Stop and focus for a minute on what’s going on in your mind. Is it quiet and calm in there or does it have a constant stream of different thoughts racing through it?
In the modern world we live in, it’s difficult to find quiet time. You’ve noticed how busy it is inside your head with just your own thoughts flowing through. When you add the extra stimulus from emails, Facebook, Twitter, music and advertising to name just a few, it’s not surprising that we often find ourselves overwhelmed with information and stressed by the constant pressure.
While it’s almost impossible to avoid the information overload, there is a way to find some peace and calm inside your head. It’s called meditation and it can make a big difference. Until fairly late in the last century, meditation was regarded as a New Age fad or an exotic Eastern mystery, but today it’s mainstream. The Health Industry has done the research and it’s now widely accepted that meditation offers lots of physical and mental benefits. Life coaches, doctors, corporate training companies and large numbers of ordinary Australians have accepted the fact that meditation can relax our minds, make us calmer, improve our mental performance and help us better handle the pressures that 21st century living involves.
So if this great tool is readily available and costs very little, why aren’t you using it? You’ll have to answer that question yourself, but surely it’s worth thinking about. Here are a couple of points that might help:
- It’s not that hard to start. There are meditation groups in all major cities and most regional towns. Google, Yellow Pages, your doctor or your Council’s Community Services Department should be able to point you towards a local group. There are some commercial classes as well as groups that are free to join. It’s advisable to get some instruction at the beginning, rather than trying to learn some techniques yourself.
- You don’t have to go into a trance or be surrounded by a bunch of hippies to meditate. People from all walks of life are now practicing meditation because it helps them cope better with everyday life. People are wide awake and in a heightened state of consciousness when meditating.
- It’s a skill that you can learn. There are a number of different techniques that various groups use to calm the mind. You probably won’t master it at the first few sessions, but like any new skill – the more you practice, the better you get.
- You can meditate in a group or by yourself. Once you have learnt one of the many meditation techniques, you can practice by yourself and it won’t cost a cent. However it’s a good idea to join a group to start with as you’ll get a better understanding of what to do and what not to do from some more experienced people.
There are plenty of books on meditation. Each of our four books has a chapter on how to do it.