Upgrade Your Life: Why Should I Meditate?

My life before meditation was less than ideal. The start of my day was not marked by the loud buzzing of an alarm at some illogically early hour. My mornings abruptly began before my alarm went off, every single morning, with a mild panic attack that would jolt me out of sleep with a racing heart and unrelenting dread for what the day might bring. Sounds normal and healthy, right?

NO. Neither of these “ways of waking” is ideal, yet both of them usher us into a new day with a certain level of stress, pressure, and at a minimum, in an “alarming” state (pun intended). Waking up in a state of panic was not healthy for me, and meditation guided me to find freedom from these attacks. I needed to reprogram my brain to process differently and therefore live differently.

So why should YOU meditate?

On the surface, meditation is just about taking a brief pause from life, finding some room and space to breathe, and perhaps setting an intention or starting the day with a mantra. It seems so simple and innocent. You might even think it sounds useless or is perhaps a luxury reserved for celebrities and the 1%. However, don’t you also deserve some luxury in your life? The small act of daily meditation eventually forces us to learn to live in a steady state of freedom. And if that wasn’t exciting enough, 90% of illness and disease is stress-related, so you may want to start finding tools, like meditation, to prevent that from happening sooner rather than later!

Ok, ok. I’m intrigued. What’s the catch?

We are masters of ignoring and hiding from problems until everything around us crumbles. We have been conditioned to NOT confront the uncomfortable. We avoid our feelings to give us a false sense of control over them. But what that does is make us more resistant to life, pushing obstacles away from us, pulling drama towards us, and thus becoming more and more overcome by emotions when they do surface. Meditation will help you pinpoint the emotions you are feeling, recognize how they are manifesting in your body, and see how they are controlling your life. It can be overwhelming at first, but it can also be transformational.

Ok. And how will meditation and some breathing resolve this chaos?

When you align with your breath, you instantly center yourself into a state of quiet calm. During this transition into a meditative state, you will start to notice the physical sensations in the body that may have been brought on by triggered emotions. And over time, you will be able to explore and understand the root cause of these agitated responses. When we “feel the feelings” and confront them calmly, we are de-exciting the body and thus creating a new response to the trigger, which is in turn, creates order and peace. We can recognize the ebb and flow of discomfort, learn to let it wash over us, live in the present moment, and just let it pass. Over time, your old habits and learned responses will shift and release you. You will start to heal from all of the damage that was done on a cellular level and everything will get easier – productivity, energy, relationships, sleep, eating habits, etc.

Ultimately, a daily meditation practice will help you to stop living in the extremes and learn to live in the center. A small shift in your day can result in a huge shift in your life.

Interested in an individualized guided meditation session? If you have 5 minutes or 50 minutes, I got you.