Are you curious about meditation? Have you decided to give it a try? Or are you just bored and looking for something to do?
Meditation has a large, positive impact on my life. At a young age, I was exposed to meditation because of my religion: Buddhism. However, I only started practicing meditation when I was older after an inspirational (and honestly, quite boring) lecture from my Grade 10 Sunday school teacher.
I gave it a try and found that I felt more in tune with myself after each session.
Before we discuss the two types of meditation I am familiar with, let’s talk about the benefits. Meditation has been proved to have the following benefits based on scientific studies:
Reduces stress
Controls anxiety
Promotes emotional health
Enhances self-awareness (I definitely felt this!)
Lengthens attention span
May reduce age-related memory loss
Can generate kindness
May help fight addictions
Improves sleep
Helps control pain
Can decrease blood pressure
*the above list of benefits were obtained from the credible source cited at the end of this blog post.
Now that you can clearly see why you must try out mediation, let me introduce you to the two types of meditation I have known all my life:
Breathing Meditation
Love & Kindness Meditation
Try out both and figure out which one works best for you!
Breathing Meditation
This is the most practiced mediation around the world! How do you do it?
Concentrate on your breathing. You are not trying to take deep breaths or change your breathing in any way, you are trying to be aware of your breathing.
It is very simple! Pay attention to how you inhale and exhale :)
Love & Kindness Meditation
This form of meditation focuses on gratitude. Essentially, you will be repeating the same verse over and over again, only switching the person/people you are grateful for each time. While you say the verse, you will have your eyes closed and be grateful to them.
Here’s the verse I grew up practicing:
May ________ always be well and peaceful,
May no harm come to _______,
May no difficulties come to __________,
May no problems come to __________,
May __________ always be a success,
May _________ have patience,
Courage,
Understanding,
And determination,
To meet and overcome inevitable difficulties,
Problems,
And failures in life.
Repeat the phrase with each of the following in any order:
You
Parents
Siblings
Grandparents
Relatives
Friends
Teachers
Enemies
All living beings
*You can add more people to the meditation as you wish!
Ex. You, I
May I always be well and peaceful,
May no harm come to me,
May no difficulties come to me,
May no problems come to me,
May I always be a success,
May I have patience,
Courage,
Understanding,
And determination,
To meet and overcome inevitable difficulties,
Problems,
And failures in life.
Ex. Parents, them, they
May my parents always be well and peaceful,
May no harm come to them,
May no difficulties come to them,
May no problems come to them,
May they always be a success,
May they have patience,
Courage,
Understanding,
And determination,
To meet and overcome inevitable difficulties,
Problems,
And failures in life.
Figure out which ones work best for you by trying both!
I hope this helps! Meditation has numerous benefits so make sure to try it out :)
Image by Chris Nguyen @cspek
Credible source with benefits of meditation:
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