Millions of people around the world meditate – many on a daily basis. However, hundreds of surveys confirm that the vast majority of people are stuck in a life that they’re not happy with. Almost all of my personal development clients meditate – but a lot of them still find themselves stressed, worried and unhappy during the rest of the day. So the important question is can meditation give you peace of mind?
For starters, there are plenty of people who don’t even find peace of mind while they’re meditating! Their heads are all over the place, they’re easily distracted or often they end up consumed by completely destructive thoughts. All too often, when they meditate, they become even more frustrated than they were before they sat down because they believe that they don’t know how to meditate. However, even if you’re an expert at meditating and get true peace of mind out of it, often than not that same focus and peace of mind doesn’t stay with you as your day progresses. You fall back to your stressed out state of mind.
As normal people We’re conditioned to be mentally all over the place – it’s a simple fact of life. And that’s how we’ll stay unless we take the appropriate steps – not just while we’re meditating but throughout each and every day. The first thing to understand is that meditation should be viewed as an exercise in mental discipline. Basically, even if you’re all over the place during your meditation, the determinationto see it through disciplines your mind. You shouldn’t worry, you shouldn’t fret, you must decide to get on with your session.
Even more importantly, I believe that most practitioners don’t seem to make the link between meditating and what’s going on during their daily existence. You have to stop yourself during the day to evaluate how you’re feeling. There’s more than a fifty-fifty chance that you’ll be all over the place relative to the calm that can come over you during a good meditation session. After you’re determined your current state of mind, you need to take action to bring yourself back towards the optimum peaceful state of mind. This doesn’t have to be drastic action. It can be something simple, like standing up from your desk for five minutes to take a breather – literally, focus on your inward and outward breathing, nobody else will even notice. Or you could head outside for your habitual cigarette and really enjoy it – yeah, even smoking can be a meditation. The important point is that you need to pause, check in with how you’re feeling and tune back in to the reality of the moment.
Like I said, meditation is a discipline. Discipline your mind often – not just with a quick session of meditation before the day gets going, but throughout the day too. Otherwise, the peace of mind that you experience from (even if it’s only every so often) will be of no practical use to you during the course of your daily life. And, if your meditation doesn’t make a practical difference in your life, why bother?
