Meditation: Luxury or Necessity?

Meditation simply means to “Self Reflect”. I can self reflect walking, washing dishes, taking a shower, and my favorite, baking pies. Often we can sit down on the couch, take a deep breath, and worries can rise to the surface, inspiring us to get busy so we do not think about our concerns.

Seeking a book or course on meditation in 1994 had its challenges. I did not know of any one who meditated or would at least admit it back then. Yet, I knew that I must find someway to settle my stress of being a full time, mother, wife, and nurse. I did find a small paper back book on meditation and I also eventually found a metaphysical group, Church of Divine Man Spiritual Center, https://cdmspiritualcenter.org/ , that had public meditation classes.

Twenty five years ago there was enormous taboo around having a meditation practice. The response of most people is that meditation would and could lead to opening up your spirit to the darker realms. Meditation at the time was also considered non-christian. So for me, I was young enough, naive enough, that I was nervous to try meditation, but I also did not feel that my choices to relieve stress provided me many options. I had tried anti-anxiety medicine but that did not help either and it some ways seemed to add to the problem.

However, now we are in the year 2020 and meditation is much more main stream. Mindfulness Meditation is the new buzz word that is used to describe all meditations. Meditation is being taught to corporate employees as a way to bring down the stress levels and lower sick days. You can even search online to find thousands of formal research projects to add validity of how meditation enhances health and wellness on many levels.

There are many different types of meditation. Often, when someone hears that I teach meditation, their response is; well I tried meditation but it just does not work for me. There are many reasons why someone may say that meditation does not work for them but the big main reason is because of what I call “monkey mind” or squirrel. You know when you take your dog for a walk in the park and suddenly it sees a squirrel and it is off and running in that direction? Just like our thoughts, we can try to be still and quiet and suddenly, “I forgot to call my mother, or I need to get dinner on, or I have to organize that meeting”, and then your mind is off and running in that direction.

There are times I am in meditation and my thought will steer me in another direction. If I just say the word, Squirrel, then I find myself laughing and can shift my mind back into a calm state. Creating my own little internal joke to shift me back out of the monkey mind! Here are a list of different meditations just to raise your awareness that if one type is just not working for you, there are other styles that might. So lets jump in!

Different Types of Meditation:

Breath Awareness Meditation:

In this meditation, your entire focus is on your own breath. Inhaling, one long deep breath, while counting to 5 or 10. Then exhaling, while counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…10. The entire meditation is to simply focus in long slow breath in, long slow breath out.

Mindfulness Meditation:

In this meditation, you focus on the present moment. No matter what you are doing, it is important to focus in the moment. Not on the past and not worrying about the future, simply focusing right here and now in the moment. Brushing your teeth, feeling your mouth, hearing the sound of the brush, tuning into the movement of your tongue, noticing the mint flavor of the toothpaste are all ways of being mindful with each task.

Vipassana Meditation:

Vipassana meditation is more sensory. You scan your awareness up and down your body, staying present with your feelings and sensations. If you have a vision or see colors, you want to bring yourself back to sensing your body as you scan up and down. I participated in their 10 day silent retreat and loved meditating by focusing on sensations and letting go. Visit the website to read more about Vipassana.

https://www.dhamma.org/en-US/about/vipassana

Transcendental Meditation:

This form of meditation is done by using a mantra. A mantra is a word or series of words that you repeat over and over again. The mantra is usually assigned by a Transcendental Meditation teacher. You sit and breath slowly while repeating the assigned mantra. You can create your own mantra such as; “I am abundantly happy” and repeat it. However, technically it is not considered transcendental unless a certified teacher gives you a mantra. Many people have told me that they have had great success with this type.

Metta Meditation:

This form of meditation is based on thoughts of loving kindness. You sit, breathing in loving kindness and then send out that loving kindness to other people or other events. Breath in loving kindness and breath out sending kindness to your enemy, or a world crises, or someone who needs a little love boost. This type of meditation fills you with loving kindness first and then allows a place for you to focus your mind while sending it to others.

Zen Buddhist Meditation:

This usually requires a Buddhist teacher who is qualified to share with you the structure of the meditation to include specifically how to breath, and hold your posture. They may also teach hand / finger positions called “Mudras”. This type of meditation is similar to mindfulness meditation yet may have a stricter form of practice. For individuals who like to know exactly what to do might find this form comforting.

Tibetan Chanting meditation:

This type of meditation is done by sitting, breath work, and repeating a chant taught by a teacher. This combines meditation with sounds such as repeating “OM” or other chants. This type would also require a Tibetan teacher skilled at chants. Many people love doing chants in meditation. There are also CD’s and YouTube videos that provide chants.

Visualizing your Energy Field Meditation:

This is the type of meditation we teach. Voice guiding you through visualizing your energy field, moving energy through your arms, legs, body, mind and soul. You sense through vision, sound, hearing, tasting, feeling, and knowing. You personally have a stronger sense that is dominant for you and others may predominantly sense in other ways. We call these the 4 clairs; Clairvoyance, clairsentience, clairaudient, claircognizant. Over time, you learn to guide yourself, allowing your mind to participate in the meditation.

Rather than visualizing walking through a forest such as the guided meditation in the video, we focus on guiding you through your own energy field and your own body.

For example, our meditations would first guide you to ground yourself to the center of the earth and use your imaginary grounding to feel supported, strong and stable. Not only physically feeling stable in your ability to be balanced on your feet, but also stable in your emotions and stable in your thoughts.

If you are clairsentient then that means you are a “feeler” predominantly, and while navigating the flow of energy through your body you will feel the flow. If you are clairvoyant, that means you would lean more towards seeing colors and images. Then you may not feel the energy flowing through your body, but you would see colors shift and change.

So, our meditation style is created to enhance your intuition and psychic ability. We do not teach you to be intuitive or psychic but we do teach you how to run your energy (meditate) to clear blocked energy that might get in the way of sensing your intuition. It is a natural unfolding as you meditate each day.

So each meditation will meet you where you are and what intention you have for yourself. Once we had a woman call and said she could not do our type of meditation because it had too many moving parts. I recommended other types of meditations that best suited her. Then last week I had a call from someone who said she has been meditating for years and was having metaphysical experiences during her meditations that she could not explain. Again, intuitive senses are naturally enhanced in a meditation practice. So she signed up for our Intuitive Mind Virtual (online) Home Study Program to learn more about her intuition during her meditations. https://www.intuitivemind.org/homestudyprogram/

I will finish up this blog here by saying, YOU KNOW YOURSELF BEST! Listen to yourself, know what style of meditation works best for you. In fact, what ever type of meditation that will inspire you to get up every day eager to JUST DO IT, is the one you want to be doing.