Meditation is said to be the highest form of prayer. In my experience it is so much more than prayer, it is connecting to, being in, and feeling God’s presence. It is amazing how powerful meditation really is. It has completely changed my life and that is why I wanted to talk about the power of meditation today.
What started as a practice of five minutes each morning has grown into more than I could have ever imagined. It has completely changed my relationship with and understanding of God as well as my life. In just one year of doing this daily, I have found so many incredible benefits of meditation. These are:
- Reduced stress.
- Eliminates anxiety.
- Improved state of mind.
- Provides inner peace.
- Heightens intuition.
- Increased faith.
- Increased resilience.
So, it may sound silly or unlikely, but meditating regularly has completely changed my life. I started a consistent daily practice of meditating about a year ago. Initially, it was just like five minutes each morning. At first, I just focused on spending at least five minutes doing slow, deep breathing, following what many refer to as the 4-4-4 rule. This just means breathe in for a count of four, hold for a count of four, then breathe out for a count of four. I remember thinking to myself, how can this do anything? Then, after that first meditation I was amazed at how much calmer I felt that morning.
Within the first few weeks, I started asking the same question each morning: what is my guidance for today, Lord? At first, I didn’t get much, but I kept at it. It didn’t take long, and I started to get an answer. One of the first answers I remember was an image. It was really clear, and it was a small orange and yellow bird, it looked like a picture from a wildlife magazine. I knew it was a canary. I wasn’t really sure what to do with that, so I looked up canaries to see if it gave me any insight. What I found was very aligned with what I was working through at that point in time. Not to mention how random is an image of a canary popping into mind?
Not long after I started to get images, I started to ask a simple question, God, what is my guidance for today. The answer would always come in within seconds and was often just a single word, which would end up being my focus for the day. Along this same timeline, I was getting more focused on goals in certain areas of my life. I had three different buckets of goals. One was around my health and wellbeing, one around a new job, and the third around my business. So, then my morning meditation questions would be me stating my goals and asking God what is my guidance today to reach t these goals? Again, I usually got an answer in the form of a single word or other times an image.
Over the course of the past year, my meditations have continued to evolve and my connection to God has continued to grow deeper. As I’ve grown and evolved, my questions have changed. Now I ask how I can be of service. I ask what my role in manifesting my desires is. I ask for clarity on what is holding me back or what in me is resistant to or afraid of receiving my desires or achieving my goals. My meditations have also increased in duration and frequency. Now I’m meditating at least 3 times a day. Now, I not only receive answers in the same forms, but I also feel the connection to God in my body and my spiritual gifts have been activated and have continued to grow stronger. The more I lean into God through meditation, the further he takes me into my own healing and spiritual growth.
So, as I mentioned before, there are many benefits I have come to experience from meditation. These are:
- Reduced stress.
This may seem obvious, but then again, if you don’t meditate, it may not. Because of the deep breathing and turning your focus inward and quieting the mind, meditation will reduce your stress. This is one reason I’ve added more of it through my day. When I catch myself feeling stressed or my mood or energy starts to feel low, I know I need to stop and take a few breaths. It can reduce stress in as few as three breaths, especially if you are in the habit of meditating frequently. - Eliminates anxiety.
Anxiety is a form of stress and also a product of it. I’ve learned it’s self-inflicted too, all because we allow our mind to control us instead of the other way around. I used to spend hours playing the negative or scary what-if game in my mind. Going over some situation I was in or something that happened, which would turn into a series of what-if movies in my mind, which would then have me wound up, worried, anxious, and sometimes going into a panic attack.
I could never see it at the time, but it was all self-inflicted because it was all in my mind. Literally just my brain coming up with all kinds of terrible scenarios. With meditation, along with other habits I have developed to improve my mindset and my health, I have overcome anxiety. I went from not being able to fall asleep and having panic attacks to no anxiety. Meditation has been a huge factor in eliminating my anxiety. One reason for this is the deep breathing literally calms the central nervous system down, countering the effects of anxiety. Another reason is that with practice, you learn how to quiet and redirect the mind through meditation. - Improved state of mind.
When you consistently practice meditation you will improve your state of mind. This is partly because you feel better from meditation. It also redirects your mind from all other thoughts and concerns. This brings you inward and helps you recenter and get a fresh perspective, which helps improve your overall state of mind. - Provides inner peace.
Similar to what I said for the previous two, meditation draws you inward. It helps you clear your mind of all that is going on. You are practicing deep breathing, which calms the central nervous system. You are connecting to yourself and to God. With regular practice you will begin to achieve a more peaceful state day-to-day. - Heightens intuition.
As I mentioned earlier, after consistently practicing meditating for some time and as I increased how much I was meditating through the day, my intuition started getting stronger. This is because you are going inward in meditation. You are tuning into yourself, therefore you can actually hear the inner voice you have always had but weren’t able to hear before. As you do this more often and consistently you will learn to trust it and allow it to guide you more. - Increased faith.
Through meditation you can connect to God. You can feel His energy. You can receive his guidance. You will begin to recognize in your day-to-day how you are being led and guided and how present God really is all the time. This will help to increase your faith. You will start to learn to have more courage and confidence in the guidance you get and with each step in faith you take, you will find that God will meet you. The more this happens the stronger your faith will grow. - Increased resilience.
I started my meditation practice at a time when I was going through a tremendous amount of change. Looking back, I am not sure I would have come through it all without mediation. It gave me increased resilience that was critical for me to move through this season of my life.
So, these are the many benefits I have experienced from meditation. It seems so simple and insignificant, but it is far more powerful than people tend to give it credit for. It has literally changed my life and it has changed me. I’m speaking about this and walking in faith more in depth in a free master class on my personal Facebook page as part of a three part, free master class, called Believe. Check out my Facebook, Rachelle Weiss if you are interested. It will also be available on my page after. The free master class is from June 27-30, 7PM MST. I hope to see you there!
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