Contemplation
April 7, 2019
How we can positively make use of our inclinations? If you do not spend time in contemplation, (or meditation, prayer, showing gratitude –whatever you prefer to call it), you cannot be high functioning. And if you are, it is going to be short-lived.
Some people do this for me, it’s a daily practice. Meditation is a term that is quite difficult for some people to but you don’t have to sit in a room with the whale music, incense burning, and the candles all lit to have a time of contemplation. All you need to do is to be present in, and conscious of, the process.
Meditation aims to reduce stress, depression, and anxiety, and to increase peace, perception, and well-being. Your mind, body, and spirit need that time. I am an A-type personality, and that has served me well a lot in my life, but it has also caused me some severe health issues because I pushed myself all the time. And now that I’m dealing with compromised health, meditation has become very important for me to keep being high functioning and productive.
You don’t have to start out with long hours of meditation; you may find that very difficult. It may be as simple as that 15 to 20 minutes in bed where you’ve woken up in the morning before your alarm trips off. Do you feel like “I want another half hour of sleep?” or “My body has had enough rest, and now I’m going to lie here and have my half an hour of contemplation?” You may even be half asleep. What is being taken advantage of in this early hour is the state of your body. There is a saying that “a relaxed body is a relaxed mind.” My best ideas come to me in those morning times (and eventually I had to learn to scribe to catch some of them!). Don’t you love that morning dream and you think if only you had a mind recorder to catch all that stuff? Great ideas come at those times of rest and re-awakening. That is what meditation does; it results in awakening and enlightenment.
It could be as you are falling asleep at night and trying to clear your mind, meditation is an excellent practice at those moments. Thoughts are always flowing through our minds just like waves are formed continuously in the ocean. Too much thinking often impedes focus. People who are prone to unwanted overthinking can also find meditation very helpful. Meditation is so beneficial because it clears the mind and brings about the complete cessation of thoughts and then perhaps the universe may have something important to say to you. After all, how can you hear if you are doing all the talking?
There are certain things you must avoid during this moment: avoid thoughts of the past and the present, neither should you try to analyze them, avoid envisaging things, don’t try to experience something, don’t deviate but stay in the moment. A great book is Eckart Tolle’s The Power of Now. This really opened up my awareness about staying present in every area of my life, but especially while meditating. This nighttime meditation is also a time your ego will want to get in the way. You would ask it, literally and physically in your mind, to step aside and that you’ll come back to it in the morning. Your ego is very egocentric and wants to be the center of attention and in control at all times, but you mustn’t let it.
If you are a beginner at meditation, you should know before you start out with this practice that the goal of meditation is not to come to a point where you can focus without becoming distracted. The basis of a successful contemplation is becoming aware of what you’re thinking. Because to restructure your thoughts, an ability that handles stress and anxiety, you must have first been able to identify your thoughts. You must also know how to redirect your focus back to the initial point when you are distracted without criticizing yourself. When meditating at night, don’t fight sleep, let your mind roll. Don’t look out for something to hear or see or feel, allow whatever rises into your recognition be naturally replaced by something else. This specific art of meditation is what open awareness means, what I earlier described as “universe having something important to say to you.”
There is a great diagram by Greg Montana and taught by one of my personal Coaches Monique MacDonald (Creator of Discover Your Sacred Gifts) called the Chaos Cycle. So many of us live too much in Action, which is quickly followed by Chaos because we never take time to Rest and let Creativity come.
Meditation is a practice, one of calming the mind and letting the peace flow through; you must work at it. This act when practiced with persistence and discipline transforms into a peaceful state of mind rather than just another practice you have to engage in, and that’s an ultimate goal to keep you high functioning.