. The rational mind is a barrier to the subconscious and unconscious where the majority of our pain, neurosis and unresolved trauma is buried. The subconscious and unconscious minds store memories, habits, behaviours, programming, deep seated emotions and everything that you have learned and experienced.
Naturally the conscious mind (the ego) is there to protect us from perceived threats but often it is defensive and stubborn which can prevent us from shaking off old toxic roles, adopting new habits and releasing pent up pain.
Meditation can upgrade our minds and reprogramme our thoughts to easily manifest abundance, happiness and good health. It can shift your awareness.
Let’s look for a minute at other benefits of meditation:-
Lowers stress - At difficult and stressful moments our bodies create cortisol, the steroid hormone responsible for regulating stress (the fight or flight response). Chronic stress can cause sustained and elevated levels of cortisol, which can lead to problems with the cardiovascular system, immune system and gut health.
Reduces anxiety - It can help anxiety by calming the nervous system and any physical symptoms like rapid heart rate and sweating.
Improves mental health - It can help reduce depression through mindfulness and practising wellbeing.
Improves self awareness - any mindful practices can generate empathy and kindness. Changing your thoughts can have a huge impact on changing your life.
Improves sleep - good sleep is essential for the body to repair itself, and it affects every tissue in the body. A lack of sleep can increase the risks of obesity, heart disease and infections.
Lowers blood pressure - which in turn can protect from heart disease, heart attacks and a risk of more serious problems.
Strengthens our immune system - by strengthening our immune system, we can decrease the risk of conditions such as chronic pain, fatigue and heart disease.
Improves your memory - meditation can improve the brain structure and produce more grey matter.
Regulates your mood - over a period of time, your mood can feel calmer, more peaceful, and less bothered by certain stress triggers.
Healing trauma
One of my biggest passions with meditation is to programme the subconscious mind to help break any unwanted patterns.
Carrying our emotional baggage around with us, especially from one relationship to another, causes the same patterns to repeat themselves over and over again. As well as that the emotional baggage can eventually cause physical damage to our bodies if we don’t deal with it. Just ignoring it is probably not the best solution.
The conscious mind (Beta brain waves) is where we spend the most of our time. This gives way to our habits, critical and negative thoughts, analysis of situations, our beliefs and our willpower.
Our subconscious mind (Alpha and Theta brainwaves) is where we store our thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
Our unconscious mind (Delta brainwaves) is where we find our spiritual connection, our immune system, our body system regeneration, and access to our collective consciousness, which is the core of who we are.
So you can see why meditating to a deeper level has a huge benefit - changing your thoughts, beliefs and experiences to change your life. This is done by visualising whilst in a meditative state. We can literally train our minds to be higher functioning, mindful and more precise, and become a happier person in the process, attracting the life we deserve. In order to truly heal and move on to a better life some internal work is required along with time to process it. Your responsibility is to look after yourself and your body.
Through meditation, and with the help and support of spirit, I have found myself dealing with past traumas that I actually believed I had dealt with and moved on. Trauma has many layers to it but once you feel a shift, the weight that is released off you is quite profound. You feel lighter, happier and find that you are not triggered by the same things you used to be.
Guided meditations can support you to deal with any emotional baggage you might have.