Is your life chaotic? Are there a million things pulling at you from the time you wake up to the time you go to sleep. When you lie down to get a nights rest so you can begin again, does the chaos keep pulling at you? Do thoughts about what must get done, what can go wrong, how to cope with this or that family problem just keep running through you mind?
It’s one of the greatest killers in our society today. More illnesses are attributed to stress than anything else. It’s purported to contribute to the cause of cancer, high blood pressure and heart disease as well as many other physical maladies. And, it’s all around us in the form of pressure to get out of the house on time, commuting gridlock on our highways and freeways, the push to pay the bills, to earn the next promotion, to make the grade. On and on it goes the threat of stress in every part of our day. Stress raises the Cortisol levels in our bodies for prolonged periods of time and that is what causes heart attacks, reduced mental function and high blood pressure. It has also been linked to contributing to weight gain in the abdomen and losses in bone density.
New to meditation? Not sure where to start? Have trouble just sitting and “doing nothing”? Guided meditation is a great place to begin.
Often accompanied by music, guided meditation takes you on a journey. Those journeys will differ widely. It might be a journey of breath, where you are directed when and how to breathe in and to breathe out. The flow of breathing relaxes you and allows your journey to flow further into relaxation or to travel in your imagination. You may be ushered through relaxing every part of your body, from your toes to your head. In this relaxed state, such mediation may then take you to a beautiful place, be it a garden, a magical forest or a beach. Visual images and feelings will be invoked as part of the meditation. The whole idea is to reach a calm, relaxed state of connectedness and oneness. You might be guided into a place where you can receive answers to your questions. Each guided meditation is different.
Mention the word meditation and the first thing that comes to mind is sitting quietly and focusing on breath or a candle flame. Expand your thoughts a bit and you may include guided meditation or guided imagery tapes, relaxing music or chanting a mantra. But dance? Can dance be considered meditation? According to Oneness and folks like Eckert Tolle, if you are enjoying what your doing, allowing love to flow through the experience then you may be in meditation.
Is meditation a right brain function or a left brain function? Let’s explore this question. The left brain is the center of specific detailed linear thinking. Its focus is the parts or details of things. Using the left brain one builds parts into a whole. Mathematics is a function of the left brain. Speech and language are also a function of this side of the brain. Facts and information as well as analysis of these are left-brained functions. So is the tendency to plan, make lists and strategies. Trying to maintain control, make things happen just the way you planned is also a left brain function.
HERE IS A GREAT VIDEO THAT DEMONSTRATES LEFT RIGHT...
Meditation is a way to access those places in our consciousness that allow us to make intuitive leaps, and find creative, out-of-the box solutions. Sitting quietly and focusing on the breath is a familiar and popular form of meditation. So, too, are gazing quietly at an object or listening to a guided mediation. Active meditative exercises are less often thought of as meditation. But, they, too, serve the same purpose, that of quieting the chatter of the mind and allowing us access to the wealth of creativity in our subconscious.
Meditation used to be the purview of the Hindu, Buddhist and other Eastern Religions. In the last several decades meditation has made a journey to front and center in the Western world. Whatever one’s religions orientation, meditation in one of its many forms is likely to play a part in our lives.
The past is gone forever except in our memories. Tomorrow is ever elusive – always just on the horizon. More and more we are being exhorted to come present, come to right now, this moment. Joy, happiness, relaxation, ease are all to be found in being present, right now. But how?
There are five different brain waves – beta which we operate in most of the time, alpha which is a much more relaxed state, theta which is an even slower state that is often a product of REM sleep but can also be entered into through tasks that are so automatic they don’t engage our immediate attention such a driving or taking a bath. Delta Brain waves are even slower than theta and our found in deep sleep. Gamma are very fast brain waves that we know the least about.
