Mindfulness is the practice of remaining aware and present throughout all your daily experiences, “moment-to-moment”, internally and externally. Working to remain in the present helps one to let go of negative events and emotions from the past, and prevents worrying about what may happen in the future. Negatively focusing your attention on the past or future can lead to overwhelming negative emotions like anxiety and regret, manifesting fear and limitations.
Enjoy and be fulfilled with the many desires that this world has to offer with immense gratitude, but don’t attach yourself to them. Instead attach yourself to the spirit, the part of you that lives on for eternity. Meditation is an amazing way to calm the mind and help one to embrace their true nature.
Concentrating on a repetitive action, like breathing, or reciting positive affirmations like with mantras, encourages one to focus on the task at hand and helps release any negative internal thoughts or sensations. Mindfulness can be applied to meditation and should be incorporated into everyday regular activities like eating, exercising, work, and relationships, to increase your level of awareness in all these areas.
Performing formal meditation sessions on a customary basis not only sharpens our ability to pay attention to our everyday present moment experiences making them more enjoyable, but helps us to become more conscious and aware of our decisions, thought patterns, and reactions to everyday life situations post meditation!
Benefits:
- Brings the nervous system back into balance.
- Decreases and eliminates ill-perceived stressors and negative emotions.
- Increases self-awareness, focus, and coping skills.
- Encourages living in the present moment, fully engaging in activities, and having more meaningful connections with others.
- Improves mental clarity and physical health.
- Helps in the treatment of chronic pain, high blood pressure, heart disease, sleep and gastrointestinal disorders.
- Helps keep pH levels in check bringing the body into a healing state or homeostasis!
Mindfulness Meditation
- Choose a quiet place where you can fully relax.
- Sit up straight in a chair, Indian style, or lying down.
- Focus with ease on each breathe as it slowly goes in through the nose and out through your mouth.
- Focus on an external object or even better just close your eyes.
- Choose a mantra in word or phrase form to repeat like “I am prosperity” or “I am perfect health” during the meditation session, and concentrate on it.
- Keep present and focused, letting intruding thoughts pass by. Don’t judge them, just observe them and release them.
- Always bring your attention back to your point of concentration.
- When ready, gently come out of your meditative state and get ready to be fully relaxed and centered with more natural energy, focus, and peace of mind.
- You can start out with 5-10 minutes once or twice a day, and then gradually condition yourself to perform 20 or more minutes once or twice a day or as time allows. Make sure you decide how long you will be meditating before you begin, and stick to that time. If you need to start out meditating 2 min at a time that is fine. It’s more important to start with something than to be overwhelmed and quit!
AFFIRMATIONS
Affirmations or Mantras date back as far as the Vedic Period (1750–1000 BCE), preceding Buddhism. Mantras include various methods that incorporate the repetition of positive articulation of a sound, word, or phrase. These mantras can be verbalized, visualized, or thought. They can be repeated or chanted for any chosen interval of time. Mantras can be very effective, as they positively influence the mind. Affirmations can also be incorporated into your meditation practice.
Repetition of a mantra can prompt one into a hypnotic state initiating an amplified level of spiritual awareness. The idea is that consistent positive thought patterns can create positive attitudes and actions that allow one to achieve success in any aspect of their lives. Affirmations can help to overcome long ingrained sub-conscious limitations like fear, self-doubt, self-defeat, and addictions that keep you stuck. Affirmation comes from the Latin word affirmare, which translates, “to make steady, strengthen.” When you truly believe and think or verbally proclaim your dreams, desires, and ambitions, you are far more likely to manifest them!
Affirmations can also be written down like with journaling, and should be in the present tense, positive, personal, and specific. For instance, if someone is experiencing a particular health issue and wants to be healed, she/he can say something like, “I am healthy, I radiate health, my body is strong, I am healed, etc…” Other examples could be: I am confidence, I am love, I am light, I am peace, I am prosperous, I am indestructible, or the Universe has provided me with all the resources to become my best version!
Affirmations can create the best environment for positive change! You are the co-creator of your destiny and your mind will do what you tell it to. The placebo and nocebo effect is solid proof that what you believe can have a positive or negative effect on the status of your health and well- being!
Benefits:
- Strengthens your connection to the Universe or your Higher Power, allowing for a range of possibilities and opportunities.
- Helps one to deal with difficult life circumstances and actualize their goals.
- Allows for unification of mind, body and soul to achieve total body wellness.
- Creates a positive internal belief system.
- A great form of overall stress management.