Throughout all the ups and downs of my life; during my times of greatest inspiration, as well as those of equally great disappointment, there’s been one very simple thing which has always helped to keep me centered, and which I feel quite confident in recommending to really anyone out there reading this. The thing I’m referring to is meditation. Of course, there is a lot of debate about meditation, about whether it works or not, and just what exactly it’s even supposed to work for anyway. A lot of the debate surrounding it is also due to the fact that meditation is associated, at least in a lot of people’s minds, with religious beliefs, or with occult or esoteric practices. Now, although meditation indeed has its roots in the mystical traditions of mostly all the great world religions, I really think it is something that can benefit each and every single one of us, whether we are religious or spiritual or none of those. Even if we set aside any religious or supernatural implications, meditation is still obviously beneficial for us. One of its greatest benefits is simply allowing us a moment to ourselves. Not only a moment to ourselves, but a truly peaceful moment to ourselves. We are all aware of just how fast-paced a planet we live in, and I’m sure we can all agree that we need more moments of peace in our lives if we plan on remaining sane. We might not be consciously thinking about whatever is stressing us out, so we might think the stress isn’t there, since we’ve decided to revisit that specific issue at a later date. We would be surprised to find that the stress of that situation is floating around in our minds, and is indeed affecting us in the decisions we make during our day to day lives. A lot of times, meditating and just focusing on my breath, or on the stillness and quiet of the present moment, not only shows me that I’ve been letting certain stress affect me, but also allows me to diffuse some of that stress, simply by having taken the time to be still and relax. Now, this takes me into another amazing benefit of a constant meditation practice. These days, more and more of the content we consume is delivered to us in short snippets, whether it’s in the form of TikTok videos, Instagram reels, YouTube shorts, or even commercials and advertisements of all kinds. By constantly engaging with this type of content, we are training our minds to seek out constant stimulus, and we are adjusting our brains to further fit into the fast-paced nature of the society we live in. The more we become used to things quickly changing, we the easier it is for us to become bored by anything which requires us to hold our attention on it for a longer span of time. Meditation is a way to counter this damage, since it allows us to focus, even if for a short period of time like five or ten minutes. When we meditate, we are free of distractions. Our thoughts might distract us, but it is only us and them. We can learn to remain present and focused even in the face of our own mind. At least we don’t have any external stimulus to make the task harder for us.
I appreciate you reading!
rebel eye 