Tune-in to your inner flow
The power of meditation is very real. Through consistent daily practice, within a short time, maybe a few weeks, you can begin to feel and recognize the power of meditation during your time sitting in meditation.
Meditation is a beneficial skill and habit that can improve your life in many powerful ways. Because of this, Meditation apps and or following along to guided mediations online have become popular. I think this is a good thing, and I’m sure it helps many people find peace throughout their days. But learning to become comfortable and proficient with the power of meditating, in silence, without outside stimuli can have more profound benefits, which are worth understanding and exploring. I don’t have any data on this, but I’m guessing the explosion of meditation apps and guided meditations on YouTube, etc., has helped millions familiarize themselves with some basic form of meditation.
Again, I think this is good, and nothing to complain about. I do think the next step for anyone interested would be to let go over the guided meditations and begin sitting and following your own inner dynamics as your guide. By doing this, you will build both your ability to follow your real-time energetic flow and cues, but also by paying attention to them, begin to build your energetic energy what you pay attention to increase. As you focus on your inner flow, the power of your inner flow will increase. The power of meditation is, to this day, highly misunderstood and underestimated.
discover and embrace your unique process
I have gone through many phases to get where I am now with meditation. I can relate to many different experiences. Currently, my mediations are surprisingly healing and very deep. I sit down, and quickly the tension and stress from my conscious experience slip away. I then drop deep into a semi-sleep state. Because it’s so deep and peaceful, I want to question if I’m somehow doing it ‘wrong’ lol. It’s important to remember if your time spent meditating is soothing and energizing, or frustration and distracting, both are equally important. Sitting and experiencing your ‘moments’, moment by moment is the most valuable gift from your time spent meditating.
the goal is not to be ‘at peace’
I go over my recent experiences to highlight that we will find ourselves in different experiences with our meditation practices. If you are able to feel the power of mediation as deeply engaging or simply challenging and easily distracted, both equally are valuable. Confronting and allowing these moments to sit with you in acceptance and a ‘watching and listening’ mode is the goal. The goal is not to be at peace. I’ll repeat: the goal is not to be at peace. The goal is to watch and be with the process however it presents its self. As your ability to listen increases, you will begin to understand why meditation is essential.
If you include a mediation practice into your daily life, you will begin to see how your existence plays out from an energetic perspective and gain first-hand knowledge of how you connect and relate to your consciousness and your physical awareness. By spending time sitting in meditation, you will gain a profound sense of ‘watching and experiencing’ begin to integrate with your general awareness. This is one of the powers of meditation, I’ve developed in my life.
as you develop internal strength your practice will change
Having a first-hand understanding of how perceived reality is quite flexible is one of the most valuable benefits gained from spending time meditating. Also, meditation builds a type of internal strength. This type of strength allows for the relaxing of stagnant or frozen parts of yourself. On an energetic level, you will begin to flow more in accordance with your true nature. This type of strength also increases your ability to perceive and connect with subtle energy.
A long time ago, when I would sit to meditate, either in a group or alone. It was a much different experience than it is for me now. I would sit down, and external stimuli would bombard me. My mind would jump around hearing the noises around me, feeling my body in an awkward sense of being. My mind would keep busy. I would wonder if I was holding my hands the correct way and if I was sitting the right way, and if the meditation helped or improved anything.
Doing my best to get into a deep state of being, but I would finish feeling like I wasn’t getting what I wanted from it, even though I was trying. I tried my best to make it a habit, but it was always a bit awkward because I was not fully aware of what I needed to do. Also, I had a lot of stress in my life, and meditation didn’t seem to be helping anything in particular.
