One day when I stepped off
the elevator at the college where I teach psychology courses, a former student
was standing in the reception area. She came toward me, gave me
a warm close hug and said “Thank you." I asked her “what did I do?”
She said, “Meditation.” “you taught me how to Meditate … Meditation has helped
me soo many times … Thank you.” She then scurried off to the tasks that she had
to do that day.
If one Googles “meditation”
the browser will bring up over 135 million hits. If one explores Barnes &
Noble bookstore you will find over 48 thousand books on meditation. I am sure that each of these
books or articles on meditation provide different perspectives and techniques
for meditation.
The meditation that I taught
my student is simple – it is a breathing meditation. It is easy to learn, and
can be practiced anywhere.
Background of the student’s experience
For a moment let’s look at
some of the items that the student had to cope with prior to doing meditation.
As she grew up, her foundation was shaky. She came from a family where the
father was absent. The males that entered her mother’s life were not helpful
toward the family. Her mother was overwhelmed by earning money, the needs of
her children and meeting assorted basic needs.
As a young adolescent, my
student began to assume the head of household position within her family.
Without positive feedback from the adults, she did not have people to give feedback
to help her develop a positive sense of herself. In reality she was a genuine
caring person, had great values and was dedicated to doing her best. Not being
guided as to the best techniques to handle life situations, she had to fight
for her family.
Growing into adulthood she
faced more complicated challenges. She had two children and was a single mom.
She had a major medical challenge, a stroke. Many crisis’s came into her life.
It seemed as if she was following the life philosophy “shit happens,” in other
words, she would react to what unfolds before her.
She wanted to make her life
better, so she enrolled in school and successfully completed her college
degree. When I met her two characteristics stood out: the first, despite being
a warm caring person, so was extremely stressed out; second, she was constantly
getting into conflict within the school and outside the school.
Breathing Meditation
The student was exposed to
me through my psychology and human growth courses. She actively participated and questioned what
I presented. It was a pleasure to work with her in the classroom. After class,
she asked to see me for counseling. Part of the counseling was to help her
learn how to correct the distortions that she had learned through the patterns
exhibited by the people in her life.
I started teaching her
breathing meditation right away. At the beginning, she said “I don’t think I
can do that.” I began to frame the meditation while teaching her about
emotional, Intellectual and Spiritual energies.
She was able to open up and
eagerly sought to learn about the emotional energies that I talked about. It
took her a short time to become comfortable with the meditation practice.
The meditation practice
helped her shift from reactive response to “shit happening” to creating a path
that she wanted for herself.
Breathing meditation is
simple … it can be done by yourself or it can be done using a guided meditation
such as the Abraham-hicks example listed below.
The steps are as follows:
- First, find a safe, quiet place where you can be for a while and not be disturbed.
- Second, cup your hands and place one on top of the other with the thumbs pointing to each other.
- Third, find a comfortable place to sit – be mindful of a posture that will facility your breathing.
- Fourth, soften the focus of your eyes.
- You can close your eyes or
- You can lower your eyelids and focus on a particular object, the other items in your line of sight will be become blurry.
- Fifth, set a timer on your smart phone for a set time period
- Suggested time periods: 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes.
- Sixth, Breath deeply –
- work toward inhaling for 6 seconds and
- exhaling for 6 seconds.
- Repeat each breath movement for 6 seconds.
- Seventh, Focus on the rhythm of your own breathing –
- feel the air come into your lungs,
- feel the air pushing out of your lungs.
The goal is to work toward
increasing your time to 15min of meditation.
I would suggest
- Doing it at least once a day
- either at the beginning of the day, just after you wake up or
- just before you go to sleep.
- Preferably twice a day, just after you wake up and just before you go to sleep.
As you do the meditation,
your entire body will begin to relax
The relaxed quiet will
create space for your thinking energies and your feeling energies. If you successfully do the
meditation regularly, you will be happier, and achieve your goals more easily. You
will feel better about yourself. You will be clearer in the relationships that
you seek.
Have you felt like living
life is waiting for “shit to happen” and then you need to fix it?
Have you felt like life is
pulling you in so many directions that you are finding yourself increasingly
stressed out?
Have you felt your physical
well being going “to shit?”
Are you unhappy?
Please share your questions
or thoughts about meditation or the above items
In the next blogpost, I will
talk about the voices that you encounter within the breathing meditation.
Also stay tuned for a support group that I will be starting at the beginning of April
"The Path to Healing Support Group"
If you want a good guided
meditation, try the
Abraham Hicks Vortex Attraction Guided
Meditations
By Marc Mollicone
I frequently use these guided meditations.
This is available
for Iphone at
iTunes to buy and download apps.
or for MP3 at
http://www.abraham-hickslawofattraction.com/lawofattractionstore/product/S_GMD_1_DIG-DLD-zip.html
hickslawofattraction.com/lawofattractionstore/product/S_GMD_1_DIG-DLD-zip.html
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