Mind Calm (6 page)

Obviously, making plans about the future is inevitable and if you never again speak about your past then you might not be the most interesting dinner-party guest! So I want to be clear, I'm not saying you must ignore the past or future. If, however, you continue to ignore the Time Trap then you will find yourself getting lost in your mind, time after time, potentially forever! You will feel compelled to engage with your mind every time it produces thoughts about the past and future. Meaning that Mind Calm will continue to elude you.

With time, you will learn how to talk about the past and future, with your attention firmly rooted in the here and now. You will no longer go into time as you might now. Even if bad things have happened in your past, they won't feel so personal or emotionally intense. You will deeply know that the past is only ever a memory in your mind. That the past or future is not happening at this moment and it is safe and more serene to leave it where it belongs, and make the most of this brand new moment bursting with peace-filled potential.

Judging things as being bad, negative, wrong or worse leads to problems, and the mind becomes very active when attempting to find solutions to problems.

Resistance to perceived problems leads to stress and suffering. Whenever you feel bad then your mind becomes very active, trying to understand why you feel the way you do and all the ways you can fix, change and improve things so that you can feel good again.

Believing that x, y or z needs to happen in order to feel good and be successful leads to a busy mind full of thoughts about how to get what you think you need.

Thinking that your past and future determine your current levels of peace, happiness, love and success motivates the mind to produce lots of thoughts about what's happened or might happen.

Can you relate to any of these hidden causes? It is my hope that this chapter has been illuminating for you. So the next time your mind starts playing one of its games, you'll see it and won't feel compelled to take part in its
antics. You will find that the less you engage the mind, the less active it will be.

Most importantly, once you see these hidden causes of a busy mind, you'll find it easier to see the mind and not become lost in its inner workings. By being open to letting go of the mind when you see one of these hidden causes, then the big benefits of Mind Calm, which I'll share in the next chapter, will be your reward.

Chapter 2

THE BIG BENEFITS OF MIND CALM

Meditation can benefit anyone who makes it a priority and practises regularly. Over the past few years of teaching people from all backgrounds, I haven't met a single person who hasn't ended up benefiting from adopting a meditation routine.

Stepping back from the rigmarole of daily duties, taking a break from overthinking about the rights and wrongs of life, and scheduling in regular time-outs to close your eyes to enjoy stillness is a marvellous gift you can give yourself. Time after time, meditators experience less stress, better health, inner calm, clarity and creativity, more loving relationships and even increased productivity.

Despite meditation having such big benefits, it is quite remarkable that so few people actually do it. Having taught meditation around the world I've been fascinated to hear the many reasons people come up with as to why they don't meditate, including:

• ‘I can't do it.'
  
• ‘It's difficult.'
  
• ‘It's boring.'
  
• ‘I don't have time.'
  
• ‘I always fall asleep.'
  
• ‘It's scary.'
  
• ‘It's religious.'
  
• ‘It's satanic.' (Yes, I've honestly been told this!)
  
• ‘It's only for “tree-hugger” types.'
  

The list goes on…

Can you relate to any of these? As you continue reading, I'm confident that if you have indeed resonated with any of these reasons then you will see that they aren't true. Furthermore, having touched upon the common reasons for not meditating, the purpose of this chapter is to outline some of the big benefits possible from adopting a regular meditation routine, so that you are more motivated to meditate with the Mind Calm techniques shared later in the book.

Imagine a bathtub with a shower over it. Throughout your day the water is running, filling the bathtub. In this analogy, the bath is your body-mind and the water is stress. As you go about your day without meditation, the running water (stress) fills the bathtub (your body-mind). For
some, this stress-filled scenario can happen day in day out for decades. Closed-eye meditation is the equivalent of pulling the plug out of the bathtub and draining the water (stress). As you sit and use the Mind Calm techniques that I'll teach you later in the book, stress is released from your body. This is a completely natural process, just as when the body rests it tends to take the opportunity to let go of stored-up stress.

When combined with open-eye meditation throughout your day, it is like turning down the water to a reduced rate of flow. Engaging life from a more meditative state of mind, you become Teflon-coated, as less stress sticks to your body-mind. As a result, less stress is accrued. As you can appreciate, used together, closed- and open-eye meditation can play a big role in massively reducing the stress borne by your body, and bring with it an enhanced serenity and wellbeing.

Using meditation as you fall asleep at night can help you enter sleep at a deeper level and experience a better quality of rest. Personally, I used to need my eight hours of sleep every night or I would end up exhausted. However, these days I meditate throughout the day with my eyes open (see
‘Calm Moments' in Chapter 7
), and also meditate as I fall asleep at night. With this powerful combination I find that I don't need as many hours as I used to in order to feel full of energy the next day. This is a great way to save time and get more done during my day, but as an added benefit my relationship with sleep has improved.

