Could I persuade you to meditate?

 I know, I know - where are you going to make time to meditate? (The irony being that if you meditate, time feels less 'stressy' and squeezed as your mind starts to manage life in a calmer way!)

We've all heard about meditation (and mindfulness) and many of us generally have the idea that it is a positive thing that can help reduce stress and bring more tranquillity into our lives. However, few of us are probably convinced enough to dedicate consistent time to it. Like a friend of mine said after I told her I had meditated for an hour, 'haven't you got better things to do with your time?' Well it really does depend upon what we might mean by better. And I do get that it's maybe a little too counter-culture for many. We're not encouraged to steal from eastern philosophies in our highly individualistic western world!

But I thought I'd share my experiences of it as its impact is starting to startle me!

I originally learned to meditate using the method of transcendental meditation (TM). I am lucky enough to have a cousin who could teach me as she worked in the TM school in Skelmersdale. She stayed with me for a week and was extremely reassuring with:

• No two meditations will be the same.
• If you sit and your mind whirls continuously all the time, that will still be beneficial. (I did find that after a stressful workday, if I sat and 'meditated' with a frantic mind for 20 minutes, I felt like I had downloaded the day and it meant the rest of the evening was calmer.)
• You're not forcing anything. You gently ease into meditation. (After about a year, I started to get a headache every time, and as soon as I started to meditate. An expert I found told me I was 'trying too hard'! After that, the headaches went!)
• Just 'turning up' regularly is the best thing you can do.
• Meditation is always better done on an empty stomach.
• It can take a little while before you notice the benefits but they build up over time and become more and more noticeable.

My first stint at meditating (about ten years ago) did help me - mostly to be less frantic, but it's not until my return to some more dedicated practice this last year, that I have really seen the effect of regular meditation. And that's the problem with telling someone to meditate: until you have actually seen the benefits, it's hard to understand why you would bother. But unless you bother, you won't get to see the benefits. Also, I had read much about 'transcendence' and not really understood it until I'd turned up enough to see what was actually meant by the term.

I would say that meditation is ultimately about training my brain to dis-identify with my thoughts ( the incessant thoughts that can sometimes trigger negative emotions on their own). That may or may not mean something to you. So instead, let me list the benefits I have noticed in other ways.

• I am definitely calmer and far less reactive!
• I am more able to observe my thoughts and emotions with enough detachment to more objectively asses them. I am not 'in' my thoughts and emotions letting them run amok! I am more of a distant observer.
• I feel more connected to others. This is apparently a common effect and why meditation is said to reduce individualistic tendencies. I feel more love, compassion and understanding for everyone, even the poor mother so strung out she is shouting at her toddler.
• I more frequently feel happy! Not a chase after a dopamine 'buzz' type happiness, more of a 'oh this is a wonderful bliss'. My brain seems to more frequently tuned into this current moment and the sights, sounds, feelings, smells and tastes available, as it is far less bothered by thinking trying to dominate and consume my mind. I have a considerable reduction in ruminating on the past or anticipating negative things happening in the future. I find myself walking down the road smiling - like a weirdo! Others do generally smile back though.
• The greater focus on the current moment seems to have made me far better at listening to others, have more ideas, be less bothered by adverse events, and brings about new insights as I have reduced involvement with a constant noise going on in my head (thinking).
• I am experiencing more coincidences of the kind where you think of someone and there they suddenly are in front of you. I have no idea why but it does seem to be just happening.
• I feel quite certain that when I am buzzing with 'presence' , I am giving out 'something' that some other people feel. Again, this probably sounds too woo woo for some but people are generally responding to me more positively!
• And lastly, when I stop meditating, it feels like I have to find the physical world again!

So what do I experience when I meditate?

Each meditation can be different and I notice subtleties relating to tiredness or diet. When I feel great, my meditation tends to be better!

Within any mediation I will be either saying my mantra, thinking thoughts, finding a space where there is no thought or doing a, 'I just had no thought' realisation which means I am thinking again! If I am tired, I sometimes teeter along the edge, in-and-out of a dream-like state with a lot of 'visuals'! However, generally, I find that in any one meditation my thinking becomes less and less noisy although the journey to greater quiet is not in a straight diagonal descent. If I were to draw a graph of what happens for me most of the time, this would probably represent it.

At the start of my meditation, my thoughts can be quite loud. 'Here I am, pay attention to me,' they say. Towards the end of my meditation thoughts do still appear but they are more like little mice in the distance scurrying past 'me' almost saying, 'yes we're here but you don't have to pay us any attention. Certainly don't get involved!'

It does require some faith to stick at meditation and make it a regular thing but it doesn't take too long before the beneficial effects kick in. It has transformed my outlook considerably and beneficially and I am so glad to have embarked upon regular practice! After years of looking for some kind of 'answer' to making life feel more meaningful and less tricky, I think meditation is probably the best answer I have found and I found a fair few!

Come and find more over at my 'real blog'.