The benefits of a meditation practice. What is meditation?
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William Forchion:Hello and welcome to the Billosophy podcast. I'm William Forchion today, meditation, according to gaiam.com. Meditation is an approach to training the mind similar to the way that fitness is an approach to training the body. Many meditation techniques exist. University of Wisconsin neuroscience lab director, Richard J. Davidson PhD told the New York times in Buddhist tradition, the word meditation is equivalent to a word like sports in the U S it's a family of activities, not a single thing and different meditation practices required different mental skills. I guess this begins, or this is part of a series on self care meditation and the process of meditating. I was introduced to meditation in high school by my wrestling coach, coach sharp would have us at the end of each practice. He called it a relaxation technique. He would train us very hard with the goal or the, uh, the reward at the end of training, being that we would have a 15 or 20 minutes of relaxation. He would lead us in a guided meditation to relax each of the muscles in our bodies. And this process for him was to help us in wrestling. You have three, three minute periods in which you're going all out. There's no break. If you rest, you'll be defeated. So you push yourself for three minutes. And his relaxation technique was a way that in between the three minute periods, we could train our body to essentially relax, shut down for the gap in between the interval between periods and come right back refreshed for the next period. And over time, I continued with this after I wrestled for two years in high school, my junior and senior year. And I continued that practice from practicing meditation in high school, through my wrestling program, meditation had become a part of my daily life. I used it and I use it in all the things that I've done as a runner. I would use meditation after my training runs to relax the muscles, to help myself stretch, to release my mind. When I worked as an Acrobat with Cirque du Soleil, I used meditation during day, and also at the end of each training day, I would find a time to do my rat relaxation drill exercise, or I would find a time at the end of my day, whether it was part of my bath, my shower, or a stretching process. At the end of the day, I would use relaxation. Now I believe my wrestling coach called it relaxation because meditation early eighties was still a little woo, little different, and there are many different meditation techniques and practices. There is concentration meditation, concentration meditation involves focusing on a single point. This could entail following the breath, repeating a single word or mantra staring at a candle, flame, listening to a repetitive gong or counting beads on a Mala. Since focusing the mind is challenging. A beginner might meditate for only a few minutes and then work up to longer durations. There's also mindfulness meditation, mindfulness meditation encourages the practitioner to observe wandering thoughts as they drift through the mind. The intention is not to get involved with the thoughts or to judge them, but simply to be aware of each mental note, as it arises, there are various other meditation techniques. For example, a daily meditation practice among Buddhist monks focuses directly on the cultivation of compassion. This involves envisioning negative events and recasting them in a positive light by transforming them through compassion. There are also moving meditation techniques, such as Tai Chi. Chi Gong and walking meditation
Speaker 3:meditation is to be aware of every thought and of every feeling never to say it is right or wrong, but just to watch it and move with it in that watching you begin to understand the whole movement of thought and feeling and out of this awareness comes silence. Jidu Krishnamurty.
William Forchion:If relaxation is not the goal of meditation, it is often the result. There are many benefits of meditation studies on the relaxation response have documented the following short term benefits to the nervous system, lowered blood pressure, improved blood circulation, lower heart rate, less perspiration, slower respiratory rate, less anxiety, lower blood cortisol levels, more feelings of wellbeing, less stress, deeper relaxation. My meditation practice has evolved and transformed and changed. I have most recently been using meditation as a stress reducer, uh, taking some of the stress out of my daily life. And, uh, my practice has changed. It's become very mindful in a way. I also will use guided meditation, which I pull off of YouTube. Sometimes I'll, uh, lay in bed at night with your buds in and have a YouTube video playing on a guided meditation. I also have added in each morning. I take a walk in the woods. Then I've taken this walk many for many years. I try to walk every morning in the woods, just outside my home. And at first it was just a calming beginning to my day to walk through the woods. I then started becoming mindful during that time you might, it might even be considered mind less of paying attention to each of the thoughts that popped up in my head until they, uh, they blurred and there became a nothing inside my head. So the thoughts didn't stop. It was that there was no need to attach to the thoughts. The thoughts could just come in and go without holding on to one being any better or worse than the others. What I also found during that meditation was the woods had changed. There were different sounds. There was an essence to the silence that is the woods, the bird song, the insect noises, the wind through the trees and the trees themselves. Each had a sound and a resonance that I became aware of in that silence and in the cacophony of my meditative brain, that practice transforms and goes through transition constantly each morning. I cannot step out into the woods and expect anything. I can't expect what happened the day before. And I have to accept what is today in that, that meditation. I also discovered in that that meditation didn't have to be the process of sitting and thinking or sitting at non-thinking. I discovered walking meditation that I could walk and continue to walk through the woods and find a different awareness or a different way of being within the process, walking and, and being aware of my footfalls