We at Absolute Love Publishing know the myriad benefits that come with a meditation practice. It is a natural understanding that mediation can improve all aspects of life, enabling us to greet the world with a positive, open mindset. And, since it is Meditation Month, we thought it timely to reiterate the benefits of mediation so that you, too, can take steps to improve your life.
Firstly, meditation has immense physiological benefits. Meditation has been known to decrease blood pressure, reduce tension pains (headaches, migraines, etc.), and even reduce anxiety attacks. When you meditate, energy levels increase and your body releases serotonin, which is what leaves you in such a great mood. If you’ve got asthma, the deep breathing exercises that you learn in mediation help you to regulate your breathing when you feel an attack coming on. On a purely physical level, meditation improves your mood and overall bodily functioning.
But doing meditation for the physiological effects alone is kind of like going to a concert for just the merchandise. The whole experience—the music—comes in the way that meditation transforms your perspective, widening your experience of the world and getting you to a clearer, sharper, better self. Meditation is not just about sitting still and breathing deeply. It’s visualizations and affirmations, clearing and opening the mind. Ultimately, the benefits of meditation come not only from the act itself but in the ways it encourages you to start looking at the world through a lens of positivity.
As Caroline A. Shearer says in her min-e-book™, “Raise Your Vibration: Tips and Tools for a High-Frequency Life,” one of the first things to realize is that everything is energy. This is in a strictly Newtonian scientific sense but also a practical sense: Every object is made of and gives off a vibration, and the higher the frequency, the more spiritual the vibration. Naturally, it’s the higher vibrations that get you to your better self. When you meditate, you’re attuning yourself to these higher vibrations, the ones that give you a higher spiritual and physical existence.
Visualization is extremely important in understanding vibration. Think you’ve got some bad vibes because you spent too long chatting with an old enemy? Go ahead and brush yourself off. Literally. Just run your hands off your arms and shake off all that silly, low-level energy. As the lovely Miss Swift would say, “Shake it off!”
The use of affirming language also is important in improving your outlook on life, allowing you to have the things you truly desire in this life (for more details, see “Raise Your Verbal Vibration: Create the Life You Want With Law of Attraction Language“). “The universe wants us to speak in a positive form: I want. I am. I can.” Simply changing the way you think about the little problems in your life can transform them from problems into opportunities for love and kindness.
For example, instead of making money an enemy, or an unattainable goal, recognize that you and money are made of the same energy (see Shearer’s “Raise Your Financial Vibration“). Once you reconcile the toxic relationship you have with money and start to embrace money as a part of yourself, the anxiety that comes with bills unpaid and items wanted dissipates. You finally can stop beating yourself up for bad financial decisions and realize that you are constantly manifesting an abundant life. Try saying this: “I am valuable today and always, and the universe recognizes my value. I am financially powerful.”
Above all, the purpose of positive affirmations and visualizations, and meditation, is getting to a better you. Even in the midst of a bad situation—a relationship that didn’t work out, losing your job, a rough day at work—you can look at your life the way you would a character in a book (see Shearer’s “Where is the Gift?“). How has this situation helped me be a better person? What has this made me learn about myself, about other people, about life in general? Instead of looking at something as an obstacle, think of it as an opportunity.
Remember when you were a kid on a playground, and the best way to get to the top was to take the rock wall, even though it was difficult? As a kid, you weren’t thinking, “Wow. This wall is such a problem. There’s no way I can climb it.” You were thinking, “This wall looks so fun to climb! It’s really going to challenge me! Let’s do it!” As kids, we saw obstacles as opportunities to have fun. As adults, we want that same sense of joy when presented with an obstacle. We want to relish the challenge, see the ways we can turn a difficulty into an opportunity. Instead of worrying about how you could have handled a situation, or blaming yourself when something goes wrong, remember that “our greatest strengths come from our greatest challenges.” Meditation is the potent action that helps us look at the world through a lens of childlike wonder, enabling us to find an opportunity for abundance and happiness in every situation.
You may be thinking that the hardest thing about a meditation practice is starting it. Those first few weeks where you cement meditation into your routine can be difficult. Thankfully, you can feel positive effects immediately: mental sharpness, an expanded mind, creative energy that had been lacking. An expanded world comes flooding into you, showing you how to find the positive in any situation, to go through life understanding your worth and value as a person. Soon you’ll stop seeing meditation as a chore and see it as an essential element of your routine, an activity that centers you and returns you to your best self. Then, you’ll wonder how you ever functioned without it.
Download a free meditation on the Absolute Love Publishing home page.
