zen stones and daisies

Meditate Your Way To Something Better

Here’s my story … so follow along and seriously think about taking action, at the end.

 

Peace and Tranquility At The Core

Sure, most people who have never meditated might think it’s woo-woo stuff.

I know I did and thought that for many years.

It wasn’t until recently when I bumped into a buddy and fellow XL Foundation Life Member – Jeremy Britton that my mind was made up to get serious and stop fluffing around about meditation.

early morning meditation
Jeremy and I at the beach for a 5:45AM meditation and MENifestation session

Previously, I simply didn’t know the benefits and never realised how to actually do it, in the first place.

While I have sat in on a few meditation sessions before, I was just plain confused in what I was doing and what it was I thought meditation was. The first lesson here is it’s a calming of the mind. And when you have calm, you have the mental (and some say spiritual) space to ‘allow’.

For me, it was to allow the space for gratitude, forgiveness, calm and love.

Your reasons might differ and that’s cool.

 

Do You Realise Your Own Internal Turmoil?

Modern life sees your brain in constant overdrive.

You’ll be in a continual mental battle over work, paying bills, the kids, school, your partner, fights, what’s for dinner and thousands of other things that bombard your head.

The human brain produces approximately 70,000 thoughts on an average day – WikiAnswers

Now that’s around a different thought every 1.2 seconds – enormous mental clutter.

You can now see there’s little space for mental clarity.

Nothing for inner peace.

 

How Can It Help a Relationship Though?

Meditation produces the time-out our brains and body harmony need.

  • You gain more calm
  • Balance in moods
  • Decrease stress levels
  • Derail the turmoil train

When you can gain some composure, you can then view your partner in a different light of thankfulness and gratitude. Angst towards them diminishes. The peaks and troughs of your moods smoothes out.

Stormy seas of a rocky relationship calm.

That’s worth striving towards, don’t you think?

 

No Idea How To Meditate – Any Tips?

As I said in the beginning, I stalled in meditating as it appeared difficult.

The secret was in just doing it.

Update August 5, 2016:

I’d previously recommended Meditation Timer+ app but it’s been buggy and have now found and switched to Still – there’s even an Apple Watch version if that’s of interest.

Just do a search if Still doesn’t suit your needs.

still meditation timer
Still – meditation timer

Ideally, I’ve read to meditate twice a day for 25 minutes each session is a great regular life practise to attain.

I started at 10 minutes for the first week, just to ‘do it’ and start forming the habit I knew I needed to have.

It’s a lifetime commitment to tranquility and I wanted it for me.

The main thrust to it all is realising you already have the peace you want. It’s just covered over by all those damn thoughts that keep popping in.

The trick for everyone is to recognise they are going to drift in.

Treat them as newspapers and allow them to blow back out without paying them attention.

Be OK to see them. Never beat yourself up in having more thoughts that drift in one day than another.

 

My Own Meditation Process

Remember different people do things differently – this is what works for me.

  • Sit upright comfortably with good posture – I personally avoid sitting on the floor with leg crossed as I find it uncomfortable. This is my meditation. I don’t need anyone to think I’m a Zen Master
  • Concentrate on your breathing. Deep breathes. Focus on the in and the out. You’re wanting to rid thoughts from your brain so it’s about internalising.
  • Imagine the breathe is coming in through your Mind’s Eye that’s situated just above the space between your eyes – sounds a little kooky, I know but just do this.
  • See the breathe flowing in, down into your lungs as a subtle blue light, filling them up.
  • And the reverse as you breathe out through the same process.
  • As you visualise this, blow out any ‘newspaper thoughts’ that wander in. Revert back to breathe focus.
  • Using the Still meditation timer, I have programmed it to give off Zen Bell sounds every 5 minutes which is wonderful to jolt my focus back if I have wandered off.
  • Rinse and repeat til your session completes

 

Speak Your Mind, With Your Opinion

Nice to see you made it this far so here’s what you can do next:

  • Do you think you could do with some inner peace and calm?
  • What’s stopping you from giving meditation a concerted effort?
  • Click one of the Share buttons – your friends can then enjoy this article too.

