Do you lead a frenetic life and crave those peaceful moments that allow you to drift away? Or is your life calm and pretty much running as you would like? Most people, I guess, will be living somewhere between these two extremes and will experience periods of calm countered by periods of relative chaos!
Picture this: it’s been a stressful day in work – as well as dealing with your so called day job, you’ve dealt with panicky clients on the phone, your boss has had you running around putting out fires, plus you’ve had to take multiple phone calls from home as your children are on half term. By the end of the day you’re completely frazzled and want nothing more than a chilled glass of wine and a hot bath!
Instead, you brace yourself for the evening routine: drive home through rush hour traffic, arrive home, house looks like a tornado has hit it…there’s dishes in the sink, teenage friends are littering the lounge, and your pets are at your feet as they haven’t been fed…
It’s moments like this which often have me yearning for the tranquillity of a quiet meadow, a babbling stream, feet gently dipped in the flowing water and the sound of birds twittering above my head. The sun will be shining down, dappling my skin through the leaves of the tree that I sit under and there will be a serene look on my face.
For me, this sounds like perfection but this may not be representative of your ideal place; maybe you prefer a beach, a setting or rising sun, a cold drink on the porch. Whatever works for you, just take a moment to conjure up the image.
But can we capture this idyllic scene and hold it as a personal place to retreat to whenever the need arises? If we were to consider this as only being available in the real world, then being able to indulge this scene at whatever time suited us wouldn’t be realistic. The place might not even exist, leave alone be available to us whenever we wanted it.
However, there’s a huge benefit to having this place exist only within our minds, and that’s the ease with which we can access it. Further, to feel the calming relief that comes from drawing upon this image, we only need embrace it for a short amount of time – just a few minutes – and it will give us sufficient respite that we may be able to put our frantic responses to one side and respond in a calmer and more measured way.
In some ways this is the same as the old advice to ‘count to 10 before responding in anger’. It gives us a moment to compose ourselves and to create a mental screen between the situation and our response.
When life pulls us in many different directions we need to remember that we can call upon our image of relaxation to help centre or ground us. It helps us to control the rising overwhelm we may be experiencing while our thoughts remain completely private. It’s a place that is ours and nobody else may enter without our permission.
In a very small way this type of relaxation-visualisation can be an introduction to meditation. I suggest this in the loosest sense of the word as (1) there are many forms of meditation and (2) I have not formally learned ‘how’ to meditate. However, I am an advocate of the benefits of meditation which are many and well-documented.
For my own part, I have only really ‘dabbled’ in meditation, having used various guided meditations on DVD or CD but when I have followed the ritual of regular meditation there is a definite increase in my ability to pull back from the minutiae of daily life and for me to be able to see the ‘bigger picture’. But, like many things that are easy to do, it’s also far too easy to leave them out of our daily lives.
For this reason, I have, for some time been looking for a class or more formal means of learning the techniques of meditation and I think I may have finally found a class that will be both useful and convenient. This will be an experiment for me to find out if ongoing and regular meditation provides improved health benefits (I think it will!). I’ll report back in the next few months to let you know how things are progressing, but, if any of the names below are to be believed, it should be a wonderful experience!
Here’s a short list of some people who are purported or known to meditate:
- Hugh Jackman (Actor)
- Orlando Bloom (Actor)
- Sting (Singer)
- Swami Sivananda
- The Dalai Lama
- Tony Schwartz (CEO)
Looks like I’ll be in good company!
So does anyone have any advice for me? Are any of my readers meditating regularly? I’d love to hear your thoughts…you know the drill!
Photo: idleformat