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monarchspirit

Unlocking the Power of Meditation: How It Can Improve Your Life

Updated: Sep 26

On Meditation

If you work with me as a coaching client for any length of time, I will inevitably ask you about your spiritual practices. In particular, I will inquire about your meditation/prayer/stillness habits. This is because there are tremendous advantages to unlocking the power of meditation and how it can improve your life.


The idea of meditation freaks lots of people out, but it doesn’t have to. It is not a woo-woo idea or a practice only for people who are “religious” or “out there.” It is a practical exercise, now backed by brain science, that is known to provide multiple positive results both for your physical body and for your experienced reality.


If you would like to make meditation a spiritual practice in addition to a physical one (which is strongly recommended but not necessary) that will have even more positive effects on your metaphysical existence. However, if you cannot get yourself to believe in anything beyond the material world, that is okay, just start where you are and be honest with it. Grace holds you either way, friend.


Meditation, in this context, is nothing more than regularly sitting alone in stillness, with your body and mind relaxed for approximately twelve minutes or more. More is better but twelve minutes is a wonderful start.


Science has proven that it is beneficial to add other elements into your meditation time as you would like, and you can change it up. The power of meditation is heightened as you enhance your practice. These can include prayers, chanting calming words, lighting candles, listening to relaxing sounds, visualizing, finding a sacred space to meditate in, lighting incense, engaging in body scans for progressive muscle relaxation, repetitive movements like touching your thumbs to each of the other four fingers in a pattern and virtually anything else that supports peace of mind, a feeling of wellness and an open heart.


Proper meditation also has an “intention” with it. Intentions are positive affirmations, words, expectations or prayers for something you are seeking. They can be on a small personal level, such as I intend to smile today. Or, they can be on a meta level such as I intend to contribute to world peace today. Examples of words as intentions can be tranquility, empowerment or forgiveness. The intention ensures that as you enter your meditation, you have some higher and virtuous aim in mind that will be your gentle focus. As the meditation progresses, you may notice your mind wandering (almost certainly this will happen at first). When it happens, gently and kindly bring your awareness back to the intention.



Brain Benefits of Meditation

The benefits of meditation are many but there is one primary benefit that makes all of the difference in someone’s lived experience. The key benefit, from a brain standpoint, is how meditation can teach us how to calm our minds so that we can be present to the moment.


Our “animal brains” are the oldest parts of our brains and we share this cerebral feature with animals (thus the name). It is designed to alert us to dangers, and from an emotional standpoint, for humans, this feature has the beautiful potential to make us angry or scared as appropriate to the situation. However, without proper direction from a responsible human owner, our emotions will run wild and we will be angry or scared inappropriately for the situation. This causes relationship issues, coping problems, addictions, troubles with the law, and all sorts of chaos.


This animal brain function is what triggers the fight, flight or freeze response. You can see these responses in the animal world when a dog growls and shows its teeth (fight), a squirrel scurries away (flight) or a deer stops in headlights (freeze). In all instances, the animals' brains are alarmed to potential danger, and their instincts kick in for an automatic reaction.


The issue is that, by Grace, we are not living in the perilous world of our ancestors and extreme anger and fear responses are not typically required from us on a daily basis. If they are, we really have work to do and that is beyond the scope of this post. As mature adults, we can choose a healthy, calm and safe environment and do not need to be regularly terrorized by extreme mental reactions. Therefore, meditating helps us to re-program our responses. We are accountable for our actions. It enables us to take a pause, a stillness, before allowing reactive instincts to kick in.


Instead of an instant, explosive anger or fear reaction, we can learn to move our attention to our newer brain parts, right behind our forehead. This is where we can be calm and logical. It is where we engage reason. It is a blessing that humans are endowed with that allows us to respond in ways that are more sophisticated and nuanced than animal brains could ever achieve.


However, this takes practice. Thus, the term “meditation practice.” And the more frequently and consistently we have practiced mediation, the more likely we are able to tap into that cerebral reasoning in a calm and collected way when life hits us unexpectedly. Consider your daily meditation the practice for the real game of life, in which you get to be the hero or the victim. It’s your choice.


Personality Observation

From a personality coach perspective, meditation is of supreme importance. You see, our personalities are nothing more than personas we have been living in since we were young children. They are sub-conscious masks we wear that cover up who we really are. With each Enneagram personality Type comes a set of behaviors, beliefs and hang-ups that constantly move us in non-constructive ways. The only way out of these habitual behaviors is to be able to “catch ourselves in the act.” We can only change what we can see. Yet, without having a calm mind, it is nearly impossible to see these things.


Meditation allows us to improve our inner-observer. This is the objective watcher that can take a step back and see situations and people more clearly. This is the virtuous part of you that can notice when you are engaging in old patterns and beliefs that are neither serving you nor true to your highest potential.


Then you can make an enlightened decision about what response is most appropriate and loving.


To be human is to have a choice. Animals don’t experience that blessing.


The more proficient you become at meditating, the better you observe yourself for course correction in ways that are not attached to your personality mask. This can be eventually be achieved in real time.


Perhaps there are other ways to improve your personality flaws, but I know of nothing more effective than meditation.


And that is why it is highly recommended.


Physical or Metaphysical

 

You get to choose whether you will receive benefits on a physical or metaphysical level. This is your prerogative.


A physical practice will benefit you due to the aforementioned explanations above. That is a tremendous benefit and will have life changing results.


Additionally, for those who engage in conscious spirituality, there are even more benefits. Science now shows us that belief in a benevolent God, a good universe, a beneficial Wisdom, a generous Creator, a loving Higer Power, or anything else you may term it (as long as it is loving and forgiving and not punishing or pejorative) has positive effects on one’s life. This is because we ultimately imitate our understandings of what god is. In other words, your understanding of this universe, and whether ultimate reality is benevolent or punishing, directly affects how you present yourself to this world.


For support of this concept, look at all of the dedicated 12 Steppers in AA or NA who overcome addictions with their Higher Powers. Those who actually do the work in the program find freedom through loving humility, brutally honest self-inventory, forgiveness and making amends. These folks are heroes of the highest order.


Believing that something greater than us is looking out for us, guiding us, approving us and bringing us justice is enormously beneficial to our success. Mystery is not simply something we can not explain, it is something that is infinitely explainable. We don’t have to understand it all, we just have to have hope that there may be more than what our finite minds understand. What is there to lose?


Be Still and Know,

Jessica

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