my heart rate, the sound of my pulse in my ears, my eardrums, the wind, or the sounds as they, as they hit the hairs, uh, entering my ears. It was an awakening into a different world. When I entered that meditative process differently. I also have used a concentrated meditation meditation where I, when I couldn't get the, the sounds in my head to quiet down and I have used affirmation and I have used mantras. Mantras is if you're not aware, a mantra is just a repeated phrase. One of my favorites is I am enough. Uh, you'll hear Matt in many of my podcast. I am enough. And hopefully you'll start to incorporate that in your life as well. The, I am enough process. And even in that process with the mantra, when I would use any single one, it would stir up other things. It would be like stirring a pot with a spoon or staring with a fork or staring with a chopstick. Each one will stir that pot differently, causing different reactions within whatever's in the pot. And each of the mantras will stir up different parts and different things in the mind and stimulate different thoughts and reactions. And it is not necessarily to quiet those things, but to become aware of them because each of those thoughts is begging for attention. And that's why they pop up those things that are popping up seeking our attention are asking, are begging to become our teachers. And we could try to cast them aside and push them away or shovel out because we don't want to deal with them. Or we can ask, I can ask, what is it that you're trying to teach me right now? What is it that I need to learn from what you're presenting right now? The, I am enough mantra for me stirs up. So many of my insecurities. I am enough. And what am I enough for? That's the first one that pops up was I enough to do that thing? Am I enough to make breakfast for my kids? Am I enough to not trip on the route? As I walked through the woods, all these insecurities will pop up and what is it that I'm learning from them? Of course, for each of us, the lessons we learn from the ideas that pop up will be different. I could tell you some of the lessons I've learned, and that could be informative for you. Or you can start to ask the questions of your own mind on how you can inform yourself. Some people aren't even aren't at the level to get to that place. There are the, there are many people you can talk to about this. There are folks who lead guided meditations. There are folks who do a dream, uh, analysis, and sometimes even in that guided meditation or in that walking meditation or in the meditation process, concentrated meditation, it will be like a dream. There will be things that pop up that will be part of what is going on in your world, both your inner world and your outer world. And just like, just like in the dream where it's hard to understand what does that two thing mean? Or what does whatever it is mean? There are people who will say, Oh, do you understand that that is related to the younger you, or that is related to your feminine side, or that is related to your masculine side, or that is related to, um, a hurt that you have experienced our brains and our bodies work in such amazing and mysterious ways. And they have the ability to teach us more about ourselves. And the meditation. Meditative process is a wonderful learning tool. It's also a wonderful relaxation tool. It's also a wonderful stress reducer life enhancer, exercise, prayer and meditation are examples of calming rituals. They have been shown to induce a happier mood and provide a positive pathway through life's daily frustrations. Chuck Norris, for me, the meditation process at first was an escape. It was an escapist illusion that I could take myself out of the world for a moment to another realm, a peaceful, calm realm in which I was in control. I have learned to see very differently in the mid meditative process and what is the meditation or how that meditation is for me and works for me. And that is part of a, a transition or an evolution or an evolving of my practice. And it is a practice is something I do have to practice every day. It helps me reset. It helps me restart. It helps me calm. It helps me. It helps me put into perspective, the big picture and all the little pictures of life of my life. It is just like with many things in life. This is about me. This is about you. It is a personal thing. The changes that you will happen in, in and through meditation are in, you are in me, are in the practice or, or the practitioner of the meditation through changing yourself. You will change the world, how everything that responds and reacts to you will respond and react differently to you. As you change, as you find that space through meditation, that space in your mind, in your being in your body, in your world, it will change how you move through the space of the world. How you move from point a to point B, how you interact with everyone around you and in doing so change happens. Not because you forced anything else to change, but because you've encouraged and you've asked yourself to change. One of them, the concentration meditations that I use and have used, especially in high stress situations is, and it's a way of not shutting out or shutting off all the processes of the brain, all the things that pop up, but a focusing and pinpointing on one thing. This technique is to just sit in a place, comfortably, find a place. And at first, when I started doing this, I needed to be in a quiet place, alone, isolated from everything. Now I can do it anywhere. I can sit in a busy hotel lobby in an airport, on a plane. I can sit in my living room. I can find the space to do it anywhere. So finding that space and then simply breathing in and breathing out. And as you breathe in, in your mind, you say I'm breathing in and as you exhale and breathe out in your mind, you say, I am exhaling. I am breathing in I'm exhaling. And you can say, I'm inhaling. I'm exhaling. I am inhaling. I am exhaling. And you continue to that focusing only on your breath and the words, your breath and the words, your breath, and the words. When I first started doing this practice, I could last for maybe 10 or 15 seconds before my brain would wander off. My mind would think about, Oh, did you get that thing done? Oh, what is the deadline for? Have you made that phone call at all? These other things would pop up, Oh, you got an itch. You should scratch the