If you are really struggling – this is how Meditation can potentially save your life :)

I remember, 2016 – I was going through a series of failed (though exciting) romantic episodes – with a similar pattern – I would meet someone “exciting”, “good looking”, “fun”, “sweet” or however you may name it, feel really excited by how it looked from the outset, dive head in with my heart and soul – only for it to crash and burn (fast) each time. Whilst my life was looking well from many angles, my romantic life just wasn’t going the way I had hoped (and I was causing it, though I didn’t realize it at the time)

I was sick of the way those crash and burns left me feeling. A feeling of “not being good enough”, of hurt, and frustration, and anger, and I wanted a way out. I wanted inner peace. I wanted to stop caring so much about a romance that lasted only a few months long. I also wanted to stop making the same mistakes.

Then I remember seeing ads pop up on TM meditation, with Ellen DeGeneres, Tom Hanks, and a host of other celebrities and successful entrepreneurs highly recommending it. It promised to give you clarity, inner peace and more, and also to be easy to do and for anyone to do – that you don’t need super power focus, or to concentrate on your breath, beat yourself up mentally when you don’t, or sit in awkward positions – and I was sold.

I went to a TM centre – and learnt – how to meditate.

Fast forward to today – I meditate daily, in my morning routine without fail, and have been doing so for the last year (after a series of starting and stopping) and now I cannot imagine life without meditation, as the benefits it gives me is ten-fold the time spent doing it. The calm, the confidence, the certainty of who I am, and an innate understanding of what is truly important and what isn’t.

Here I will show you the reasons how and why, meditation, can smooth out your struggles, uplift you, and give you clarity – and potentially exciting ideas and solutions to your personal and professional problems too.

I see meditation as active resting for your brain. And also, a stepping away from your mind.

Our brain is a big complex machine that has anywhere from 20,000 – 60,000 thoughts a day (80% negative and 95%… the exact same repetitive thoughts as the day before) as per National Science Foundation, 2005. Another study in Cornell University, 2005 by Leahy, showed that 85% of what we worry about, don’t happen and that 97% of our worries are baseless and result from unfounded pessimism.

If each of us were to write out every single thought that passes through our minds, and to believe in every single one of them, and to act on them. We would potentially have very upsetting books we are not proud of, and all be locked up in a mental health ward.

Now… back to meditation.

Meditation allows us to step back from our minds, from that constant chatter – and see the thoughts (whether positive or negative) for what they really are – THOUGHTS – not REALITY.

Like watching clouds pass in the sky, meditation gives us the ability to witness those worrisome thoughts gently pass by and, not be buried underneath them.

It is a key to inner freedom. If we were prisoners of our minds – meditation is the key, to break free of that prison.

And the really exciting part about breaking free, is that you suddenly get to CHOOSE your thoughts more consciously. With that new-found awareness and knowing – that we are not our thoughts (though thoughts can be powerful and affect our actions, physiology, mood and more). We get to snap out of those worrisome cycles, and choose EMPOWERING thoughts that help us RESPOND to situations, rather than REACT.

And from gaining that awareness through meditation (watching our thoughts), we really do start to get to choose our thoughts, choose what stories we tell ourselves about events, and as a result FEEL LIGHTER and more EMPOWERED, and choose better actions as a result, and ultimately, change our lives for the better.

When we are stuck inside a cycle of negativity, we feel terrible – cortisol (our stress hormone) shoots up and we panic, and we stop thinking clearly. And from this space, we make disempowering/uncertain decisions, act fearfully, make a huge amount of faulty assumptions about other people, situations – and it can really spiral – out of hand.

Meditation brings awareness to this (the more you do it, the quicker this happens) – calms your heart rate, reduces stress, lowers your cortisol, and puts you in touch with your innate being and wisdom – and from here you can – think clearer and make better decisions.

If I were to bullet point what meditation has done/does for me personally:

– see clearly disempowering mental patterns

– change these mental patterns

– see disempowering beliefs

– change the disempowering beliefs to powerful beliefs

– feel calmer and more at peace in day to day living

– feel authentically confident and a sense of certainty of who I am

– feeling “good enough”

– feel empowered

– raise my compassion and kindness

– boost my creativity

– have new exciting ideas for my workouts, business, relationships and life

– have fresh new thoughts (get out of the repeat!)

If you would like to learn more about my meditation process, and how I do it, feel free to comment below and I will write a post on the technique of it. Or if you meditate already, please do share your experiences, benefits and thoughts!

Or to learn personally one-on-one with me, you can email me direct – at thedaringcoach@gmail.com