For all these same reasons; yoga can also be confusing and raise additional questions, which I find a meditation and reflective practice can you help you build your intuitive answer. What resonates with you.
Today's Tip: Meditate as your yoga practice
Today, instead of waking to a physical practice. I chose to meditate for 5 minutes. From my perspective yoga is both the physical practice of mindful movement, but it is also the practice of mindful meditation ~ creating space for calm and quiet. I often find this space for myself after a physical yoga practice of asana (yoga poses); but I've been craving silence, simplicity, calm, peace....and I chose to answer that calling this morning with meditation.
From Yoga Journal's recent Boost Your Will Power series:
Whenever you're trying to make a change in your life, a daily meditation practice can be a positive ally. But that doesn't mean you have to go buy a cushion, sign up for training, or dedicate 45 minutes each day to some strict, idealized discipline. Keep it easy, and keep it light. You can reap serious benefits from this simple, five-minute practice:
1. Sit still and stay put. You don't have to be on a cushion or mat; just find a spot where you can sit comfortably for five minutes.
2. Turn your attention to the breath. For a minute or two, think to yourself "inhale" with every inhalation, "exhale" with every exhalation.
3. Notice how it feels to breathe, and feel the mind wander. After a minute or two, drop the labels, and just notice how it feels in the body to breathe. You might feel it in the nose, in the belly, or in the throat. If your mind wanders—which it will!—just keep calm and return to the sensation of the breath.
That's it. This micro-meditation is an incredibly powerful willpower booster—the practice of returning attention again and again to the breath kicks the prefrontal cortex (the decision-making center of the brain) into high gear and quiets the stress and craving centers of your brain. Every time you bring your attention away from a wandering thought and back to the breath, you strengthen self-awareness and boost self-control.
You are right.
ReplyDeleteThe practice of returning attention again and again to the breath kicks the prefrontal cortex (the decision-making center of the brain) into high gear and quiets the stress and craving centers of your brain.
I do this for about 15 minutes everyday.
It's my experience that it reduces stress, anxiety, depression and put you on calm state of my.
Nice blog.
Hello eMedOUtlet! Thank you for your thoughtful commentary. I could not agree more.
DeleteInner calm is to be cultivated together with love, and it is helped by a regular program of daily meditations. The difficulties in meditations cannot be overcome through discouragement. The Saints are the ones who were never discouraged. Only optimism gives us the strength and vibrations necessary for expanding our consciousness and placing us in tune with Everything. It is not the lack of experiences that generates discouragement but (even though it seems like a paradox) it is actually discouragement that blocks achievement of any experience. Therefore we should sit down with optimism, faith, joy, love and cheer and this way all our energies will flow automatically upwards and gather without effort at their focal Center, taking us rapidly into the presence of the Light of God.
ReplyDeleteMeditation on Inner Light and Sound