5 Great Reasons…
to put Meditation at the top of your New Year’s Rejuvenation Plan.
by Michael Gornik
Among countless methods we may choose to improve our lives in the coming year, there is arguably one method in particular, that is by far the most effective. A commitment to starting, deepening, and lengthening your meditation practice may be your most powerful choice.
Here’s why:
1) No matter what other changes or improvements you are striving to make; no matter what you are seeking in life; meditation can help you attain it. A prominent feature of our nervous system is its tendency, once having established a particular pattern, to continue in that same neural pathway indefinitely. This propensity toward habit is exactly what meditation counteracts, allowing us greater ‘neural plasticity’ and the ability to change any other aspect of our lives much more readily.
2) Almost invariably, the things we enjoy most in life are those that require or inspire us to become completely present and focused. What if we could become so adept at being present that even the most mundane activities held that same level of awareness; we could become profoundly aware of the beauty in every moment! Meditation is the practice of this skill: to become so conscious and present that eventually just being becomes completely enjoyable.
3) Our emotional lives are often fraught with intense, confusing, and conflicting feelings and desires. This tangled web can easily become a prominent feature of our lives and even of our identity. Meditation injects an intuitive calmness into this tortured story helping us to see and understand ourselves in a much larger context. We cannot possibly learn to love ourselves until we know ourselves. Through meditation-born calmness, we are given the opportunity to see, understand, know, and love ourselves for who, what, and wherever we are.
4) The outer influences of our lives: friends, families, communities, society, exert a monumental burden of expectation and limitation on each of us. How are we to walk our own path; find our own unique expression of life? Meditation awakens intuition. That ‘still small voice’ within us (which becomes more audible when we listen carefully) is un-prejudiced by these influences and can guide us on the best path.
5) Finally, in deepest meditation, when all the storms of restlessness and striving have ceased, we come to a much fuller knowing of our true Selves. This is the goal of yoga and the greatest joy of life: knowing and feeling that constant connection to our essence in Spirit.
