Meditation Confessions: Life is Hard To Face - To Improve - Know Which Way To Look

Meditation is growing in popularity. This is largely to do with loads of studies over the past 30 years that have revealed the health and overall contentment benefits. Anything you do to slow down from the busy fight or flight state we currently live in is going to lead to a significant life benefit. What you might not know is that not all meditations are the same. 

The main distinction I want to bring to your awareness is that the majority of meditation techniques utilize aspects of day-to-day life as a way to slow down and inspire the rest and digest aspects of the parasympathetic nervous system. This means they help you feel better. A yoga asana practice is an example of moving meditation. While engaged in this practice our surface mind is still quite engaged in observing as we purposefully tell it to calm down.

However, there is a type of meditation technique that is designed to distract our surface mind. The surface part of us is always worried about making choices based on past experiences aiming to prevent future suffering. When it is engaged we never get as deep of rest as we are capable of. The problems of our life constantly run, even if we get a break from being caught up in them. Through specific types of meditation, we actually give the surface mind something that it enjoys. As a result, the deeper part of us can be experienced. 

What is this deeper part?

Anyone who has studied the anatomy of the human body is aware of an amazing intelligence that allows it to function. Anyone who has studied chronic disease is fully aware that the root of the problem is so much bigger than mechanical physical parts. Our bodies are affected by so many different aspects of our human experience. It is simply not black and white or "if this then that" type of equation. There is something much deeper and profound going on. 

Ancient meditation practices are aware of this and know the only way to truly transform life is to connect directly with this Inner Intelligence and be receptive to the omniscient wisdom contained within. Without this connection, we are doomed to continue to make choices based on faulty or limited information.

Interestingly, enough this is where people start getting all excited about meditation and why they prefer to only utilize the surface practices. Some might say they don't want to get to know this part of themselves because they don't want to have to change (even if they know that what they are doing isn't providing them with what they want). Some think this Inner Intelligence that resides within could very well be maleficent always attempting to derail us so that we suffer. Regardless of the thought that pops into people's heads, essentially they are an expression of fear. 

Being a long-term meditator with a tool that essentially turns off this surface fight or flight response completely so that I can rest deeply and experience pure potential (without form) I find the fear others struggling with amusing. I'm not judging. I have learned that often times I have held myself back from the very thing that was the solution because I somehow perceived it as being bad or scary. On and on I spun around in my discomfort regardless of others offering me viable solutions to my challenge until I finally decided I had enough and decided to try the one thing I had avoided. It seems to be a necessary part of growth, to make the choices ourselves and not blindly follow others.

Einstein is credited with saying that you can't solve a problem from the level it was created. Meditation techniques that require external stimulation or focus will necessarily keep you on the level of the problem. However, learning a technique that teaches the mind to let go of all external cues and rest deeply in pure potential allows the brilliance to shine through. This can actually be and has been measured scientifically. The frontal cortex is enlivened while all of our lower functioning aspects of the brain are completely at rest. 
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Being able to connect to and rest the chaotic mind in the purpose potential allows for so many doors to open for our good. Often we are just burdened with the demands of life that we can't think of anything different. Yet a few moments of deep rest quickly results in the tap of creativity to turn right back on. When life gets hard, all we have to do is look in the correct direction!