Meditation: The Gift of Turning our Awareness Inward

Most of us lead busy lifestyles where our attention is continually drawn outward.Looking outward can become a pattern that seeps into all areas of our lives, including our ways of managing the stress our busy lives create. When we feel uncomfortable we reach for a comforting food or drink or may find ourselves looking for another person to ease our sense of unease. Basically we look for something external to “fix” or to distract ourselves from our discomfort.

While looking for external fixes in moderation may be helpful, learning to turn our awareness inward may be one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves. It’s free of charge, always available to us and will take us a long way towards reducing stress in our bodies and easing the turbulence in our minds.

What is stress? You can think of stress in terms of blockages of information and energy in the body. In the more dense forms, you can feel the blockage in the form of a knotted muscle or physical pain in the body. Yet on more subtle levels we may have blockages we are unaware of throughout our bodies and we need not wait for these blockages to turn into trouble with digestion, high blood pressure or actual disease before we work towards releasing them. Even “good” changes in our lives can create stress and take its toll on our minds and bodies if we don’t nurture ourselves and take time to recharge.

Turning our awareness inward through the process of meditation is an excellent way for our bodies to throw of toxins, recharge, re-balance and renew. When we meditate we can experience the peace and stillness of our deeper self. This is the awareness we bring into our daily activity. We still experience the ups and downs of life yet as our awareness becomes more identified with our inner sense of calm we are less and less carried away by outer turbulence. In addition, during meditation our bodies access a state of “restful awareness” where we can experience: decreased heart rate, normalized blood pressure, quieter breathing, reduced stress hormones, and strengthened immunity. All just what the doctor ordered in our busy often high pressure world.

In addition to meditation, exercise, good nutrition, eliminating toxins in our environment (including eliminating toxic messages we tell ourselves, toxic images and toxic relationships), fresh air, and (yes!) laughter are all good prescriptions for reducing stress in our lives which we naturally become more drawn to as we experience the still calm of our deeper self in meditation. Thus our daily meditation practice can provide an excellent foundation from which we effortlessly begin to take better care of ourselves and enjoy life more fully.