Meaningful meditation
Meditation can be mysterious. Most people stumble upon it through a yoga class, or because it was suggested by a counselor, while others hear about it through media and are interested in its effects. It’s also not uncommon now to hear about meditation in a corporate boardroom where business leaders have learned that it increases their focus and clarity.
Meditation becomes what you intend for it to become. My perspective on meditation is that it is not simply ‘doing nothing’, rather it is a tool that can bring meaningful benefits to your life. Meditation is ‘mind training’.
The commonality among meditative traditions is using some kind of anchor, or focus-point. Most often this anchor is the breath since we always have access to it, and other anchors such as staring at a candle flame are not always practical. In ancient practice meditation was employed to bring meditators into union with the divine. That’s getting far into it, right now there is a global need to simply bring some peace into our lives.
A meditation practice need not be complicated, it doesn’t have to happen in the same place at the same time of the day. Though it could if you like routines. Wherever you are, close your eyes or lower your eyelids and breathe while trying to extend the exhale to be longer than the inhale. Focus on the breath. Then allow the natural breathing pattern to emerge. If your mind strays, keep bringing it back to the breath. Meditate for as long as you need to, or as long as you can. If you are meditating in public don’t worry about what others think. Hopefully one day everyone will feel free to sit down and meditate wherever they are. There are many meditation experts who might say that meditation needs to be more formal than this, it doesn’t.
If you desire a more formal meditation, seek it out as there are many teachers available to you.
If you are interested in meditation to gain specific benefits here are a few to consider. Simply set the intention before you meditate. For example “During this meditation I want to learn to manage my anger better and to diffuse it before it harms me, or others”. Focus on that desire and let your breath and mind do the rest.
The following are the types of training that can be focused on during meditation:
Attentional training. Here you gain the ability to increase your focus and to minimize distractions. You are essentially strengthening your meta-cognition which is the ability to think about your thinking. Once this is strong you can redirect your thoughts at any time.
Affect training. Concentrating on the emotions that arise during meditation you can develop the capacity to transform emotions from negative to neutral or positive. You can also increase the practice of re-appraising emotions for a more clear and accurate meaning.
Executive function training. This area of focus opens up the ability to become more flexible in your thinking and to handle ambiguity and abstraction better.
Body awareness. Within meditation you may choose to focus on a body-scanning technique where you pay attention to specific areas of the body. Doing so lends importance to that body area and you gain appreciation for how it contributes to your whole self and overall health. This can extend into your understanding of family and community and how each person contributes to the diversity and well-being of the group.
Breath control. Learning to breathe in a way that enhances health can produce substantial benefits. Modern life has many people breathing in a way that nears hyperventilation which places one into fight-or-flight mode, a mode that feels stressful and places us on edge. Being in this mode too often can be damaging to our bodies. Breathing more slowly, at a pace that feels right to the individual, restores the relaxation mode, a period where our body can rest, heal and optimize its functions. Each day is a balance between these modes of action and rest and finding a good balance provides the ability to restore your energy.
The great beauty of meditation is that it is available to everyone. Happy meditating and may you gain all that you desire.