And thanks for reading too – Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Meditation - How To Get It To Improve Your Relationship 1

Enjoying newly found freedoms in South-East Asia, Martin is a down to earth, honest, quirky humor, compassionate and upfront kinda guy. Easy going and love to laugh. Into good food, wine and great company. I’ll talk and try to help anyone.
Drop me a message and let’s start there, OK?

Martin Cooney – who has written posts on GeekandJock.


12 thoughts on “Meditation – How To Get It To Improve Your Relationship”
  1. Meditation is very popular for improve the mental health and keep positive thinking. Keep the positive thinking will make people more productive and effective in their life.

  2. Hey nice, thank you for the eBook.
    Meditation is something I’ve been meaning to get into with discipline. I could do with some peace of mind, for sure. I really need to prioritize it.
    This post may be the final push for me…
    Thanks for sharing your experience

    1. You’re totally welcome, Mike.
      Though I shudder when someone says ‘I really need to …’. Well, for me anyway, I know when I say that that I’m just entering into a procrastination phase of probably not doing :)
      What would you say if I asked you to actually, right this minute, diarise just 10 minutes in the morning and the evening for practising 10 minutes of meditation?

        1. Yeah, that’s exactly why I started out with 10 minutes – the timer helps as well as a 5 minute ‘gong’ so you know things are happening as well as to remind you to stop thinking.
          I’m now at 25 minutes twice a day which is really cool. Have you started yet? :)

  3. Namaste Martin,

    I think meditation has great healing properties not just in the medical or but in all aspects of life. I certainly think that meditation can help to improve relations as well. Its amazing that the human brain can process 70000 thoughts on an average day.

    1. Namaste Sharma and thank you for your comment too.
      I was astounded by the 70000 thoughts a day statistics too when I was doing some research – amazing. That’s a lot of noise to clear out and quieten when first starting out to meditate. At least that’s my initial challenge.
      Do you have any of your own techniques in quelling the internal chatter?

  4. Brilliant article, my friend. Simple, authentic & heartfelt. Good to see that even sceptics and “old dogs” like us can learn valuable new tricks :-) It’s great that meditation gives you specific, measurable and tangible results in your life; I can easily live without coffee, alcohol, medication or meat but it’s far harder to live without a daily dose of Inner Peace. Namaste! :)

    1. Welcome Jeremy and Wow to you for making a comment too.

      Glad you liked it. I write from the heart. I’d love this message could get in the hands of much younger people than me – it’s taken 54 years for me to get to a place I’d love to see others reach by a few decades less :)

      But come on, can you really and easily live without coffee? I can understand medication but coffee!

  5. It’s funny I read this now – I just got back from Deepak’s Chopra’s Seduction of Spirit workshop in California and was taught meditation by Davidji (Yogi), Deepak gave us our Premordial Sounds and sutras. I read what you have to say my friend and YES meditation can change your life. The monkey talk will stop.

    I have committed to meditating 30 minutes twice a day. A good thing would be to go back to a sound when you see your mind drifting away. OM – may be a good sound for you – or you can use an affirmation to get back to center – like – I AM AWARE…..clearing the mind is key and if you see a thought coming – it’s okay – allow the thought and treat it like a cloud, you see the thought and then it drifts away. Don’t resist – allow – be gentle with yourself. After a while you’ll get it and it will flow – you will even get into the GAP and that’s a sweet spot to be in.

    So now when I hear issues, problems, complaints – I can truly say back to these people – MEDITATE!

    In gratitude for this valuable post and thanks for the tip on the timer,
    Nancy

    1. Wonderful to see you back here, Nancy. It’s been a while.

      Seems life is full of synchronicity … Always. As you mention about Deepak, Pam and I saw him in Brisbane a few years ago. What a humble and cool gent he is. That was probably the time I started my meditation wondering actually. He gave a short meditation ‘how to’ on the evening so it got me thinking … And here I am, eventually.

      There’s so many different ways to get to that inner peace. The first step is to make a committed first step thou and that was what I hadn’t previous done. Really cool to hear you’re into it as well.

      What was the main reason for you making the decision, if I might ask?

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