Dissecting Meditation And Its Power

I don't understand why everything bad happens to me.

I struggle remaining focused on barely anything.

There are no future plans as I'm battling the present.

I need a few drinks to start feeling myself.

There is anxiety, fear, suffering, angriness, and they are there for a good reason. Through them we can understand and feel peace, love and calm.

Most people misunderstand the foundation of practising meditation. It's not meant to make you invincible in a way there will no longer exist negative emotions.

Meditation is about developing the capability of becoming educated and strong enough to be able to handle negative experiences.

When I was in high-school, most of what I've learned was forgotten in a few days. Because in school we usually had just the theoretical part, without practising.

I suppose you know where I'm going with this. Maybe you already know a lot about meditation, but because you did not practise it enough, the knowledge doesn't serve you much.

Be grateful for difficult experiences, they are the best to teach you what being strong and peaceful means.

Another common supposition is that meditation is tight to a religion. This is usually contributing in the way people not being open to at least try to meditate because it is unheard in their religion.

To emphasize this, meditation is not about a religion, they are independent, with different scopes. This is not going to affect in any way your current beliefs or values. In fact, it's meant to discover the unknown and strengthen your core values, no matter what area they would apply to.

What's true though, meditation comes from buddhism, which at base, it's a philosophy rather than a religion.

What do you earn by practising meditation?

Before diving into its benefits, I want to talk about the reason I started meditation in the first place.

In 2021, I was led by ego, narcissism, perfection, anxiety and the feeling of being lost in life. It was exhausting. I was afraid to remain present because I had to deal with my fears and the lack of controlling every aspect of my mind.

"The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts." – Marcus Aurelius

One day, I stumbled upon a meditation video on YouTube, and it felt like a good new way to try helping myself out. I got frustrated at first, because I couldn't remain there, focused, without any thoughts floating around.

Practising day, after day, after day, I eventually managed to understand that the way of clearing my thoughts were exactly the things I was running away from: silence, solitude, stillness and staying with them. I talked about my experience in solitude in this letter.

I started to go as far as possible with every fear and anxiety I had in my meditations and mindfulness moments, understanding that there's a solution for everything and that the evil is not that evil.

And of course, almost 90% of my anxious thoughts have never happened in real life.

Shortly said, these are the traits I learned and developed since I've started to meditate:

• the courage to start watching my present, and not running away from myself
• the discipline to practice again and again
• living the present moment - not depressed because of the past, not anxious about the future
• solitude - to discover who I am and who I want to become
• the strength to face any situation I'd be put into
• empathy to stop judging myself
• stillness to be able to watch, observe respond, instead of instantly reacting to the exterior
• compassion to offer myself what I truly need

The 2 types of meditation

Before going any further, I want to bring awareness towards 2 things.

First, there are incredibly many type of meditation, done in many ways, with different purposes, but the outcome remains the same: clarity.

Examples are chanting mantras, mindfulness, focusing on the breath and many more.

Secondly, mindfulness can be done either as standalone, or as part of meditation. Mindfulness is about being present in any point of time, observing and feeling the surroundings, the actions, your emotions, your thoughts.

Some examples would be eating, walking, working, reading, overthinking. Everything you do in the present moment. Observe it, live it.

Mindfulness represents the intention of being present with your thoughts, as opposed to what many suggest to have your mind free of them.

The first type - rational

If you're just starting to meditate and you're like I've been in my past, skeptic, I'd rather choose this way.

This is about setting a goal that can be achieved very fast, right after your first meditation.

You'll prove yourself that you can stay focused and still. What you're going to do:

• Set the intention to accomplish this level of focus and stillness
• Breath in and out, slowly, deep, as many times you need; feel your heart becoming relaxed
• Your eyes can be closed or simply stare at a wall, in a fixed point
• There's nothing to bother you, as you're enjoying a 5 minutes long moment filled by peace

With all the rationality, you'd be surprised how long 5 minutes actually feel when your mind starts to cool down.

The first type - spiritual

The spiritual way is about exploring anything we did not experienced, owned, accomplished or felt yet, but we are thriving towards them.

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.

We need to believe in the purest form, like Henri Coanda believed that humans can fly - and invented the airplane. And similar steps are to be done:

• Set your intention - what do you want to visualize?
• Breath in and out, slowly, deep, as many times you need; your shoulders will come down, relaxed
• Keep you eyes closed, because your future is not yet here, let yourself infinite background to picture it exactly how you want it to be
• With your eyes closed, look towards your forehead; there will be some tension in your eyes which goes in a few seconds
• Let yourself float and wander through everything you want to accomplish in the future

I hope this exercise will guide you towards being more confident about the aspects in your life which you are going to accomplish soon.

I've mentioned in the previous mail about my first guide to discover and understand yourself better, but the link was inaccessible. I am sorry for that.

You can find it at 21 Days To Discovering Yourself. Don't forget the password: self-discovery

Letter's Quest

I would like to emphasize the importance of practicing both types of analyses during meditation that we've discussed.

It's important because being rational in your meditation will unveil root cause of feelings or emotions not belonging to you, traumas blocking your way forwards in life and many more.

While being spiritual permits you to believe in you capable of accomplishing your aspirations. Visualize, enrich, feel and live them in your meditations. Be an observer of how that life would be if it'd be real already.

Combine rational with spiritual and watch yourself healing from your past and succeeding towards the life you'd love to have.

You are going to look for 2 aspects in your life that are building up stress. Bring them in your rational meditation and just observe everything related to them. Don't impose any limits, as our brain has the capacity to go very far to gather information.

On the other hand, for 2 other meditations, which are going to be spiritual oriented, bring 2 scenarios in your life that you crave, but require more time to accomplish.

Let your mind picture them in details, what traits and values do you need to reach that scenario, who are your friends, where do you get inspired from. Again, there are no limits.

Meditation should become your anytime accessible portal towards freedom guidance, where you have nothing to lose.

Until the next letter, I wish you success in everything you're up to!