back of your ear. Oh your knee. It doesn't feel good. All these things would pop up. And those were just ways of distracting. My brain distracting me, me distracting me from focusing, breathe in and breathe out. It's something we have to do every day. And focusing on that breath, I'm going to focus on my breath in the evenings. You can also do a thing with a candle candles are magnificent, where you focus on a flame and you just h yper f ocus on that. Flame, watch the flame flicker and move and change colors and rise and lower and twist and turn and how i t, it dances upon around the wick. And you'll start to notice the nuances of a candle flame as, u h, when I first started doing that, when I did that one for quite a w hile, it was amazing because then I would start to see things my brain would make up things in that candle, flame. It would make up people dancing. It would make up, u h, faces, and it would start to create new things. And that was just my brain going, going crazy, trying not to calm, trying to, or working harder, which is something I've trained it to do. I've trained my brain to work like crazy and not to relax. And even then with that practice of staring at a flame, it took quite a while to where I could get to a minute of staring at a flame without losing my concentration without losing focus. I will tell you the meditative practice is amazingly rewarding. It has helped me to relax through situations where I would normally have just gone ballistic or crazy that moment when you're in a rush and you're waiting for, or you're trying to get something to happen here, you're late for your flight. You're trying to get the connecting flights or whatever, and where I would normally just run and go batty. I've found that I've taken breaths in between. And those breaths, even though they have taken more time than racing around, trying to get what I want done. They created a space and a different space inside of me and outside of me that always opens up. And I guarantee this, this is happy for my life. They, it always has opened up a miracle space, a place where the unexpected happened. And what I have encountered through meditation is a knowledge that the next moment in our life is completely unknown. We may have prepared and planned, but it's always an unknown in that space. Things happen, accidents happen. A misunderstanding happens. Miracles happen, magic happens, but creating that space and creating that a welcoming space opens up the possibility for more miracle space to happen. And I call that miracle readiness and meditation has made me much more miracle ready, and it's, it's an innocence. It's a return to what we all knew as children and has had been taught out of us or learned out of us, or worked out of us. That innocence, that space of, of joy in the moment and joy in the unknown and in the unexpected. When you're a kid, you lay in the grass and watch the clouds going over. And you literally don't have a thought in your mind, it's purely meditation. And we lose that Dick Van Dyke. I guess I can guide you through, well, not fully guide you through, c ause it takes a little bit of time, but the meditation practice or the relaxation drill that my wrestling coach passed on to me in high school and were passed o nto the whole wrestling team. I can't say that it was just me and I have passed it o n t o many of my, my students that I've taught through circus and theater. The relaxation technique is to lie flat comfortably on the floor, no pillow under y our head. You want to lay as flat as you possibly can lie flat, as you possibly can, u h, with space between your arms and your body space between your legs. So each all parts of you are just lying on that floor. A softer floor was better hard floors work. You tend to, your brain will tend to make you uncomfortable sooner on a harder floor, starting at the feet. You breathe in and you breathe out. And when I say starting at the feet, your breath wants to go in your mouth and breathe all the way through your body. As if the enter the air is filling up. Every part of you like a balloon, all the way down to your toes and out through your fingers and the top of your head, and you're gonna breathe in and you're gonna breathe out and breathe in and breathe out. Then you're going to breathe in and hold and breathe out. And you can do this for four counts, breathing in for four, holding for four, breathing out for four on the hold. You're going to tense your toes and your feet. So you'll breathe in hold, squeeze the muscles in your feet, your toes, and then breathe out and release. Then you'll breathe in. And then you hold this time. Everything below the knees, all the way down to your feet, toes, you're going to hold and breathe out and release. And we're going to add from the hips all the way down to the toes. As you breathe in you, hold squeeze your quads, your calves, your feet, your toes, your, your hamstrings and written release and let it out. Then you'll breathe in using everything from your waist down your butt, your quads, calves feet, all the way down, let it go. Then we add in the abs and the lower back. The next one. When you hold squeezing the abs, your lower back, your butt, your quads, all the way down to your toes and then release. Then you work up to your chest, your back, everything from the shoulders down goes, you haven't added the arms in yet and release. Then you'll breathe in and you'll start with your arms. Everything from your shoulders, all the way down to your hands, your chest, your back, your butt, your abs, all the way down to the toes, squeezes and release. And let it go. Then add your neck and everything down and release. Then you're going to add your face and release. Now your whole head from the top of your head to the top of your feet, your hands, arms, everything, squeezes and holds and releases. And you'll do that again. Whole body squeeze tight and hold and hold and hold and release. And again, one more time, squeeze and hold release and let it go. Now, just breathe. And as you breathe, feel the, all the spaces where there was tension, that's gone. Let the air fill those spaces. And as you breathe in, your body feels like a balloon and it relaxes, and it feels like a balloon and it relaxes. And you may start to feel your body, either sink slowly into the floor or rise slowly out of the floor, let it go, let it go. Whichever way it's going.