sensing a deeper connection
When I started to meditate daily for 1-2 hours a day, I began to make some headway. Only when I started to sit in meditation for 1-2 hours a day was I able to experience the power of meditation and my sense of being in a more real way. Internally I began to move to the place where it was somewhat uncomfortable mentally (psychologically perhaps?). For some reason getting to the point where it was challenging seems to help a lot. It often takes a fair amount of developed meditation energy to open up your consciousness and your sensing (as in literally what you perceive) to a larger sense of self. And once you begin to perceive this larger sense of self, that is just the very first step. Taking the first step is a good and solid step. But it is only 1 step. Good to remember.
make it personal
Let’s back up and go over how one starts with ‘sitting alone, without stimuli’ meditation, and then moves along all the way to where you’re able to feel the power of meditation. The basic idea is as simple as it sounds. Find a place to sit alone (highly recommend in a room with the door closed, and with a decent amount of confidence that no one will come it and no cell phone!). Sit comfortably as comfortably as possible. Sit in a chair, on a bed, couch, whatever, make sure you feel relaxed. I rarely sit cross-legged. I almost always am sitting, legs extended, with a few pillows behind my back.
Pay attention to your body
You will want to use a timer. It will help you start and finish time without having to think about time. Make sure to turn off all the other notifications if you are using your cellphone. When you are ready, close your eyes and simply sit.
You will want to focus on the main physical sensation you feel in your body. When that sensation shifts or changes, follow and stay connected (listening and following your predominant physical sensation is an interesting subject that we can explore in another post). Often I am aware of more or less my whole body. I have felt a pulsing feeling in the past, where my whole body seemed to be pulsing. I have also felt specific areas of my body sometimes. Regardless of where your focus connects to, maintaining a physical connection to anchor your focus during your meditation is crucial.
As your practice develops, you will see that a strong connection with your body will provide an essential basis for all future energetic developments. Siting in silence, paying attention to your predominant physical sensation, w a timer going, is the basic idea. Pretty straightforward. Everyone’s meditation journey is unique. And the challenges you might experience during meditating will shift and change and manifest in different ways. When you are just starting out, you may have challenges sensing your body.
For example, you might feel it is hard to sense your body or get flustered with exactly where to pay attention. If that is the case, then you will start exactly there and sit with that situation. Pay attention to that feeling: the confusion, frustration, or boredom, and use that as your anchor point until you become more open to sensing your whole body.
Set a time goal that works
Figuring out the amount of time that works for you to meditate each day is super important. Decide an amount of time that will work for you. Be realistic about it. It’s much better to sit 20 mins each day than 1 hour once or twice a month. Or never. And that said, sitting for 20 minutes vs. 45 minutes vs. 1 hour does often create different results. If you can sit for 1 hour on some days that would be great. Sitting for 1 hour, you will notice that you will get into a deeper state and have a chance to feel yourself flow through several different experiences. Twenty minutes does allow for some of that, but 45 minutes or 1 hour is more the time frame for getting into deeper states of awareness.
If for some reason you want to be a superstar meditator and do multiple hours per day: I’ve always broken up days where I did multiple hours, by the hour, ie, I would do 1 hour, then either take a break before I did another, or did the next hour later in the day. Doing multiple hours a day does require you to have the time to spend on mediation. But it is rewarding because it usually gives you a sense of grounding and, through the extra effort, increases the chances for you to feel the power of meditation. Also, in my opinion, it also speeds up self-growth.
It’s important to remember to never push yourself beyond what feels safe. Meditation can cause a certain type of stress if overdone, and we all need to be mindful of our overall balance in our lives.
let it be
Let’s say you just finished your first meditation session, sitting without music or an app, etc. Once the timer goes off, as they say, whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas (bad joke, sorry), take a breath, and resume your everyday life. Allow your meditation experience to be its own thing. Cognitive understanding of what’s going on in your meditation is not important most of the time. And to focus on that aspect could end up being a distraction in some cases. Through direct experience, you will begin to see how your time meditating begins to make small changes in your life as a whole. Once you start, almost by accident, you will begin to see some small changes in perspective or thinking; you can be sure the time spent in silence is beginning to pay off. That is the power of meditation.
