Life Affirming Meditation For Real Life

I listen and read bits of other people talking about, or doing meditations, and I just can’t believe how many I just stop reading or listening to as the whole clear your mind, don’t move, sit still rubbish is involved. I would believe that was the correct way, if I hadn’t been introduced to you, and it would just be something I was down on myself for not being able to do.  

C.S

Meditation is a source of natural healing and renewal, and it’s right there inside you.

Meditation and conscious self-care practices can be tremendously fun and joyful while bringing about deep and meaningful shifts in our lives, where we feel resilient in the face of challenges and enthusiastic about being ourselves.  A regular practice of inner listening puts us in touch with our wise instincts and unveils our intuition.  An effective meditation practice enhances our whole relationship with life – with other people, with our work, with our challenges and with our heartfelt dreams.

The ability to meditate is innate.  It is instinctive. Simply put, it is wired into us as part of our nervous system’s natural healing and renewing processes.  As we go through daily life, our bodies and our psyches experience wear and tear, which needs to be repaired.  Some of this repair happens when we sleep, but a great deal of it happens when we feel relaxed and at home in ourselves.  This is the key to a healthy and effective meditation practice.

 

Reasons People Find Meditation Hard

When it comes to peoples’ ideas about meditation, there is much confusion and misunderstandings. Many people think of meditation as a kind of programming that “kills off the life inside” us.  They have images of sitting in lotus, concentrating on breathing and battling to stop their mind from having any thoughts.  They think it is something time-consuming that requires discipline and focus and feel ashamed when they are too exhausted or time-poor to commit to the demands of such a practice. These stereotypes come from a tradition of meditation that was created by and for celibate men, who were monks, living thousands of years ago.  We overlook that these practices were not made for people living in the world, with jobs and relationships and we attempt to do the painful and impossible – to practice divorcing ourselves from life and our emotions.  We do not get the emotional healing we desire and worse, we become ashamed of our “inability to meditate” and feel like a failure.

At best, meditation like this can feel boring and ineffective at changing our relationship to stress.  At worst, it can injure us and make us feel devitalized and depressed.

The reason we have bodies built for meditation is because it is a natural, easeful and accessible practice – when we keep it aligned with our individuality and our lifestyle – and that is a wonderful thing.

Read more about the myths of meditation.

 

 

We Already Know How To Meditate

Have you ever been for a walk, your mind perhaps reeling with stressful thoughts or perhaps simply exhaustion, when you find yourself suddenly halted in your tracks at the sight of something amazing?  Perhaps it is a majestic sunset or the bright orb of the moon so close to the Earth you feel you could reach out and touch it. You feel compelled by it and awe-struck.  For a moment, you forget about your worries and feel a bigger touch of life, an intimacy with the mystery and beauty of the universe. Perhaps it is a body of water, shimmering with sunlight, which compels you to pause and feel the shimmering somehow merge with your mind and sweeten and relax it. Maybe it is simply the gaze of another human being upon you, a profound moment of connection.

Whether you know it or not, in this moments your body shifts into a spontaneous meditative state.

There is no particular pose to strike, no sitting still, no mind-blocking or emotion-filtering.  You are simply yourself, meeting a moment of intimacy with life.   Meanwhile, your mind-body-system shifts from sympathetic (action! Get going! Emergency!) mode to parasympathetic (rest, release, relax) and your whole body gets to hum with pleasure in a short moment of refreshment that feels timeless.

Meditation is a very ancient practice. People all over the world have been meditating for thousands of years. There are schools of meditation in almost every culture and spirituality, but long before these existed, we can assume people were exploring meditation intuitively.  Instinctively, all of us have a natural urge to meditate – to journey deep inside ourselves, if only for a moment, to the core of our being and experience something profound, connecting and renewing. Meditation is a way of accessing inner wisdom and intuition.  Extraordinary expressions of creativity have their seeds in our deep, inner lives. Our relationship to everything in the world begins with what is inside of us.  Turning within, to our source, to our home, is the most natural thing in the world to. In these moments, we allow life to nourish, heal and renew us.

Read more on How to Make Meditation Delicious.

A Personalised Practice

We are born to be alive and to be our full, real selves in this magical-mystery adventure we call life. What we really feel matters.  Our joy and our love matter and so does our tenderness and pain. Life can thrill us and challenge us in a single moment.  Modern life calls for us to show up to so many things – requiring courage, resilience, enthusiasm, ingenuity and humour.  These and all our resources need regular tending and nurturing.  The amount of time we spend with our inner life and our attitude towards ourselves when we do, has a direct impact on the quality of our outside light.  Simply put, it is essential that we spend time catching up with ourselves and allowing our bodies to process all the touches of life they have experienced while we savour the pleasure of our body relaxing in ways which are meaningful to us as the particular individual we are.

What we really desire, counts for everything.  Our yearnings, sensations, desires and passions – everything that is within us – are our connection to life.  Innate means “in built” “instinctive” “coming from within”.  The very things we love and want to do naturally and spontaneously are often our clearest gateways to meditation and to a longed-for reunion with ourselves in the magic of the life force.  When we meditate like this, we encounter our vitality and enjoy playing and exploring there.  We are literally renewed by life.  Imagine how powerful and healing it is, to be touched by all the fingers of life, as if receiving internal bodywork. This is what it is like to meditate naturally and instinctively.  As a meditation teacher and guide, cherish the fact that we are all individual and unique and that tapping into our unique essence and bathing there, is the key to a rewarding, l-enhancing – and often, life changing – meditation practice. I am there alongside you as your ally on your meditation journey and am able to offer myriad techniques that you can make work just for you, as well as helping you unlock the best meditation there is – the techniques and practices that come from within yourself.

 

You have really shaken up some of my beliefs about meditation (for the better). The ease of meditating with you compared to other methods I have been using (which are hard!) is incredible. 

L.K.

 

 Alison is so intuitive, wise and insightful. I feel very blessed to have her in my life. She has an intuitive way of understanding where you are at and helps you to see where you would like to be headed. Every time I have shared time with her she drops a very golden nugget of wisdom. She is a diamond.   

E.T