{"id":195,"date":"2013-10-30T18:36:15","date_gmt":"2013-10-30T18:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newsite.drbarrytaylor.com\/?p=195"},"modified":"2013-11-22T19:28:23","modified_gmt":"2013-11-22T19:28:23","slug":"meditation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbarrytaylor.com\/blog\/meditation\/","title":{"rendered":"Meditation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Our lives are part of a whirlwind frenzy of engaging with the outer world to do and accomplish as much as we can<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>We are all brought up to believe deeply the more we do the better a person we are. Waste not want not! Who would be lazy enough to waste time and do nothing. Our vacations are reserved for when we go away. It is a new age orientation to appreciate the quality of what we do compared to how much can we do.\u00a0<strong>Meditation can shift us to notice qualities of being in ways most of us miss with our rational thinking.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Meditation can be seen as a time out from our focus on the outside world and a shift to a inner reality<\/strong>. Meditation is not going inside our selves for some burdensome introspective thinking process.<\/p>\n<p>There are numerous methods of meditation that can have different purposes and intended results.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Different meditations:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>help us open our hearts to experience more compassion for ourselves and others,<\/li>\n<li>increase mental clarity and increase our ability to focus,<\/li>\n<li>offer experiences for us to perceive the depth of how interconnected we are to each other and all life,<\/li>\n<li>allow us to access profound creativity,<\/li>\n<li>guide us to states of deep relaxation and peace,<\/li>\n<li>open up new areas of awareness for learning,<\/li>\n<li>support us to more easily identify, accept, express, and release negative emotions,<\/li>\n<li>effect our body in many beneficial ways, i.e decrease blood pressure, increase immune capability, more effective tissue repair, and<\/li>\n<li>have scientifically been proven to increase our capacity to heal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Meditation can be:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Silent,<\/li>\n<li>Listening to calming and soothing music, or a repetitive phrase (Mantra),<\/li>\n<li>Intentional movement: dancing, walking, running, or a martial art,<\/li>\n<li>Merging with a scene of Nature,<\/li>\n<li>Following your Breath,<\/li>\n<li>Absorbing a color from a gem or crystal,<\/li>\n<li>Gazing at a piece of art or sacred object (Yantra),<\/li>\n<li>Holding any natural object like a stone or piece of wood to connect with its energy,<\/li>\n<li>Gazing into the eye of another person and allowing yourself to connect deeply beyond your thoughts and feelings.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>MEDITATION TIPS:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Thinking is part of the natural flow of our mind.\u00a0<strong>Allow your thoughts to be. They will allow you to be.<\/strong>\u00a0Our thoughts are not the enemy. Meditation is not about stopping thinking. Meditation is a process of practicing compassion and bringing your focus back to what ever you have chosen as your object of meditation.<\/li>\n<li>About 40 years ago, I was struggling with too many thoughts while I was meditating, I asked my meditation teacher,\u00a0<strong>&#8220;How do I stop my thoughts?&#8221;<\/strong>\u00a0His answer still powerfully resides within me. &#8220;I<strong>t is OK to have thoughts when you meditate, just do not invite them to tea.&#8221; \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Relax your body<\/strong>. You can take some moments to get your body comfortable using your breath to release any tension you feel. Use a chair if you need to. Sitting with you back relaxed with your head slightly drawn pulled back is very important.<\/li>\n<li>Start slowly with\u00a0<strong>5 or 10 minutes and meditate for longer periods.<\/strong>Regular and short practice periods, provide you with more benefits than long periods where you are sitting thinking, day dreaming, and wandering.<\/li>\n<li>If possible use the\u00a0<strong>same room or place<\/strong>\u00a0in a room as often as you are able.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Give up expectations of results<\/strong>\u00a0you think you will get. Allow your meditation experience to unfold and surprise you. Be willing to just be in a meditative space and see what arises.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Look for different guided meditations i.e., Meadow Meditation with and without music in our\u00a0<a href=\"\/products\/\">Wellness Store<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>When you sign up for the Health Notes\u00a0<a href=\"\/healing-notes-newsletter\/\">newsletter<\/a>, different food, body and healing meditations will be sent to you.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our lives are part of a whirlwind frenzy of engaging with the outer world to do and accomplish as much as we<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbarrytaylor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbarrytaylor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbarrytaylor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbarrytaylor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbarrytaylor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/drbarrytaylor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1047,"href":"https:\/\/drbarrytaylor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195\/revisions\/1047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbarrytaylor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbarrytaylor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbarrytaylor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbarrytaylor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}