Learn to Appreciate Life to the Fullest
What is mindfulness meditation? Troubled? Worried? Exhausted? Do you really want to be more tranquil and peace? Do you want to calm down you mind and tame your thoughts? Do you want to realize contentment? Mindfulness meditation is one way for those who intend to stay calm, peaceful and stress-free. It further helps with reduction of tension and anxiety.
What is Meditation all about? How can I meditate?
Meditation is about training one’s mind, to stay focused on one object. This object could be anything and the goal, is to stay focused and not get distracted. When distracted, then you should calmly gain back concentration. This is to be repeated, until the mind is completely calm.
Meditation & Relaxation Techniques – Are they any different?
Yes, both are entirely different! Many confuse these terms or use it interchangeably, but both are different concepts. While meditation helps with relaxation, it is about training the mind to stay calm at all times. It is like staying calm, amidst the storm, every day. By doing this, you also get to know how the mind reacts to different situation like anger, distraction, frustration, etc.
Further, you learn how to get your mind back to the object of focus, without making a fuss about it. With time, mind is trained to remain focused and calm. This is rejuvenating and energizing, by itself. Once mind reaches this stage, it becomes possible to handle situations that are stressful and also, gives one the ability to avoid getting soaked into to it. Over all, this is beneficial to health in the longer run.
What mindfulness meditation does to a person is, they develop exceedingly high self-awareness, which can come in for any situation or task. According to Jon Kabat-Zinn, it is “a way of paying attention, in the present moment, non-judgementally”. In other words, it is about focusing on the present moment, what is happening out there NOW – that’s mindfulness meditation.
If you ask me, my favorite exercise- it is eating meditation! Yes, in this meditation, all I do is being mindful when I eat. I just observe what, but I don’t comment about anything. So, I can just observe the texture of food, the shape, colors, smell, how it looks like and probably, even how I eat, how I move my hand or face gestures when I eat, how my tongue moves or when saliva oozes out and all other related aspects. Yet again, I don’t comment about anything that I observe.
This is what Mindfulness Meditation teaches you to do; you observe your surroundings keenly, at a slow pace. Additionally, you don’t need sit in a tough cross-legged pose for Meditation. You are in a normal position, or do whatever you are doing, but just being more focused with it. So you can clean the house or do other activities, while still observing everything.
However, the most important aspect here is to ensure the chosen position does not put you to sleep nor distract your focus. For an illustration: You could sit in a chair, keep your spine and head erect, hold your hands on your lap loosely and just close your eyes without shutting them too tight.
