What Can Mindfulness & Meditation Do For You?
Do you ever reflect on how your negative mental habits effect every aspect and every moment of your life? Your work, your relationships, your health? Does your sense of ego effect your self esteem? Does fear and anxiety effect your decisions? Does anger and resentment effect your relationships? Does greed effect yourmoral conduct?
And if you could lessen the effect, or completely free yourself from any of these negative mental habits, which one would it be? Fear? Anxiety? Jealousy? Anger? Resentment? Greed, or any other?
Whether we want it or not, our negative mental habits rule our life. We have developed them ourwhole life. We have sown the seeds of our negative mental habits, and nourished them, until they have grown deep roots in our mind, and we have done it unconsciously, and ignorantly.
The more we repeat a mental habit, the deeper it gets entrenched in our mind, and becomes ourmental pattern. And as the seeds that are sowed, so are the fruits. If we have sown seeds of anger, we will act in anger, if we have sown seeds of fear and anxiety, we will act with fear and anxiety, and if we have sown seeds of calmness and confidence, we will act with calmness and confidence.
Since we develop our mental habits unconsciously, we may say that it isn’t our fault that we are as we are. But if we are unhappy with our results, and want to improve for the better, then it is our responsibility to do what is necessary.
A mind full of negative mental impurities, is an unstable, and reactive mind. And in this state ofmind you can’t expect to make balanced decisions. How can your life develop in a favourable way when you can’t make balanced decisions?
Most people tend to blame others or circumstances for their situation. They blame their parents,their governments, their teachers, the economy, the weather, the traffic, the pandemic…
But the truth is that we can’t really control any of that. We can’t control nature, and we can’t control what others think, we can’t control the biochemical change within our body… And we can’t change that everything is impermanent, we can’t change that one day we will die, we cant change that every cause has an effect, and we can’t change that we actually don’t have control over any of it.
Sometimes we can mildly influence our closer environment, but not much. We can decide to improve infrastructure, develop technology, and over all live a bit more comfortably, for whatever it’s worth. We can decide to eat healthier and exercise, and this will most likely have a positive effect on our life quality.
We can make plans, think big, but what happens when things don’t really manifest as we want them to? Life is full of ups and down externally and internally. If we react with negativity every time that things are “down”, and with satisfaction every time that things are “up”, then we let the circumstances control our state of mind.
It is easy to be “happy and calm” when everything happens in the way we want, but staying “happy and calm” when things are not exactly panning out as we want is a lot more important and is in fact the key for a balanced mind?
We can hardly control the circumstances, but we can control the way we react.
Our mental habits emanate from the way we react with craving to being “up”, and aversion to being“down”. The mind does not react to external circumstances, nor to pattern of thoughts. In the deepest level the mind reacts to biochemical change. i.e. physical sensations that the mind associates with liking or disliking. The physical sensations are there all the time, but are also triggered by our experiences, whether real or not. This reaction takes place deep in our mind, allthe time, without us being aware of it, and is the root cause to the way we develop our negative mental habits, and consequential behaviour.
Experience(either sensory, or as a thought) ==> Mind becomes aware ==> Mind assesses according to memory ==> A sensation follows ==> Reaction(only comes after sensation has risen) ==> over and over and over again, 24/7 even in our sleep.
To really take control of our mind, we need to be mindful, and develop awareness to the process, aswe react, and consciously stop reacting. Easier said than done, because developing the right awareness, and the right attitude takes practice and commitment.
Not every mindfulness is qual, but when you start using the right technique, and you start observing yourself as you are, mind and matter, in the right way, you start experiencingtransformation and improvement immediately.
It’s not that you eradicate all your mental impurities at once. After all it took you a lifetime to develop them.But step by step, you can start taking control of your mind, start dealing with the root level of your impurities, subsequently lesser your reactiveness, and over all live a happier life regardless of the circumstances.
Since 1996, I have been practicing daily the life changing mindfulness techniques; Vipassana andAnapana. I have thousands of hours of meditation experience, and I have experienced first handthe benefits of the techniques. When you practice these techniques, you become aware of your truth, your state, your reactions, the reasons for your reactions, and you develop an objective attitude that is key in dealing with our mental impurities.
The techniques are invaluable.
During the beginning of the Covid pandemic, when the whole world was in lockdown, and so manypeople experienced so much anxiety, fear, frustration, uncertainty, etc. I have decided, togetherwith GHM Group, to broadcast daily sessions, to help those in need, to learn a mindfulnesstechnique, so they could cope better in the situation. These sessions were recorded, and then edited into a 30 days course, that is free and available for anyone, and also for you.
To lessen the effect, or completely free yourself from any of your negative mental habits, I urge you to start here. It is a lifetime process, but you have to start sometime, and the sooner, the better. Every day that you don’t practice is a lost opportunity to become more balanced and overall happier.
Don’t take my word for it. To experience your own change you have to do your own work. You can start Here.
Don’t wait till the next pandemic, or the next challenging situation to establish yourself in thetechnique. Learn and practice now, and it will serve you through thick and thin.
Check out our previous Mindfulness & Meditation article from Create A Limitless Life 2021.
Bonus Content: Breath Work
Follow this link to learn more about the power of breath work, and delve deeper into a super powerful method designed by Wim Hoff: https://www.merkabamoksha.com/post/breathwork
4 Responses
I should meditate one of these days.
It should help me think and reflect.
So, I started practicing daily reflection or as often as I can at the end of each day. While I cannot claim that I have mastered meditation as yet, I am in process. I however am benefitting from the calmness.
The most difficult part for me is to find the time to truly practice mindfulness.