The truth about meditation

~ I think therefore I am not, only when the mind is silent, I am. ~

Meditation has been one of the best things that I’ve experienced in life.

It’s been the most insightful tool I’ve used to develop emotional intelligence to understand feelings for what they are, learn more about my emotions and where they’ve come from, and the best one of all, realising I have the choice to control how I respond to thoughts and feelings, especially those unwanted ones.

The health and wellness industry is undoubtedly taking off at the moment. It’s so exciting and motivating to see how popular meditation is becoming as a part of people’s everyday lives. However, whenever there is a lot of information available about something, there will always be equal amounts of misleading information.
I’ve seen a lot of websites that claim that meditation is a tool to calm us down whilst lowering cholesterol levels. This is an understatement, there is SO much more depth to this practice than merely “calming us down”.

If we want to really reap the benefits of meditation, we need to delve far deeper into the science behind the human mind to understand how meditation works and what it can unlock.

What is this voice in my head anyway?

Our minds are filled with never ending mental chatter, the ongoing storytelling of our lives. As we move from day to day, situation to situation, experience to experience; we occupy our minds by reflecting upon and analysing whatever we’ve just been through and/or what’s to come as a consequence.

The memories that stick with us the most are the ones that make us feel the most intensely – whether they be good or bad; pleasure or pain.

The brain is split up into sections which have developed as we have evolved. I’m going to focus on the two most recent parts in our evolution; the unconscious mind and the conscious mind.

The unconscious mind

This brain is responsible for what we think others think of us and the changes our personalities go through as a result of experiences. A lot of the time, these judgements and expectations are controlled by cultural and societal norms as well as reaction to stimulus.

Unfortunately, at this point in human evolution, our judgements and expectations are formed in response to fear.

The human mind sees itself as separate from everything and feels as if it will only become worthy and fulfilled through material gain and acceptance from surrounding peers.

The conscious mind

This brain is responsible for who we think are and makes rational responses to thoughts, memories and wishes. Furthermore, the conscious mind operates when we’re quite literally conscious of what is happening in front of us.

The core self

The unconscious mind + the conscious mind = the core self.
These two come together to create the sum of our experiences whilst meeting the essence of who we really are.
This essence is a lot simpler than all the madness of the thoughts, emotions, hopes and daydreams that occupy the human mind. Our essence is no more complicated than just being alive – also known as, our spirit, soul, existence.

Back to meditation

Meditation is more than just temporarily calming yourself down.

It is a process of gradual elimination of suffering by shifting perspective and realising the unification or oneness, of all things in existence.

Meditation turns your attention away from the chaos of reality, making you realise your problems are never as significant as they might seem.

Through turning our attention within, we learn to become the observer of our thoughts as opposed to attaching and becoming every thought that passes through our minds. What I mean by the observer is, we quite simply take a step back and see the thought for what it is instead of assuming that because this thought has entered our heads it must be US that feels this way.

At this point, we have the CHOICE to either latch on and let the thought consume us, or say no and let it pass by. We experience some 50-70,000 thoughts a day so make the ones that stick be the ones that serve you and your progression.

When we develop the ability to observe our thoughts, we begin to experience life like a bird flying through the sky.
We can look down from above and see everything that is happening below except through a wider lens. We see the situations at hand as a whole; what they really are, meaning we can then assess them more rationally.

It takes some practice to get used to the process of meditation but don’t be demotivated! All worthy things in life take time to develop.
The more we meditate, the easier it becomes for our minds to shift into this state of pure awareness.
We then realise more and more that the voice in our head isn’t who we really are.

When we concentrate on focussing the breath and silencing the mind, we enter our core state of calm.

This state of bliss leads us to experience a more interconnected state of being.

I hope this shines a brighter light on what meditation can do for us.

Stay tuned for the next post coming soon on how to meditate and how it can make us win at life.

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Namaste friends,

Tori xoxo