Meditation
The definition of meditation is to give your attention to one thing, and to not think about anything else. We can concentrate our attention on a flickering candle, a religious symbol, a mantra, a tree, flower or by simply breathing. When we concentrate our attention on something it allows our body to relax.
Eastern meditation defines it as focusing your consciousness on the cosmic whole. That we are a microcosm of the macrocosm, in other words “the all and the everything” as George Gurdjieff called it, without judgement, or distraction.
Science is now catching up with the benefits of meditation and it is confirmed that regular meditation revealed fewer incidents of illness, less anxiety, lower blood pressure, a reduction in the stress hormone cortisol, and people who meditate regularly over 5 years look physiologically younger than their chronological age. Brain scans show how meditation, mindfulness and visualisation work on different parts of the brain, for example the Corpus Callosum (the nerve fibres connecting the right and left side of the brain) has been shown to thicken in people who meditate regularly over a period of time, connecting the critical and creative sides of the brain resulting in using creativeness to solve problems.
Benefits of meditation to the mind and body include:
Increased perception and memory, perceptual and short term memory
Increased creativity, EEG brain maps have demonstrated higher levels of mental coherence during meditation, this provides greater access to the creative parts of the brain, allowing us to be more creative in thought and speech.
Increased productivity, due to less anxiety, better sleep, less physical complaints, improved job performance and satisfaction.
Increased self-actualisation by connecting to their desire for self-fulfilment
Feeling more earthed and centred, this helps even more to practice meditation and your spiritual life can open up like a flower in the springtime.
When I teach meditation, I help you to learn to relax the physical body, I help you to develop your concentration, focus, self-discipline, visualisation and sometimes wake up those senses!
With 30 plus years of teaching groups, I have come to realise that it is much easier for some people to learn in groups, the energy of the group allows the consciousness to lift, it provides security, information and support allowing a person to progress at their own speed through blockages to their self-actualisation, healing the mind and to fully participate in our lives instead of living life as an afterthought.
At first we approach the unexplored mind, it is wild and untouched, focused concentration can be quite short, this may be because the amount of control that you had over your mind has been relatively small. This can come as quite a revelation to you, and how you can begin to control your mind and therefore begin to control your life.
Some would say “meditation is medication for the soul”
Visualisation
Some people find it difficult to focus and calm the all-too-active mind whilst trying to meditate, you may sit, set yourself a goal of 15-20 minutes and fidget your way through and then feel like a failure.
Visualisation can help discover a whole new world in ourselves, with a journey of growth about and discovery of strengths and magic in ourselves that we never knew we had. We can investigate this inner world, maybe in a symbolic form that can begin to lead you into an understanding more about relationships between the mind and the body. What we think affects our feelings, and both our thoughts and feelings affect our health. Visualisation is a way of learning to exercise some control over what goes on in our heads.
Regular weekly groups are held, beginners are always welcome.
During lockdown, you can participate in a group meditation on ZOOM, please contact me for details.