We live in a hectic and uncertain world, with violence and chaos surrounding us every minute of the day. We are getting busier and busier and being bombarded with commercialism and adverts from every angle. Just like many of us I have been looking for a way to break the constant information overload to help give my mind a chance to relax and after many years of studying and test trying the art of meditation by many of the great religions like Budhism, I have found a simple six step formula that helps me to unleash the inner peace that really wishes to come out.
Step 1 – Find a cool quiet place
The first step in unleashing your inner peace is to find somewhere that will allow you to feel safe whilst meditating and undisturbed. Some of the sorts of places you might consider are sitting on the ground in the garden, near a river, or if you are like me and bound to the city, simply sitting in your lounge room will suffice. There are though a few key things that you must consider -
There should be little traffic noise
There is Nothing worse than to just start meditating to hear the sound of the air brakes on a truck going off or an ambulance or police car going past.
Be Free From Distractions
When you first start meditating you will find it maybe difficult to get started but with a little practice, and that is the fun part, you will find over time that you will get better at it but in the early stages a little distraction from your children or noise can make it very difficult.
You Must Feel Safe
With todays society being the way that it is, you must have a sense of well being before starting your meditation. If you have a sense of insecurity you will find that it is very difficult to release your anxieties and most importantly your thoughts.
Be Comfortable
Most meditation periods usually will last around 20 minutes. When you first start off you may find that it takes a good 10 minutes to get to a point of being relaxed so make sure that you sit on a comfortable surface before starting the meditation process. I am a great believer in sitting on the floor however if you find it difficult to sit upright for any period of time, simply sit against the wall. Doing this can also help you with your sense of feeling safe. If you find it more comfortable sitting in a chair, try your meditation that way. I do not recommend sitting on a couch simply because you run the risk that you may fall asleep and whilst that is great before going to bed, it is not recommended as the outcome to the meditation process.
Related : 5 Facts Every Woman Needs to Know About Meditation
Step 2 – Use a Light Incense
Depending on where you are, you may find that a light incense will help you break through the barriers when you first start meditating. If you are like me and are constantly on the rush and stressed, when you first stop you might find that it is really difficult to focus on your meditation because of the buzz running through your blood so using a light incense like lavendar can certainly help.
You can purchase incense from any number of stores like chinese food stores, oriental food stores or even some of the mystics stores and there are certainly many places on the web where you can purchase a light incense. Be warned though that it is illegal in some countries to buy incense via mail order and more so only buy from a reputable dealer as you never know what you could be importing.
Step 3 – Put some quiet music on
The saying, “Music Soothes the Savage Beast” is never a more truer statement then when trying to find your inner world of peace. Playing some quiet music will certainly help soothe the buzz you have after a hard day but be very cautious on the type of music you choose. You need to ensure you choose music that will slow you down rather than increase your heart rate.
Many meditation gurus will recommend music like flowing water, a rushing stream or the sounds of the great outdoors, which will all certainly be suitable for this process but what I find the most useful is music from the Baroque period.
The music from this period has particular elements that make it suitable and more conjucent to helping you find that inner peace. Baroque music is built on 60 beats per minute, which funnily enough is the same as what our hearts should be doing. What some research has shown is that listening to music that has 60 beats per minute actually increases the alpha waves that cause calmness on both the left and right side of the brain. The outcome of this is that you will becom calm and relax, similar to if you whistled a tune. Research has also shown that this “alpha state” can help in your learning process, creativity and more importantly becoming more calm.
Step 4 – Focus on Your Breathing. Breath In and Out
Now that we have the elements we need to meditate, it is now time for you to try . My preferred way to sit when I meditate is to cross my legs and to place my hands on my knees with my open palms up. If you can not cross your legs simply sit with your legs layed out flat. If you are sitting in a chair, simply spread your leg apart a little and place your hands on your knees.
The next step in the path towards peaces is to close your eyes and to breath in deeply and then slowly exhail the air. You need to consistently repeat this process but whilst you are doing this, there are a few important things to remember. When you first start to meditate you will find that as you relax, the things that bothered you during the day will start to resurface and come to the forefront of your mind and we need to stop this during your meditation period because if you do not, you can end up being more stressed then when you started. Whilst you are breathing, simply look into the depths of the darkness and clear you mind.
If you are finding it difficult to let go, try this technique. Whilst breathing in slowly, concentrate in your minds eye on the number one and focus on the number as you exhail. Then as you take your second breath, change the number one to a number two and then focus on the number two and maintain that focus as you exhail. With each new breath, focus on the next number. However, if at any time your focus gets away from you and you start thinking about making dinner or what you are going to do tomorrow, then simply restart from the number one. You will find that after a while using this process will really help you to maintain that focus and start to bring out that inner peace a lot quicker. Related : Mindpower & Self-Improvement Tips
If you are having difficulty sleeping I find that using the counting process and the breathing process really helps a lot. Once again it does take time to master the technique but the more you practice the better you will get at it.