Before, if I wasn't tired or couldn't get to sleep, I would lie awake worrying about how tired I would be the next day. Now, knowing that my body and mind get huge rest from meditation, I lie in bed meditating. Sometimes I fall asleep and other times I have an amazingly clear and calm meditation. Irrespective of what happens, knowing meditation rests my body and mind has liberated me from worrying about whether I'm getting enough sleep or not. So there's no need to count any more sheep to get to sleep; instead, you can gently drift off into the best night's rest with meditation.

Two of the most widely proven strategies for aiding physical healing, discovered by the scientific community and regularly recommended by modern medical professionals, have also been practised for thousands of years by ancient civilizations and are simply:

1. Reduce stress
   
2. Increase rest
   

They are also, as you've just learned, two of the major benefits from regular meditation. If you see your medical practitioner, you may get a diagnosis or a prescription medicine, but more often than not you will be recommended to go home and ‘get some rest'. This is because the body heals best when it rests.

Prolonged chronic stress can lead to living in a perpetual state of fight or flight. In such a state, assimilation, digestion and elimination of food is compromised, along with many
of the maintenance and repair projects undertaken by the body when at rest or sleep. By taking time out to meditate, you dramatically improve the physical functioning of your body and, in turn, promote your immune system and aid the healing of any physical conditions that require attention.

Angst, unease and discontentment are common by-products of a busy mind and, as you've already discovered, resistance to life is one of the most common hidden causes of an array of ‘negative' emotions. Meditation can help you rise above resistance and cultivate a healthier habit of acceptance. Through regular practice, you learn to let go of having to fix, change, improve, manage and manipulate everything in accordance with how your mind believes it needs to be for you to be OK. You start to find that you can let things be. You can change what you want, but don't need to resist life, throw a tantrum if things don't go your way or force your opinions onto others or life. You ultimately learn through your experience that the less you resist life, the more peace you naturally enjoy. It becomes the obvious choice to let things be.

Resistance
Mind Calm

Contentment is also a common by-product of the move away from resistance. You discover that discontentment happens whenever you find fault and want the moment you're in to be different in some way or another. You see that discontentment can creep into your experience of life if you are focusing too much on the gap between where you are now and where you would rather be. With
meditation you can find yourself appreciating what you already have, and as a natural consequence, feel more contented with the way things are, right now.

Low self-esteem and a lack of confidence are often the result of relying too heavily on the opinions of your mind and/or others. People experiencing low confidence can overly compare themselves to others, find fault in their current incarnation and wish they were different, better or improved.

Meditation helps you to move your attention away from the opinionated voice in your head. You no longer rely on, or need to wait for, your mind to tell you when you are deemed good enough. Instead, you accept the person you are now - warts and all. As you move into a more unconditional acceptance of yourself, you let go of conceptual criteria-based:
I'm good enough and loveable because x, y or z
. Naturally your levels of self-love increase along with your confidence and belief in your abilities.

Furthermore, as you learn to rest more into the gentle yet powerful permanent presence of your being, to your delight, you can discover that the essence and direct experience of your being is love. This love is beyond the mind and therefore beyond conditions. It is a beautiful peace-filled calm that exists within you. Within everyone! Irrespective of body shape or weight, career success or any other external gauge that you have previously used to determine if you were good enough to be loved. You can deeply know that you are, and meditation can once and for all reveal this undeniable truth.

As within as without, as the gentler, more accepting and loving that you are towards yourself, so naturally you project your inner experience outwards and become gentler, more accepting and loving of the other people in your life too.

Until you find love within yourself it can put a massive pressure on any relationship, especially intimate ones. If the other person is the source of your love, then there can be an attachment to them being a certain way for you to feel loved. Holding on and grasping can occur as you see them as the source of your love. If they go, so does love. In these sorts of love-dependent relationships, fear is prevalent. One or both parties are scared of the other person leaving and taking their love away. ‘I love you' is often said, not as a heart-based expression of love, but more for the person saying it to hear it back.

Relationships are the ultimate mirror. As you criticize yourself less, the less you need to criticize others. The less you judge yourself, the less you judge others. The more harmony you find within, the more harmony you find in your relationships. The more at peace you are within yourself, the less you need to fix, change and manage other people in your life, so that they fit with your ideas, expectations and fear-based needs. You don't need anyone to ‘complete' you as you experience yourself as a complete being, lacking nothing.