1. We’re always becoming someone else.
Life is gradual, and so is change. If we keep trusting our instincts and moving towards what feels right, our lives will improve. It may not seem like it in the short term because real personal growth is slow. But trust the process–one day, it’ll hit you how much lighter you’ve become.
2. Calming the body calms the mind.
When the body is full of tension, the mind thinks it is under a physical threat–even if the environment is safe. This makes the mind race and feel anxious. Calming the body with slow breathing sends signals to your brain that your body is safe. Doing this relaxes the mind and eases stress.
3. Focus is a cultivated skill.
We often think focusing, especially for a long time, is difficult. The truth is that it isn’t hard–it just takes practice. Like any skill, the more you practice intentionally focusing on something, the stronger your focus will become.
4. Anxiety isn’t forever.
Since our anxiety usually starts at a young age, it’s easy for us to think it’s an unchangeable part of “who we are.” However, meditation has the power to rewire our brains. It can shift our default nervous system state from “fight or flight” to “rest and relax.” From here, we can live anxiety-free. I have experienced this firsthand. In a short time, I went from feeling anxious all the time to never feeling anxious at all.
5. Calmness creates confidence.
When we aren’t calm, we react to life out of fear or panic. Doing this takes away our power and makes us make blurry decisions. Cultivating a sense of inner peace helps us live in the present, which allows us to feel grounded and make the mindful and deliberate choices we want.
6. Perception is only a story.
Our minds create stories about reality. So, we make assumptions about what’s going on in our lives. We assume people’s motives and feelings and why some things are happening as they are. This gives us a false sense of truth, creating tension and leading us to make bad decisions. Remembering that our perception is a story helps us think more clearly and avoid needless emotional pain.
7. Anger, Fear, and Desire are illusions.
We believe what we desire will make us feel fulfilled, so much so that it controls our behavior. But in reality, acting on our desires only leaves us wanting more. The key is recognizing this so we aren’t controlled by our fleeting thoughts. Doing so will help us live with greater clarity and freedom from suffering. That’s not to say we shouldn’t enjoy ourselves—we absolutely should. We should just do so consciously rather than being possessed by our whims.
8. Peace is accepting reality, not fighting it.
The faster we can accept the truth about what’s happening in our lives, the happier we will be. Yet, because some truths are hard, it’s tempting to ignore them. Living in denial only prolongs our pain. We should accept things for how they are and confront reality. The sooner we do, the sooner we can move on to more peaceful living.
9. Our will is way stronger than we realize.
It’s easy for us to shortchange ourselves. If we aren’t used to applying our will, we’ll stop trying when we hit some resistance. However, we are capable of far more than we can imagine. We simply have to learn to shift our mindset from one that backs off to one that persists when we meet new challenges. Even doing so once is often enough to prove to ourselves that we are far stronger than we realize.
Whenever you’re ready, there are three ways I can help you learn to meditate or improve your current practice.
Release Into Now: Join thousands of people who have learned to meditate using my breakthrough six-week meditation course. You will learn the fundamentals of meditation and how to set yourself up with a thriving lifelong practice that works just as you want it to.
Guided Meditations: Bring expert guidance to your meditation practice. I offer a wide selection of meditation guidance–visualizations, letting go, simple breathing techniques, personal insights, and much more.
Coming Home: This meditation master class is an immersive, twelve-part series that starts simple and goes as deep as it gets. Go from beginner to master with expert guidance–improving every aspect of your life along the way.
Meditation has probably saved my life, for many of the reasons you outline here. Thanks for sharing.
Love this. Forwarded to a friend who needed this today 🩵