Speaker 1:[inaudible]
William Forchion:feel that sensation the lightness, the release of tension, and anywhere that you feel the tension, you can breathe into that space and hold again, and then let it go and release, and then just keep breathing in and out, no holds in and out and be aware of what your body is telling you. And let that go from each breath. If there's a thought that comes into your mind, as you let out the breath, as you exhale, go ahead and let out that thought. If there's any tension on your inhale, wrap that breath around the tension and on your exhale, let it go. Everything is going to be colored in that breath. If the tension isn't going, create a color for that tension, what color is it? Is it red? Is it black? Is it green? And each breath that you let out should have color of that tension going with it. Each breath should release some of the color until your breath comes out. Clear, goes in, clear, comes out, clear, releasing everything, and you can continue this until you fall asleep or you come awake. And as you do decide to come out of it slowly, let your body come back into realization of where it is slowly. Let your body start to talk to you and tell you about the things that are going on in it and let them go. And as you open your eyes, and this is a magical part of it, as you open your eyes, you'll notice that the colors around you have changed. You'll notice that there is things that you didn't. There are things that you did not notice before, even in your own space, in your comfortable space. You'll start to see things very differently. If you're lying on the floor, you may notice underneath some of your furniture, there might be something that you just hadn't seen, or from looking up at different vantage points. You might see something at a different angle. And that's part of that new awareness that you will gain through the meditation that you do. Some people become hyper aware. They start to see things very differently as if they had an infrared vision or as if, uh, their, their site and their hearing and their taste had all just been turned up slightly. If that happens for you, just be aware of it. It's okay. It may become your new normal, or you may go back to your old normal it's all right.
Speaker 3:The real meditation practice is how we live our lives from moment to moment to moment. Jon Kabat Zinn
William Forchion:meditation is to dive all the way within, beyond thought to the source of thought and pure consciousness. It enlarges the container every time you,
Speaker 3:and when you come out, you come out refreshed, filled with energy and enthusiasm for life. As I wind down this, talk on meditation, please add your comments, add your queries, add your questions through the comment section. And we can continue this conversation. I encourage you to find your way of meditating to begin your meditative practice. If you haven't begun it and to strengthen the practice you have, if you are already meditating, it's something that we need. We without getting political the world around us may seem crazy. It may appear to be out of whack, and we can follow that down the path of, out of whackness by getting ourselves out of whack or focusing on that fact that it's out of whack, or we can start to get ourselves positively manifesting. We can step into a new way of being through meditation. You want to call it relaxation, call it what you need to call it, but do it for yourself. This is as powerful as any medicine and you create it in the factory of you. It's manufactured by you for you. It's tapping into the divine, the energy of the universe, exercise your mindfulness, exercise, your mindlessness, exercise. Your I am enough, and you will discover rediscover experience a new way of being a new way of being you. And that is a miracle that is magical. That is wonderful. And I hope to hear from you about your experience. Let it, let me know what's going on. If this is working, if this podcast spoke to you, well, let me know, and I will continue doing what I do. Hoping that it, it improves and enhances. It educates it entertains you in what you do. And with that, this is the Billosophy podcast. And I am William Forchion. Go forward with passion and purpose. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1:[inaudible]
Speaker 4:Billosophy podcast. Keep checking in as we will be regularly releasing new episodes.[inaudible].