Meditate and Change Your Life!
Countless studies extol the benefits of meditation. We’ve known for decades about the physical, psychological, mental, and emotional benefits to this practice. Your mood can be altered with just a few minutes of meditation daily. You can even experience a measurable difference in just three minutes!
Meditation is nothing more, or less than taking a pause in your life. That’s right – it’s like hitting a pause button to all the craziness of your life. You can do it. Really. Any pause you take for you – for your life, for your priorities is simply, sacred time.
Why do I call it sacred time?
Because it is time you set aside for YOU – to change your life for the better.
That makes it sacred.
YOU are important and deserving of this time, even if it is a few minutes every day. YOU are worth every single minute. Think of it as an investment in your future. Like financial investments, you reap the benefits over the long haul of your life.
But you must begin somewhere and sometime.
And NOW is that time!
First, this time must be non-negotiable, and you give it to yourself as a gift. It is time for you to feed your soul and your heart and your life in a way that is pleasing and meaningful to you. You also begin to lay the groundwork and foundation for your day and all that you will do and say, encounter, accomplish, feel, give, and become throughout the course of your day.
Second, all major religious and philosophical traditions teach the art and practice of withdrawing, of setting aside and taking time for oneself. Some define this as prayer. Others call it meditation. They are all variations on a theme, but that’s beyond the scope of our topic at present. More on that later.
I want you to know that I take this time for myself every day, pretty much without fail. But it wasn’t always that way.
Like many of you, I was a young professional woman, with a son, a home life, a full-time job, and lots of responsibilities. A lot about those years remained blurred in my mind. And while I dabbled in meditation in my twenties before I had my son, a regular practice was hard afterward.
I had all kinds of excuses: a long commute, as an educator I had papers to read and correct, I had a husband who travelled overseas for work and was gone weeks at a time.
I can’t tell how much I wish I had kept up my fledgling practice in those days. Luckily, I picked it back up while my son was still very young, and it made all the difference. It looked different. Sometimes it was just breathing and turning inward while I vacuumed or saying affirmations while I shoveled snow, or listening to something inspirational on my long commutes.
But, back to you and why meditation can change your life…
Yes, just a few minutes a day can dramatically begin to alter your life! And remember, if you can breathe in and out, you can meditate!
So, if you meditate, you can change your life. In fact, you can change yourself mentally, emotionally, and even physically. When you meditate you wake up, becoming more truly whom you were meant to be.
It is such a simple practice and yet so beneficial! And it’s so easy to do because it can be done anywhere and ANY time!
Go for it! What do you have to lose? Nothing! But you have everything to gain!
Reflection/Journaling Questions:
Which one(s) of the positive effects/benefits of meditation listed here and in the other handout catch your eye? Why?
What would your ideal day or life look like?
Who is it that you want to be/become?
NEXT
Countless studies extol the benefits of meditation. We’ve known for decades about the physical, psychological, mental, and emotional benefits to this practice. Your mood can be altered with just a few minutes of meditation daily. You can even experience a measurable difference in just three minutes!
Meditation is nothing more, or less than taking a pause in your life. That’s right – it’s like hitting a pause button to all the craziness of your life. You can do it. Really. Any pause you take for you – for your life, for your priorities is simply, sacred time.
Why do I call it sacred time?
Because it is time you set aside for YOU – to change your life for the better.
That makes it sacred.
YOU are important and deserving of this time, even if it is a few minutes every day. YOU are worth every single minute. Think of it as an investment in your future. Like financial investments, you reap the benefits over the long haul of your life.
But you must begin somewhere and sometime.
And NOW is that time!
First, this time must be non-negotiable, and you give it to yourself as a gift. It is time for you to feed your soul and your heart and your life in a way that is pleasing and meaningful to you. You also begin to lay the groundwork and foundation for your day and all that you will do and say, encounter, accomplish, feel, give, and become throughout the course of your day.
Second, all major religious and philosophical traditions teach the art and practice of withdrawing, of setting aside and taking time for oneself. Some define this as prayer. Others call it meditation. They are all variations on a theme, but that’s beyond the scope of our topic at present. More on that later.
I want you to know that I take this time for myself every day, pretty much without fail. But it wasn’t always that way.
Like many of you, I was a young professional woman, with a son, a home life, a full-time job, and lots of responsibilities. A lot about those years remained blurred in my mind. And while I dabbled in meditation in my twenties before I had my son, a regular practice was hard afterward.
I had all kinds of excuses: a long commute, as an educator I had papers to read and correct, I had a husband who travelled overseas for work and was gone weeks at a time.
I can’t tell how much I wish I had kept up my fledgling practice in those days. Luckily, I picked it back up while my son was still very young, and it made all the difference. It looked different. Sometimes it was just breathing and turning inward while I vacuumed or saying affirmations while I shoveled snow, or listening to something inspirational on my long commutes.
But, back to you and why meditation can change your life…
Yes, just a few minutes a day can dramatically begin to alter your life! And remember, if you can breathe in and out, you can meditate!
- Just 3 minutes of meditation will begin to alter your electromagnetic field and have a positive effect on your circulation, blood pressure and chemistry.
- Just 11 minutes will begin to positively affect your nervous system and glands and generate a calming effect.
- Meditating for 22 minutes dramatically affects how your mind experiences and processes negativity - enabling you to be less reactive and see things more clearly and positively, without attaching to outcomes or results.
- Increasing your practice to 62 minutes daily begins to change and transform the gray matter in your brain, re-wiring it, and profoundly affecting your subconscious mind.
- Meditating for 2 1/2 hours enables you to make permanent imprints in your psyche by establishing new patterns of perception and behavior. Theta brain waves are measurable and become more evident in very deep states of relaxation; the subtler and more elusive Gamma brain waves evident only in long-term meditators like Buddhist monks and mystics might also make an appearance.
So, if you meditate, you can change your life. In fact, you can change yourself mentally, emotionally, and even physically. When you meditate you wake up, becoming more truly whom you were meant to be.
It is such a simple practice and yet so beneficial! And it’s so easy to do because it can be done anywhere and ANY time!
Go for it! What do you have to lose? Nothing! But you have everything to gain!
Reflection/Journaling Questions:
Which one(s) of the positive effects/benefits of meditation listed here and in the other handout catch your eye? Why?
What would your ideal day or life look like?
Who is it that you want to be/become?
NEXT