Meditation: The Here & Now of Life

Meditation is about being aware and awakened in every moment of our lives. It is about bringing the body and mind into a state of harmony to experience awareness. Anyone can experience it and practice it no matter what religion or background is present. It is an important practice because it is so easy to live our lives on autopilot and be pulled into fantasies, thoughts, and feelings that distract us from the here and now. Meditation isn't about ignoring our life's thoughts or repressing feelings, it is about experiencing life in it's totality of existence. With busy minds we are so easily sucked into fears and create suffering from our own thoughts. Meditation can help you to de-clutter the mind from the constant bombardment of crazy thoughts that occur daily, and help focus on being present in every moment. It is easy to practice and incorporate into your life, and can have many benefits

How to easily meditate:

1. Choose a calm and quiet environment: Find a place where you will be comfortable sitting for 10 minutes or more. Sit down in one of the postures mentioned below on a comfortable pillow. Relax the arms, head, and neck and make sure that your spine is straight. 

2. Breathe slow and deep: You can keep your eyes closed or keep them open looking down at a 45 degree angle and still keeping the neck straight. If you choose to keep your eyes open, relax them and try not to focus on any one thing. Breathe slow but do not  force your breathing. Inhaling and exhaling in a way that is comfortable for you is an important key. The first breaths are normally shallow, but as more air fills the lungs they will change to become deeper and fuller. 

3. Awareness: While breathing deep, slowly become relaxed and aware of your entire body. Focus your attention on the breath as your chest rises and falls. To achieve a deeper breath, try breathing more into the stomach rather than the chest. As you focus all your awareness on your body and breathing, thoughts may randomly arise. Do not focus on the things that come up in the mind, but simply observe their presence entering and leaving. When you see that your focus has shifted from your breath, simply bring your awareness back to your breath. The more that you focus on being present in the here and now, the easier it will be to incorporate being fully awake to ever moment in life. It may be difficult to calm the mind at first, but with practice it will become easier. 

4. Ending: When you are ready to end the session, open your eyes and stand up slowly. You want to meditate for a period of time that is comfortable for you. Starting with 10 minutes is a good place to begin, and then slowly increase the time to your personal desire. Meditation is great for relaxing the body and you may even experience a new joy for life. Be sure to incorporate your increased awareness into the rest of your daily activities even after your practice. 

Simple meditation guidelines

-Be consistent, try having a set schedule for meditation practice daily to help increase awareness on a day to day basis. Meditation isn't about being aware when you are sitting, but integrating it into the way you experience life everyday

-When you notice yourself experiencing thoughts or memories, simply watch as they pass without commenting or reacting to them. This is your bodies natural way of filtering through and de-cluttering

-It is best to meditate in the morning before eating, or hours after a meal has passed so that the mind can have a sharper focus and less distraction from digesting

-enter each session with no expectations or ideas of personal gain from meditation. Just experience it and your new awareness may spring new abundance in your life. 

Various meditation postures

For posture,you want ones that will keep your spine in perfect alignment. It isn't bad to sit cross legged, but it's harder to keep the spine straight. This is why the most effective postures are half lotus (where one foot is placed on the opposite thigh while the other is tucked close in), and full lotus (where both feet are on the opposing thigh as shown in the very center picture below). When our spines are straight we can experience a better flow of energy throughout our body and improve focus and concentration. Due to lack of flexibility, it can be difficult to attain even the half lotus or full lotus posture. The most important aspect is to be comfortable, if you are not then it is good to try one of the different positions below. 

Try meditating! I have found it to be helpful especially for calming my mind down and focusing on being present and releasing a lot of stress and anxiety as well. It may be a difficult at first to shift our awareness because we aren't used to it, but over time it will become more of who we are and it will be easier to integrate our new wisdom of ourselves and the world around us. 

Tip: If you have trouble staying focused on your breath, try incorporating a guided meditation or light calm music. 

