“The quieter you become, the more you can hear.” -Anonymous Meditation enhances our overall sense of well-being and helps reduce stress, instilling a calmness within that promotes and fosters happiness and clarity. The benefits are numerous and the process of learning meditation is rather straightforward. A practice that has no negative side effects and helps in the development of peace and serenity by engaging with our emotional responses. But is the process that simple and linear? Below we list some problems newcomers experience while attempting to engage in meditation practices.
1. MIND IS ALL OVER THE PLACE
This complaint is possibly the most common. “I cannot still my mind, so how can I meditate?”, you ask. It’s simple really! The wandering mind is natural because that’s the way our mind works naturally unless you spend time and energy training it. If your mind starts racing the minute you sit down to meditate, then just go with the flow. Let the thoughts come, you do not need to observe them and react. If the din from the cacophony of thoughts keeps getting louder instead of plateauing, then repeat the word, TOGETHER! You can also chant the Oponopono prayer, I AM SORRY, THANK YOU, I LOVE YOU! This will bring your awareness back to the practice of meditation. The point of meditation is not thought repression or suppression! The key is to surpass the thoughts and go beyond them so they cannot affect your well-being.
2. THE SNOOZIES HIT ME
If you keep falling asleep during meditation, then fret not as this is the body’s natural response to the state of relaxation you’re experiencing during these practices. The best way to stop this from happening is to make sure you’re not dead tired when you’re attempting to meditate. You should also try to sit up for the duration of the practice as this will stop you from being overpowered by slothfulness and sluggishness. It might work best if you do this as early as you can in the morning, so you’re full of energy and potential.
3. THE BODY HAS A MIND OF ITS OWN
If you’re just starting and trying meditation, then you might notice that your physical body refuses to sit still during the fifteen or twenty minutes you’ve set aside for the practice. Your body suddenly has a mind of its own and it’s not willing to listen. The primary reason for this is restlessness. If you’re unable to discipline and train your body to sit in meditation, then you might like to start with a walking meditation or if you’re adventurous, then try a dancing meditation. The walking meditation is pretty straightforward. Just walk at your usual pace, it’s best to be outdoors as nature is known to calm the agitated mind. Now sync your breath with your steps. Keep your mouth closed and breathe from the nose deeply while walking. Make sure to relax all tension in the face and body and keep walking while you gaze ahead calmly. After a while, your thoughts will fizzle out and the hold they have over your emotional states will come to an end. There is freedom in this state and a sense of euphoria!
4. THE BODY HURTS
This is something we’ve all felt at some point or the other when we’re trying to establish a meditation schedule. Sometimes, it’s the knee and sometimes it’s the back. The body could hurt because of numerous reasons or you could just be enervated. The energy does get depleted as we go through our hectic professional and personal commitments each day. It’s understandable and it can be fixed. Again, try EMOTIONAL FREQUENCY TAPPING, which is gentle tapping on the parts of the body that feel unsettled. It could also result because of something as rudimentary as your posture not being correct. Try to do some stretches before you begin the session and also use cold or hot packs on the painful areas. You can also heat rock salt and put them in cotton napkins and apply this as a bandage on affected parts. Massage with hot mustard oil boiled with garlic, this can greatly ease the discomfort.
5. WHERE IS THE TIME TO MEDITATE?
To this statement, I reply by saying, “If you’re breathing, you’re already meditating. So now it’s time to become conscious of that meditation you’ve been practising since you were born.” The breath makes you conscious that there is a stillness inside of you with the power of a black hole that is waiting to be discovered to unleash its true potential. The black holes are the greatest forces of creation even though they suck up all matter that comes in contact with them! You are the very same and yet, you do not have 15 minutes to establish a practice that can open you up to infinite possibilities? Make time for this practice, even if it means you have to wake up half an hour before your usual time to surface. This will seem like a horrible and impossible habit to inculcate, but once you’ve understood the happiness and bliss this will provide in life, you’ll thank yourself for sticking with it.
Now that you have absolutely zero reasons to delay engaging in meditation, let me add the icing on the cake with a cherry on top. Scientists have concluded that there is a shift in the autonomic nervous system that decreases sympathetic tone and increases parasympathetic tone! I know that’s quite the mouthful, but to break it down for it, the sympathetic nervous system is our flight-or-fight responses and the parasympathetic is rest-and-digest, so when we’re going beyond just the survival mechanism, we are creating a space for physical, mental and spiritual well-being and in that state, anything is possible or as Adidas says “Impossible is nothing”.
The article has been authored by Tina Mukerji, a soul guide working with Astrology, Tarot, Psychism, Yoga, Tantra, Breathwork and Mantras. She works to discover the inherent archetypes, by studying astrological charts.
