Trying to Meditate Can Be Bad for Your Health
When you sit to meditate do you skip the foundation steps for your practice?
Do you underestimate the impact of relaxation on your ability to quiet the mind and settle into a deeper, more sacred state?
Relax–Breathe–Center–Ground.
Ground–Breathe–Center–Relax.
Center–Relax—Ground– Breathe.
It doesn’t matter what order they are in, but taking the time to breathe, center, ground, and relax drops you into your sacred state. The sacred can’t be forced; it is entered through a gateway in your heart, a gateway you can’t anticipate, project, or create, it must arise out of your relaxed ground of consciousness.
Our minds can be very tricky. The mind can lead you to the starting point, it can provide some initial motivation, but at some point the mind must harmonize with the heart of the cosmos and release it’s grip on a lifeless reality. The mind can make you believe you are in a deep meditative state when you’re not. Very early in my practice, over 50 years ago, I was part of a study of the physiological effects of meditation. The study was primitive compared to today’s imaging techniques. It was at a time when meditation was just being noticed by medicine. I was monitored by devices that recorded my basic stats, heart-rate, brain waves, BP, etc. A deep meditative state shows up as a resting state, lower BP, slower pulse, and theta or gamma brain waves (which are actually quicker than the everyday thinking brain waves.) I THOUGHT I was in a deep state, but my body told the truth. My stats were worse when I was “trying” to meditate. Trying to meditate was stressful. I was so proud of my spiritual identity that I skipped over the fundamentals: breathing, relaxing, grounding, and centering. When those results came in I learned just how tricky my brain was. I couldn’t fool my body but gained discernment in that humbling moment. From then on, I knew when my mind was tricking me. Honestly, sometimes I don’t want to believe it’s happening, but even after 55 years as a practitioner, if I skip the fundamentals, I end up straining instead of relaxing.
So, why am I bringing this up now? The next few weeks before the holidays are usually pretty stressful. I really don’t have to describe it; you know what I mean. If you have a few minutes to devote to your meditation practice, spend that time attending to relaxing. Enjoy each breath, every moment of returning to your center, feeling each muscle relax, and reconnecting even for a few seconds with yourself in your sweet bubble, protected from the world’s stress. This is a beautiful way to celebrate yourself and the holidays.
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