Mindfulness & Meditation – Useful Steps

The transformation process with meditation is gradual. With meditation, the goal is to cease the Ego mind from chattering. All thoughts are meant to slowly fade away with patience, which can be frustrating at first, especially if you have a busy mind, but the more you simply ignore the thoughts that occupy your reality, the more the thoughts will ignore you. Eventually they fade away and all that remains is a state of balance and feeling centered, without stress, and without desire to fix something that you see as a problem in your life. All worries, however small or big in magnitude for that moment in time of being present with your inner world cease to exist.

In meditation, as thoughts begin to subside, layers of the ego unravel, allowing this intangible thing that is called YOU to exist without restraint. When you stop meditating, those layers come back, piling on top of one and other, making the mind feel heavy and caged once again. For one who commits him/herself to meditation, a gradual desire to free the mind begins. Life becomes more meaningful by letting go of the things that keep you from being present, happy, and productive.

The more you meditate, the more you will begin to notice the difference between how you feel when you meditate, and how you feel when you live your daily life. As you go about your day while worries and stresses make their way back into your reality, you’ll gradually begin to become more mindful of your thoughts. The responsible meditator will come to realize that their negative thoughts and feelings are what’s hindering the enjoyment of their reality. The choice of being mindful of those thoughts and feelings, or indulging in them will be up to you, but your awareness of becoming more perceptive to how you’re thoughts keep you from feeling centered will be heightened. This is part of what it means to become more in tune with yourself as many people who carry themselves unhappily through this existence are not in tune with the traits within them that are keeping them from happiness. Once you’re in tune with those traits, not just feeling them but objectively observing them, you can more easily process and let them go.

In meditation, the more you practice, the more mindful you’ll become of your thoughts and their sources. The point of meditation is to relax the mind, allowing it to be free of thoughts. Through this process you become more aware of how you feel when you are free of thoughts. You will notice how calm and stress-free you feel when in a meditative state of mind. This may induce an altered state of consciousness that is different from your regular conscious mind. As you practice meditation more and more, you will notice how your thoughts creep in and chip away at your ideal state of being present. You’ll notice the difference between how you feel when meditating and how you feel when you aren’t meditating. As you become aware of how you feel and how your thoughts distance you from how you feel when meditating, you will gradually make changes in how you think and you’ll begin to let go of all the unnecessary thoughts that distract you from being present.

You evolve through meditation by maintaining presence and centering yourself throughout all situations in life. It’s not easy to do all the time, but just being mindful of your ability to do it is a powerful step in the right direction. Our busy modern lives do not allow us to meditate all day long, nor would we want to when there is much to see and experience in this world, so the best we can do is to try to be as aware and mindful as possible when we’re within our regular states of consciousness. Be mindful of the negative self-talk of the neocortex(thinking brain) and the emotional baggage of the subconscious mind. This can only be done if we take care to process and let go of all the thoughts and emotions that keep us from being centered.

Meditation allows one to understand that our mind without all the conditioning of the ego is already balanced and centered. Who we are at the center of any chaos we may have in our life is all we need to feel complete and navigate through this world.

As you meditate more consistently, you may experience what is known as an ego death, the process of losing oneself to find oneself.

The Ego death dismantles everything that is trivial and unimportant in life. Ego death is the experience of a state of being that is free of the attachments used to form the personal identity filters that interpret your day to day experiences. The experience of Ego loss gives you a glimpse at how significant and/or insignificant these attachments are, and how they have been affecting your life.

Perspective and paradigm shifts are often accompanied with ego loss. Although you may feel inspired to do so, allow your experience to sink in and process before making any radical changes in your life. Use the experience as a resource to weigh the pros and cons of your new path and perspective. Do not make rash decisions immediately after the experience of ego death.