This post is written by Michael
Adapted from: 
Image
Posture
Balancing Chi
Meditation: now or never by Steve Hagen

The Chakra's: Subtle Human Energy System (Part 1)

Throughout all of our bodies, we have seven main energy centers. Each of these centers are connected to our major organs & glands, and can govern different aspects of our body. The seven energy centers are known as the chakras. Chakra is a sanskrit word meaning "wheel." We can think of each of the chakras as spinning wheels of energy that align to different colors and vibrations. We can take in energy through each of these spinning wheels in order to fuel our bodies, and reach certain levels of vibration that can heal the organs and keep our overall bodily systems healthy and happy. Our chakra's can help explain why when we walk into a room, we can instantly feel connected or disconnected from people. We are all emitting subtle frequencies which affect each other everyday.

This post will be for introducing each of the chakras, and will help you to understand their meaning.  

In this image below, it shows how each chakra is rooted in different aspects of life, how they relate to the various colors of the rainbow, and also have individual symbolic meanings too.

Here is some information regarding each of the charkras, their location, & what parts of the body they govern:
1- Root Chakra: This is where we hold our fears. It is our security and our grounding relationship to trust, money, and our home. It is also known as our base chakra and directly relates to our physical strength, energy, and vitality. This chakra relates to our connection to earth, and the grounding to the material plane
*Location: the perineum
*Governs: lymph, blood, skeletal system 

2- Sacral/Spleen Chakra: This is our place of sexuality. This is where our desires and pleasure are rooted. This is where we feel issues of guilt, blame, and control. It contains our abilities to be social and feel intimacy
*Location: inches below the navel 
*Governs: reproductive system, lumbar, sexual organs

3- Solar Plexus/Navel Chakra: This is where our personal power comes from. Our intellect, egotistical power, and confidence are rooted in this chakra. It also governs our mental activity and is mainly associated with our personality, which we call the "ego"
*Location: the solar plexus
*Governs: muscular system, skin, sight, intestine, stomach, liver

4- Heart Chakra: This is where we hold our love and relationships. This chakra resonates the energies of love, abundance, and prosperity. It is also associated with our emotions of happiness, honesty, joy, compassion, generosity, and understanding. We forge loving relationships with this energy center, and it can help explain why it is hard to lose a loved one or go through break-ups
*Location: center of the chest
*Governs: heart, circulation, lungs

5- Throat Chakra: This is where we express actions of communication and self expression. This chakra is related to creativity and the ability to create in the physical world. Other expressions such as emotions, desires, passions, and speech can stem from the throat too. Listening to our intuition is also a grounding aspect of this chakra
*Location: base of the throat
*Governs: throat, neck, arms, hands

6- Brow Chakra: This chakra is related to our inner level of being, which we would call the spirit. This is where our consciousness sits and can govern our emotions, and lead us to take certain actions in life. It is referred to as our third eye, which can see the all knowing truth. It relates to our dreams of life, perceptions, and wisdom 
*Location: above & between the eyebrows
*Governs: forehead, nervous system, ears, temples, nose

7-Crown Chakra: The crown chakra is associated with our feeling of "onesness" to the universe. It can control our perceptions of being united or separate from one another. Since our root chakra connects us to mother earth, this chakra on the opposite spectrum, connects us to the heavenly father. It is said that this center is our connection to god, and this is where a majority of the cosmic energy of the universe can be harnessed to nourish our entire bodies and each chakra individually   
*Location: top of the head
*Governs: pineal gland, brain, eyes

Here is a picture demonstrating the different endocrine glands that each chakra is associated with:

Hopefully this introduction has helped to teach you what the chakras are, and how they relate to our experiences and the body itself. In my next post to come in the future, I will talk about ways to increase the energy into the chakras, and how we can become more connected with our bodies and the environment around us.

This post is written by Michael
Adapted from: 
Spiritual Nutrition & the Rainbow Diet by Gabriel Cousens
Chakra Energy
Chakra Image
Chakra Image 2