Wings of Change – Change Your Life Articles

Once you begin your journey into meditation, you’ll soon discover the power that it has to reveal truth and peace in your life. In a fast paced world where everything keeps getting faster and more complicated, it’s important to deepen your practice with meditation.

With regular practice you’ll find that you’ll be able to go deeper into meditation without much effort. As you practice, you’ll be better able to deal with distractions and achieve a certain depth of meditation in a shorter period of time. If you practice for just 30 minutes per day, you’ll be able to go deeper each time.

Deepening Your Practice

You may be wondering what it means to deepen your practice. It’s definitely a topic that’s difficult to put into mere words. It’s similar to talking about how to deepen your love. If you’ve been in love you’ll know in your heart what it feels like to experience the depth of love. The same is true when you meditate, you’ll know what it feels like as your practice deepens.

Tactics For Deepening Your Practice

If you want to go beyond regular practice to deepen your meditation skills, you can try these other tactics.

Consider these suggestions as you deepen your practice:

1. Focus. A big part of deepening your practice is working on an improved focus. Find something that works for you.
   • First try experiencing eyes open meditation. Meditate with a small focal point and don’t let your gaze go astray during your session. You can also try eyes open meditation without the need for a strict focal point; this may help you to keep your focus within.
   • Alternatively, you can explore the option of eyes closed meditation. Many people enjoy the aspect of shutting out the visual sense, while others think it’s too much of an escape from true life, so do what feels right.
2. Your breath. Your breath is also a part of your focus. It’s how you break up your life into a series of moments. Take a moment to breathe in the good and a moment to exhale the bad. In order to deepen your practice, experiment with different breathing techniques.
   • Work on the length of your breaths. Some people decide to work with their moods when they work on breath length. It’s a way to just go with how you feel, instead of deciding on a set pattern of breathing.
   • Use a mantra. There are many mantras to choose from or you can even create your own depending on how you feel or what you like.
3. Your posture. Your posture also has an impact on how deep your practice will go. Choose a position that’s comfortable for you.
   • During sitting meditation, it’s always a good idea to maintain good posture. This means: Don’t slouch! The location of your legs usually doesn’t matter as much.
   • If you maintain a good posture without hunching over, you tend to maintain your alertness and you’ll be less likely to fall asleep. Remember that your goal is to remain in the present moment and not merely to relax.

Keep Up Your Practice

The most important thing you need to do is keep up with your practice. You can then tweak any other aspect of meditation that you feel needs adjusting. However, you may find that you simply evolve without much effort as you continue your meditative journey.

When you live consciously in the present moment, you’re free from the stresses of life. It enables you to feel calm and to think with an astounding clarity.

Living in the moment sounds easy, but it will take some effort until you get into the habit. After all, with so much going on around us, it’s easy to get distracted by fears, worries, frustrations, and stress. But once you get used to it, though, you’ll wonder how you could have lived any other way!

What can you do to make living in the moment your way of life?

Try these steps in order to gain present-moment thinking:

1. Meditate. The very point of meditation is to live in the present moment and accept things just as they are. It’s a practice that you’ll get better at the more you do it. To help quiet your mind, the best thing you can do is focus on your breathing and keep striving to release your thoughts with each breath you take.
2. Accept the past. You’ll feel better about yourself once you learn to accept past situations. There’s nothing you can do to change the past. Bringing the past into your present only clouds your present thinking and makes it harder for you to concentrate on the present moment.

• Thoughts of the past will still arise, but when you learn to accept it for what it is, you’ll be able to return to the present moment without regret or grief.

1. Accept the future. On the other side of the coin, you also need to accept the future. You ultimately have no idea about what’s going to happen, and worrying about it won’t make an ounce of difference.

• How much time do you waste in a day by sitting around thinking about what you’re going to do? When you stop thinking, you have more time to actually do it!

1. Be mindful. When you’re mindful, you pay close attention to what you’re doing in the present. You may think it’s just a mundane chore, but it’s important to do it with an open mind. Open up your senses to what you’re doing. You might be overwhelmed with positive feelings that you didn’t know existed.
2. Get in touch with nature. Take some time to get in touch with nature. You can go for a walk or just sit under a tree. There aren’t many things that can open you up to the present moment like opening up to the vastness of nature.

Remember To Relax

As long as you maintain a relaxed attitude, you can achieve conscious living if you keep trying.

It may help to think of yourself and your brain as separate entities. Your brain can be thinking thoughts all over the place while your “self” watches. When you maintain the wisdom to realize that your thoughts are out of control, the self can pull you back into the present.

Of course these goals are best achieved through meditative practice, but you can also try any activity that you find relaxing if meditation isn’t for you. While you’re relaxing, pay attention to your breathing and try to take deep breaths. Remind yourself that, in this moment, the past and the future don’t matter in the least.

After you’ve successfully added present moment thinking to a relaxing part of your day, it’s time to spread the awareness to other times of the day. The more time you can spend in the present, the better. Live in the here and now, and enjoy a more fulfilling life!

The most common image of meditation is one of a monk in a religious experience. However, meditation is actually a practice that anyone can do to improve mind function and overall health.

Meditation has been proven to reduce stress levels and it can even help with conditions such as high blood pressure. Once you’ve become more calm and peaceful through meditation, your life will open up to more opportunities and you’ll find it easier to make healthy choices.

What Exactly Is Meditation?

Meditation is a way of clearing the mind. Once you’ve gotten into a habit of meditating often, you’ll discover that it’s easier than you think.

Some people sit in a cross-legged position when they meditate, but this isn’t mandatory. Another sitting position might be more comfortable for you, but the key is to maintain a good posture. If you slouch, you’re more likely to get tired and feel like falling asleep.

To get started, find a quiet place and get comfortable. Then start taking deep breaths in and out. Pay attention to your breath. You might find it helpful to say a “mantra” to yourself as you breathe in and out. Your goal is to keep your mind clear of thoughts.

Thoughts are inevitable though. The best way to eliminate them is to recognize that you’ve had a thought and then focus on your breathing and clearing your mind again. This will get easier with frequent practice.

Stress Free

When you focus on breathing and clearing your mind, you’re actually centered on the present moment. On the other hand, stress arises when you think about something in the past or future.

Since you have little stress when you have a clear mind in the present moment, you exude calmness. When you practice this often, you can bring a calm, stress-free demeanor to your everyday life.

Stress And The Body

When you feel stressed, you put your body into overdrive. When it’s overworked, it’s more open to various diseases and disorders. Stress exists for a reason; you need to have the hormonal adrenalin rush and increased breathing and heart rate in order to escape threatening situations. It’s simply how you’re able to handle threats.

By always having your mind on past or future stressors, you keep your mind and body in a stressful state even when you aren’t enduring a stressful situation in the present. This is exactly why it’s important to give your body a much needed break from all the stress. When you learn to meditate often, you’re giving your body the energy and rest it needs to stave off exhaustion and disease.

Improving Your Health

The absence of overwhelming stress improves your health in many ways. You’ll likely enjoy lower blood pressure and a strengthened immune system. Stress can also lead to mental disorders, so when you strive to be stress-free, you’ll keep anxiety and depression away as well.

When you meditate, you place your body in a kind of sleep state. You’re still awake, but your body can begin to repair itself in the same way that it does when you sleep. If you meditate in the morning or at night, you can help yourself transition from sleeping to wakefulness and vice versa.

Meditation is the ultimate exercise for a healthy mind and body. You’ll feel refreshed and rejuvenated once you’ve given it a try. Who knew that “just sitting” could be so helpful!