I’ve decided to start a meditation habit.
I want to start this habit because of all the lovely health and “success” benefits that it promises. Now, this is not the first time that I’ve tried to be a “good little meditator.” About two months ago I successfully meditated for five minutes every day for 2 weeks. It was great. I got to cross “meditate” off my to-do list every day for fourteen days, and I even enjoyed it. Sort of.
Okay, the meditating in my living room between my sofa and dirty coffee table wasn’t super awesome. And not because I was thinking of cleaning the coffee table, because I wasn’t (it’s uncleanable). Placed at the end of my already busy mornings, meditation just felt like a chore. A chore that demanded I stop thinking, which made me feel EVEN MORE annoyed because I don’t have time to not think.
I’m suddenly reminded of that annoying Zen proverb: “If you don’t have time to meditate for 15 minutes… Then you need to meditate for an hour!” Yeah right.
Why Do I Want to Meditate?
When I think of meditation, I think of the ritzy elite. But what came first? Because I can’t really answer that question, I’m going to make a grand assumption that meditation came first. And because I want an abundant life (ie. be happy, successful and financially free), I’ve decided to try the practice one more time.
According to this article, some notable people who maintain a meditation habit are: Lena Dunham (writer of girls), Naomi Watts, Clint Eastwood, Ellen DeGeneres and (of course) Ophrah!
What are the Benefits of Meditation?
So why start a meditation habit? Before committing to this new habit, I decided to spend some time doing a little bit of research. This is what I came up with:
Be Crazy Successful
- Increase your productivity and get crazy inhuman amounts of work done each day.
- Increase the amount of synchronistic events in your life, as in the amount of times you say: “that was a weird coincidence.”
- Increase your creative output, and the amount of creative ideas that you have
- Develop a keen intuition (the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning)
- Have a better memory (so you can remember people’s names)
- Improve your ability to focus
Be Emotionally On Top of It
- Have less anxiety
- Be less likely to get stressed out
- Be less likely to worry
- Get over your fears and phobias
- Be fearless
- Be happy
Be Awesome
- Like yourself more
- Be more joyful – laugh and smile more
- Keep your mind young
- Easily remove bad habits
- Need less sleep
- Also, it apparently gives you these valuable attributes and strengths:
- 1. Will Power!
- 2. Self-Confidence
- 3. Intelligence (OED: The ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills)
- 4. Wisdom (OED: The quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgement)
Be a Better Person
- Be more empathetic
- Be emotionally stable
- Have a balanced personality (ie. not crazy)
- Have more energy so that you can do awesome things
- Be forgiving
- Be optimistic
- Be positive
Be Beautiful
- Slow aging
- Be happy (I’m repeating this, but I think happy people are generally more beautiful)
- Stop sweating so much
- Naturally achieve your ideal weight
Be Crazy Healthy!
- Have a better immune system
- Decreases bloating and other symptoms associated with irritable bowel syndrome
- lower blood pressure – because you’re now less responsive to stress
- Combat infertility – in case you want to have a baby
- have less muscular tension (teeth grinding, etc)
So, basically meditation can do everything. So here we go. With TONS of forms of meditation to choose from, I’m starting this week off with Abraham Hick’s guided meditations.
Sources
How Meditation Makes You Fearless
What Happens To Your Brain When You Meditate (And How it Benefits You)