“More smiling, less worrying. More compassion, less judgment. More blessed, less stressed. More love, less hate.” – Roy T. Bennett
“When you connect with the silence within you, that is when you can make sense of the disturbance going on around you.” – Stephen Richards
“If a man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit.” – Thomas Merton
Your mind becomes like nature—limitless and a restful place to be. It sometimes takes a bit to clear the cobwebs from lack of exploring. Our mind helps in defining our true nature, one that is calm and tranquil. That calm and tranquil state of mind helps us to have a deeper understanding of ourselves and our true nature. When we actively still our minds, our emotions are calmed. No need to define emotions! We definitely know those. They keep us on our toes.
To understand how closely our thoughts are connected to our emotions, I want to share from David Fontana his “Level of Thoughts”:
Lowest level – Negative thought, includes anger, fear, sadness, regret, unease. Negative thoughts make us egotistical and lazy.
Second level, Wasteful thought, wasting time worrying about things that might not happen or things outside our control.
Third level – Necessary thoughts, “I must remember . . .”, “I must not forget . . .”
Highest level – Positive thoughts, encourages peace, harmony, creativity, love, and happiness.
Meditation is where we can free our minds of the negative and wasteful thoughts and move our thinking to the highest level.
Meditation does not need a certain pose or props. You can meditate anywhere and anytime. What meditation needs is your attention, fully, to learn to unpack you everyday thinking and let it go. It is to focus inward. For me this does take some time. The first part of any session is cultivating a calmness. Be still. Concentrate on each part of your body encourage relaxation.