Many people start on their journeys to meditate and cultivate their minds. It’s awesome!
Yet for a majority of them, their practice of meditation is a sporadic tool or an activity that they need to find time for.
Surely, in our hectic and always changing world finding time is quite difficult. It is possible though if we get our priorities right.
Do you have 20-30 minutes for yourself a day? Start worrying if the answer is ‘No’
Meditation is in a way an expression of love to your own self. Do you love yourself enough to dedicate 20-30 minutes of your daily time to meditation?
Ones that tend to say that it is difficult to find time simply do not care about themselves enough. Because their routine, that eats all their free time, can be adjusted.
When you start practicing meditation, it starts to teach you to return to a self-compassionate mode and simply be. When you show some discipline in the beginning and form a habit of daily meditation, you will see that it is not even about loving yourself. But it is about being open and kind to everything and everyone.
What happens next is truly wonderful – you start bringing the benefits of meditation to your everyday life. Your attentiveness and love for your body will ensure that you eat well. Awareness of your eating patterns will quickly help you to eliminate usual nasties – refined sugars, processed foods, and white flour just to name a few. Kindness to others would help you to realize how awful it is to kill someone for your own food. And you will probably become vegetarian or even vegan.
When it comes to your mind, self-compassion allows you to observe your thoughts and not to cling to the disturbing ones. Remember, you are not your thoughts.
Similarly, your inner peace will allow you to be compassionate to others. But it is very difficult to be genuinely kind and warm-hearted to others if you nurture hate inside yourself. Loving-kindness then simply spreads to others in your life.
Meditation. Love. Ego. Compassion.
People think that meditation is being egoistic and spending time frivolously. And it cannot be further from the truth. You indeed develop yourself, listen to yourself clearly and view things from a calm and peaceful perspective. Yet it spreads! You actually let go of your ego’s strong grip and think about others. You wish others to be healthy, happy, safe, free from harm and peaceful. And then it spreads once again. Your own meditation, ability to feel self-compassion and love to yourself is actually important on a global level. No pressure though!
Hopefully, you will find some discipline to practice meditation on a daily basis. There are countless ways how to help you do that easier – establishing rituals and forming habits, creating cues and committing with other people. Yet quite soon you will be able to simply be better off.
Check out our basic instructions on how to start meditating or if you’re quite comfortable with it already, have a look at Vipassana Meditation guide. We wish you a good daily meditation practice. Much love and self-compassion!
