Meditation
Life is always going to challenge us. By taking time to pause, notice and breathe, we give ourselves the opportunity to gather ourselves before he busyness of our lives take over. Being skillful in this way, support us through life, and with the increasing pace and complexity of life, emotional agility is an ever more urgent necessity. We are able to cultivate the ability to be fully present and available. We start to notice uncomfortable feelings and thoughts rather than be entangled with them. Meditation allows observation with greater sensitivity, focus and emotional clarity.
We are expected to deal with the influx of so much information, media, and expectations. These external forces create internal stress. It is so very easy to get lost if we don’t know how to gather ourselves. Practices that create space in our lives empower us to regulate our responses, which in turn, affects our choices. Studies out of Harvard have shown show that the brain’s functionality is increased through mindfulness, supporting the ability to focus. This has a flow on effect, increasing competence, memory, creativity, mood, relationships, health, and flexibility.
Benefits from meditation include:
managing and reducing the impact of stress
enhanced ability to regulate emotional responses
increased emotional well-being and stability
decreased impulsivity
increased focus and attention
improved cognitive and executive functioning
decreased anxiety, depression and other affective symptoms
reduced blood pressure
improved eating habits
improvement in sleep
increased self-esteem
Come and join us for a session to learn the basics, ask questions & practice, so you can take home some simple techniques to integrate into your life.
An ancient practice that has so much relevance for our modern world.
We do meditation to become familiar with our nervous system & help manage our stress response. Meditation, is simply one conscious breath in, and one conscious breath out. And then we repeat.
The difficulty is in maintaining attention, so we set up a practice, and we do it regularly, so our body builds the habit, and responds.
Under stress, our body goes through physical, emotional and physiological changes. Some stress is good. However, being in a stress response for an extended period is not good – our digestion, immunity, fertility, organ and mental health are all compromised in a constant state of stress.
Paying attention to what is happening (mindfulness) brings awareness to our life, and in doing so, we have the ability to directly influence the course of our responses to what is going on. Everyone has time to meditate. By looking at how we spend our time, and where there are ‘leaks’, or time wasters, we can gradually integrate other sustainable practices.