Step 5 – Clear Your Mind
Once you have mastered the process of breathing and getting into a relaxed state, the next stage is to clear your mind. This can take a little bit of work and will take a while to conquer but when you do conquer it, you will really no what inner peace is. To clear your mind, you will simply not think of anything but just exhist. The key to clearing your mind is to focus on the space around you (whilst your eyes are closed) without thinking about a thing.
When you do this, an overwhelming sense of peace will come over your. You will find that the endorphins will give you a tingling feeling through out your body and you will be extremely calm. You will find as time goes on that you can in fact turn the tingling on at your own will but that comes with practice.
Step 6 – Feel the Rush of Peace
The Budhists talk of meditating to reach enlightenment and whilst it can take a life time or two to achieve that, I can certainly say that when you do get to that point where you have let go of your surroundings and you are at peace its certainly feels like a whole new world. At the very least, not being stressed and feeling that constant buzz caused by the pressures of our day-to-day lives, will certainly give you a new definition of normal.
When you feel that your time for meditation is over, slowly allow your mind to start to think. You will find that its actually a lot easier than you think. Then slowly open your eyes and become more aware of your surroundings. Give yourself a good five minutes before you rush to get up but when you do, you should feel a sense of calm and peace around your body, mind and soul.
Holding Onto Your Peace
As with God and love, peace never leaves, we just put things in its way. After obscuring our peace, we say it has left, but it hasn't...we simply obscured it. Eliminate the unpeaceful thoughts and peace is right where it always has been.
Perfect love casts out all fear. Love and peace are one in the same in that one cannot exist without the other and one is always the product of the other. Peace and love abolish fear and their presence makes all things possible.
Fear is the anti-belief that something good can arise from your situation. Fear is the stumbling block that makes you so sure your world is one of torment that you don't see the good that is there for you. If fear is in your heart, you can only communicate to others through fear and then fear is likely to be the only thing returned to you.
The fears in our lives are often so deeply rooted that we will go to such extremes to hold onto them, even though these same things are destroying our lives. By identifying yourself as a tough person, by acknowledging and embracing that you are a sickly person, and by denying there are things in your life to improve, you are embracing fears and accepting their effects as who you are. Fear, being the result of darkness or lack of light, is terrified of the truth because it knows that truth will simply make it vanish. When the light is turned on in a darkened room, the darkness doesn't leave...it ceases to exist.
If you identify yourself with these darker thoughts, you will find yourself not wanting to hear the truth because it tears at the core of who you think you are and creates a misperception that you will lose yourself if you open yourself to the truth. The reality is that you are not what the fear has taught you that you are and there is nothing to lose, only your freedom to gain. Fear strangles and limits. Truth caresses and grows.
Anything that teaches through fear or uses fear in any way, is not from God.
This truth is so simple, yet it unhinges most of what we have been taught. Any religion you pursue, any teaching you listen to and any concepts or ideas you hear can be looked upon with that truth. If something does not agree with this truth, it is in error in some way. It's best for you to know that God does not teach nor command through fear, sacrifice, temptation and suffering. The concept of an actual loving and peaceful God nullifies much of what was written about the judgmental, paranoid, vengeful and ill tempered God of the Bible and many other books. Knowing the truth that God is an actual loving and peaceful being, helps you to more easily identify and focus on those few things that are truthfully written about him.
Peace is the absence of fear. Fear cannot motivate you to find peace. When you find yourself working hard to find peace, you can get blinded to the fact that its your own busyness and efforts that ensure you won't find it. Peace is the total lack of any effort or work because it is always there and has never left. Peace is pure tranquility, stillness, gentleness and quietness and is the total absence of work, tiredness and effort. If you are working or using effort to find peace, you are ensuring you never will because peace is the total opposite of the work and effort you are using to find it. By learning to stop and by learning to set aside the man-made concepts of working to reach peace, you will learn and see that peace exits as it always has existed and it is patiently waiting for you to stop and just allow it to enter your way of life.
Peace and love is the final result of our journey back to God. There is not one among us who will not achieve this. There is not one person you know or have heard about that will not eventually return to God after having allowed the light to enter and having dispelled all fear. Total forgiveness is the result of removing fear. Unconditional love is the result of removing all fear. Total knowledge and awareness of God is the result of removing all fear.
Discovering your peace is a wonderful thing. It's a holy thing and a treasured thing because it is really the only state of being that God acknowledges that truly exists. Holding onto your peace is often an entirely other thing. Often we let the slightest change in our environment or the smallest of words, totally obscure peace from our lives. Many of us can testify to having had the most wonderful day, morning or moment and then see all our peace and contentment disappear the moment we allow something in the world to affect us.
No effort is necessary in finding peace or holding onto peace, because peace is always patiently waiting there for us. One the other hand, consistent and sincere effort is necessary in handing over all the thoughts and ideas that we allow to obscure our peace. You worked hard to build these obstacles to peace and so there may be some effort in removing them. As with God and love, peace never leaves, we just put things in its way. After obscuring our peace, we say it has left us, but it hasn't...we have simply obscured it. Eliminate the unpeaceful thoughts and peace is right there where it always has been.
Let's follow some of my thoughts and see how this works. I will walk you through a moment where I perceived a problem in my life. My thoughts are shown like this:
I have become upset about the way somebody has treated me. In doing so, I no longer feel at peace.
