Meditation is a method refined over 3,000 years, handed down from the wisest monk to the next. Today it is a bonified psychology, used mostly to assuage depression, anxiety, chronic pain, addiction and OCD. It is THE number one stress reducer out there. Why? It sever's the link between negative thought and negative emotions. Therapists have a triangular model that shows the vicious cycle of negativity. It goes like this, Negative thought = negative emotion = negative behavior. (It can also go in revers by the way). Meditation asks you to take a step back and simply look upon negative thoughts and emotions without trying to change them and with no judgement. Eventually you can train yourself to let any negative thoughts, such as, I'm not good enough, to come and go without having the accompanying feelings of despair and then lashing out. Just because you have a thought, does not mean you must become that thought.
Meditation also cultivates strong feelings of self acceptance. Not of how you want to be, but of how you are right now. I love hearing stories of this actually working in people's lives, so here's a story I found in my book Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson. Barbara is a positive emotional researcher which means she and her colleagues create random assignment studies of people and what may or may not make them have more positive feelings. In one of her studies she tells of a completely random assignment that was sent out for people in the work place to sign up for. She tells of Nina, who, signed up for the experiment and happened to land in their meditation group. All participants whether they were in the meditation group or not were asked to rate their feelings and emotions at the end of every work day. In addition, the meditation group was asked to meditate for 20 minutes per day during they're lunch hour for 3 months. At the end of the study Barbara was blown away by the upsurge of positivity of the group doing meditation whereas the control group showed no visible improvement. In particular Nina's story stood out to her and she called her for an in depth interview. I'm going to paraphrase it a bit because it's a few pages long but here it is.
Nina's story: At the beginning of the study, I was so hard on myself and everyone around me. I was depressed, lonely and often teary eyed. When I got home from work I would pester my husband "why are you just sitting there when there are things to be done!" I suffered from frequent, painful migraines and stomach pains. For years I had been trying to conceive and blamed myself month after month for failing to do so. It kept coming down to "what am I doing wrong?". Most of the time I just wanted to come home from work and bang my head against a wall.
Barbara's philosophy is that if you have a ratio of 3-1 positive to negative emotions you begin to thrive in life. Nina recorded about a 1-1 on her scale. One positive thought for every negative one. Not a very flourishing life. After the study this is how Nina described her life:
I rarely have headaches anymore and the stomach pains are completely gone! I feel more confident. Certain things just tend to roll off my shoulders instead of bothering me all day long. I feel peace within myself and can share it with others around me. I connect more with others and have more compassion. Now when I get home from work I think "there's always going to be more dishes to be done, I'd rather relax right now because I love the way it makes me feel". Thank you for bringing this study into my work place. Meditation is a wonderful way to relax and I will continue to do it. It is a wonderful feeling of peace within my soul.
Nina's positivity ratio raised from a 1-1 to a 6-1! As well as her feelings of happiness, Nina also was able to conceive. Her and her husband had one older child and longed to expand their family. After the meditation study Nina decided to just let it go and reconnect with her husband. She decided that maybe they were meant to be just a family of three. Now, there's several links between positivity and conceiving but nothing proven so far yet. But after Nina learned to relax and love herself she conceived not only one but two children. Twins!
Nina is one of many stories of learning to love and accept. I can't get enough of these! Now, I realize that many of you are probably not going to start sitting down every day to meditate. All I really want is to plant the idea and make it seem not so crazy nutcase hippie woowoo. Even if you already experience peace and happiness within your life, is there any reason you DON'T want more? and more?
I suggest trying what I am going to call "the 3 minute primer". Sit down at any time of the day and set a timer so that you can let go of time. Do the breathing exercise from this blog and picture yourself as the most relaxed you've ever been. Maybe lying on a beach or taking a nap on the couch? Now, for 3 minutes simply watch your thoughts. Don't try to only have positive ones. Let whatever pops up come. Think "here comes a thought now", and watch it as it forms and dissipates without pursuing it or judging it. Also, don't get upset with yourself if you do find yourself judging a thought, saying either this is a good/bad thought. Then you will be judging the judging and will go cross eyed. No not really, but just don't complicate things for yourself. Pretend that your thoughts are cars on a train. One car comes slowly along and you get to look at it from afar, then watch it as it slowly trundles off. In between the thoughts become aware of your breathing without trying to manipulate it in any way. Try to stay in the present moment as much as possible but also remembering that you shouldn't fight off a thought if it decided to come along. This is a good way to start without getting overwhelmed for trying to find a block of time with which to meditate. Again, if you want the guided meditations you can find them on the first of my meditation blogs from Jon Kabat-Zinn.
I have so many more things I planned to say about meditation but I think it's time to move on for now.
peace and love
Janae
Thank you for continuing to post and give motivation to meditate Janae! I all too often find myself in that horrible cycle of negative thought patterns, so grateful for your advice and can't wait to share this post with Ryan tonight!
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