Meditation:The key to Emotional Well-being

I am a big advocate of the meditation habit. Most of my clients and readers would have realized by now that I believe that meditation is a great way to begin & end one’s day. In fact, I would even go one step further & write that meditation is the most important habit if you want to change your life.

What got me thinking about this topic, was a discussion yesterday with a good friend of mine who was extremely anxious because he was living in the past and his thoughts determined his way of life to the last detail. I am aware that more than 90% of one’s thoughts are repetitive and unfortunately 80% of these thoughts are negative. Somewhere down the line, I personally feel that these thoughts come from our own survival instinct. Human thoughts are the most powerful of emotions. It is these thoughts, which can make or break a person. I have seen over the years, that thoughts have the power of making one do the things you know you shouldn’t do – like over eating, lack of sleep or even thinking logically. Over the years these thoughts have been planted in our mind through our environment, upbringing and also largely due to the kind of exposure each one of us have had over the years. Hence meditation is the practice of observing these particular thoughts and in the process being more mindful of them through the day. Once you are conscious of these thoughts then it is that much easier to work on the same.

 Over the years by practicing meditation, I have worked on many things which would not have been possible if I didn’t learn to watch and be mindful of my own urges and negative thoughts. I strongly believe that by practicing meditation you are bringing your focus to clear all the unwanted thoughts in the mind, which will eventually leave you with your positive thoughts at all times.

 What surprises me when I talk about meditation with my clients and at group seminars, is that most of the people believe that this skill is extremely difficult to learn, requiring years of disciplined practice something akin to training in Martial Arts. However this is not true. Forming a meditation habit is pretty simple. However doing is everything and given below are the ways you can begin –

Begin small and pick a time: I am a big believer of beginning small and ending it big. Start simple, if you want the habit to stick in the long run. One can begin to do it for about even 5 minutes a day and gradually increase it as the days/weeks progress. To make this more regular, it makes sense to pick a regular time to practice this on a daily basis. I personally recommend it to be the first and the last thing of the day. The reason is that by focusing on your own mind at these two crucial junctures of the day you are ensuring that your day at the conscious level and at the sub conscious level goes exactly the way you would want it to be.

Find a quite place and focus on your breath: To begin with, it makes sense to sit in a quiet place to focus on one’s thoughts. The place can be anywhere as long as you are comfortable. It can be your balcony, terrace, office or if not driving even your car. I have many of my clients who practice meditation in some of the weirdest places,which according to them works wonderfully well. Focusing on your own breath while breathing in and breathing out, will help in regulating one’s breathing, which within no time calms the mind. I advocate people during this time to think that all the negative energy is going out while breathing out and the positive energy is coming in while breathing in.

Focus on the internal world and feel more: Once you are focused on your breath, then within no time you will be oblivious of your surroundings. This is the internal world which is as serene as the ocean floor. Once in this zone, you can begin to focus on your most important thoughts and work on how exactly you would want it to happen. I would personally recommend visualizing at this precise moment,see yourself like in a movie you doing some of your biggest challenges at this point of time, since you are operating at the sub conscious level at this state. This is a great opportunity to expand one’s thinking and live in these positive thoughts for some time, before one comes back to the real world.

 I have experienced  some amazing transformations in myself and seen it with my own clients  by just working on meditation. I would love to hear from each one of you, if you could work on this one empowering habit and completely transform your emotional environment. As always I would feel great to hear from you on these thoughts, on my Face Book Fan Page  or at mail id coach@satishrao.in