When I realize I am no longer at peace, I remind myself about many of the truths I have discovered. Some things I often remember are:
Nothing outside myself can affect me.
If I think the problem is outside myself, I will never look within myself and it is only within myself that any problem can ever be resolved. Thinking the problem is with something else or somebody else, guarantees you will never find the answer, because it's not out there to find.
There must be something I am fearful of if I am upset.
Fear takes on many forms, but the easiest definition is that anything that is not based upon love, is based upon fear. Often fear is the result of the feeling that you are losing something such as control or possessions.
I am never upset for the reason that I think.
We often think we know why we are upset, but that is not so. Our upsetment has to do with what we believe things mean and not with what actually occurred. We can change our mind about what we believe things mean and therefore end our upsetment.
I would rather be at peace.
Knowing this and remembering this helps in finding and releasing anything that might stand in the way of restoring peace.
The first thing to do is to hand over all non-peaceful thoughts to the Holy Spirit so that he can judge them, refine them and then either dispel them because they are simply not real or return them to you as they really should be.
This thought that I am somehow losing something, I place in your hands to correct.
This thought that others are inconsiderate, I place in your hands to correct.
This thought that the situation will never be resolved, I place in your hands to correct.
This thought that the world is against me, I place in your hands to correct.
This thought that he will never be healed, I place in your hands to correct.
A key focus on really getting past many issues that return, time and time again is to see and understand that you are often holding on very tightly to what our society and religion has declared as Our Rights. Your right To Be Angry, will distance you from God, as will your right to not forgive...your right for vengeance, your right to be upset, your right to hold somebody else responsible, your right for man-made justice, your right to hold onto your man-made rights, etc. etc., etc.
As long as you hold onto these dark rights, you can never truly forgive...you can never truly get past an event and you can never truly be at peace. It can appear difficult to give up your right to hate somebody that has done something to you or to a loved one, but it is one of the most important steps you will have taken to breaking the cycle of events that occur over and over again in your life. You don't have to like what a person did or is still doing, but you can learn to separate the person from the actions they are doing and know they are not one in the same.
I give up my right to be upset at her.
I give up my right to not forgive him.
I give up my right to thinking they should suffer for what they have done.
Say it...mean it and know that the Holy Spirit hears it, has been waiting for it and will heal your mind about it. The bottom line is that as long as you desire to hold onto these dark rights, you are also choosing, planning and accepting the situations that occur so that you can practice and languish in that dark right.
There is nothing you can do to heal the way you think and feel, other than to be willing to let your mind be healed. You can't fix it by yourself. If we did know how to fix our own perceptions, we wouldn't be in the situation in the world that we are. By being willing to change, you are opening the door for the Holy Spirit to remove the blocks and obstacles you have set in place between yourself and the light. By choosing peace, you are allowing God to heal your perception of this world.
I choose to see things clearly.
I choose to see things differently.
I am willing and open to hear and see the truth.
The healing of your mind happens. The extent of your faith may limit this, but there is no way to prevent it. It is what God wants for you. For every microsecond that you are truly open to being healed, God is there, healing your mind, opening your mind and patiently waiting for the moment he is allowed in again. You might not see it or hear it as is occurs, but later that day, later that week, you will notice you are reacting differently to that situation that bothered you so much before. You will find that you see people differently than you did before. You will experience the realization that your healing occurred... not as a loud fiery boom in the sky, but as a gentle and peaceful growing within you. Peace and everything that brings about peace is everything that is not loud and distracting. Peace is gentle and calm, as is the method God uses to heal our minds.
Another good thing to remember is that you only receive whatever it is that you truly desire to give, so whatever you want for yourself, give that thing and then you shall have it as well. Jesus said it best when he said we should love who we perceive as our enemies and pray for them. Would he have you pray for the hopeless? Would he expect you to keep seeing them as enemies? Your prayers for them do matter and they do help to open their hearts more so that God can work with them. In sharing this desire about them, you have forgiven them and have opened your own heart more and God can perform more healing in your life as well. You get what you give because in giving, you are also discovering and accepting what God has already given you.
I extend peace and wisdom to you whom I thought was against me.
I desire that you be happy and at peace and that you would bask in the warmth of total forgiveness and love.
Your happiness is my happiness. I extend my love and forgiveness to you.
God, Love and Peace have never changed, and are always exactly where they always have been...inside you all the time...a part of you that is you. Holding onto your peace is simply a series of methods you use that help you remember this. Your methods might not be the same as mine and my methods might not be the same as yours, but the overall spirit of wanting peace, love and forgiveness in our lives is the same. You can and will find ways to hold onto your peace because that is what I want for you, it is what you want for you and it is what God wants for you. It's impossible for you not to be able to hold onto your peace if that is what you truly desire because your will and Gods will are one. Both you and God want peace for you and both you and God want you to return home.
I extend my peace, love, forgiveness, health, faith, patience and wisdom to you all.
Must Read
Work Life Balance: Tips for Managing Overwhelm
Helpful Tips To Have A Very Happy Health
0 Comments