What is Meditation?
“In silence you hear the still, small voice of your own heart;
You access your true intelligence;
Only in silence do we realise creativity and the right solutions”
to see more information on our upcoming Meditation for Stress Workshop AND our Tuesday Meditation class with guest teacher for a special Buddhist Meditation!
Meditation can be a valuable tool for finding a calm oasis of relaxation and stress relief in a demanding, fast-paced world. It acts as a way of turning our attention inward and stilling our mind. BUT how do we actually do this?
Meditation has, at times, been shrouded in mystery by some of the meditation traditions making it very difficult to access. As a yoga student I found it very demanding to try and meditate at first. When asking my teacher for guidance to improve my meditation practice or to try and gain support to ‘troubleshoot’ I was told that I needed to practice for longer and continue to ‘look inside’. These statements were not useful and only served to alienate me from the practice of meditation. I eventually began to develop an attitude that it was just too hard!
The Just be meditation program however, is built on a non-religious and straight forward approach that offers simple skills and techniques accessible to all. The approach strips away the mystery leaving a variety of simple, effective and practical meditation tools that can be easily learnt and integrated into your daily routine. Once you have these skills you can de-stress rapidly in less than a minute by meditating 'on the spot'; calm yourself down while walking, shopping or doing household chores; or relax your body to the point of sleep and make the mind still and clear with longer meditations.
How is meditation defined?
Meditation is defined as the ability to relax the body quickly and calm the mind. When you meditate, you detach from your habitual thoughts by focusing on the sensations of the present. In other words, you learn to consciously direct your attention to where you want it to go. We generally spend most of our day in ‘our heads’, in thinking mode, rarely stopping to consider the body. Meditation allows you to shift your focus to the sensations of the present – sight, sound, smell, taste or touch. You shift from thinking mode to sensing mode, moving out of the ‘head’!
Why meditate
Apart from anything else meditation makes you feel good. It's good for your health both physically and mentally. It replaces stress and anxiety with fresh energy, perspective, and appetite for life. It improves workplace focus, performance and productivity. And it's fun to do. More than anything else this feel-good factor explains its increasing popularity.
By learning to turn on the 'Relaxation Response' meditation takes you out of the stress zone and restores the body to balance. If you can relax at will, you'll find your whole body functions better and you feel better. There is abundant medical research supporting this finding. Meditation is particularly good for insomnia, hypertension, migraines, fatigue, pain, digestive problems and chronic illness.
In brief, people meditate:
- to relax, de-stress and fall asleep
- to improve their health
- to remain centred and aware all day long
- for an inner stillness, detachment and clarity
- for well-focused and imaginative thinking
- to cope with unavoidable pain and sadness
- to find happiness, beauty and meaning
Meditation has been practiced throughout history in almost every known culture. It is an effective way of stilling the mind through simple techniques. In the meditative state we can transcend the limitations and habits of the mind and become aware of what we are - more than our thoughts, more than our habits, more than the roles we play.