Just imagine. You’re sitting in a quiet space, your breath the only thing creating the sound waves around you. Feeling all the sensations in your body and being fully aware of your thoughts, both good and bad.
It might sound a little scary and uncomfortable, but that’s part of what meditation does.
Not many people feel comfortable being by themselves or being in silence. Silence forces you to be alone with your thoughts and let’s face it, we’re not always thinking about butterflies and rainbows. We’re usually worrying about trying to find a job to start saving money, trying to balance a relationship with friends and your significant other and a bunch of other things all while trying to be a hard working college student.
Everyone has a different way of dealing with stress, volatile emotions and negative people in their lives. But most of these ways have people escape from the problems instead of facing them head first. Meditating lets you face those problems head first.
To meditate you don’t have to be surrounded by candles with your legs crossed and your hands on your knees. Meditating is just a practice that centers yourself and helps you peacefully connect your physical, mental and spiritual self.
Meditating isn’t about forcing your thoughts out of your head; That’s impossible. It’s about being aware of those thoughts and how it makes you feel emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually. Once you’re aware, now is the time to accept those feelings and let it naturally go through you.
It becomes such a relief when you don’t allow your thoughts to constantly control you. And yes you will definitely have slip ups because meditating is hard. It’s hard because you are just focused on the present moment, whatever it is you might be doing while meditating; Cooking, running, driving, laying down. We’re not used to being fully aware of how our body and mind feels. But it is definitely worth the try.
I know when I started to meditate, I became less stressed, a much more positive person, and probably the most important, I became more grateful. Grateful for the small moments as much as the big ones. It’s such a rewarding experience to meditate and to come out of it with a better view of the world and my own life and have a weight lifted off my shoulders.
If you haven’t found a way to get out of a stressful or negative mindset, meditating is a glorifying way to try doing something different that might just help with any difficult situation you’re going through.