Meditate Your Way to Happiness

Imagine being happier by taking 2 minutes a day to meditate. Yep, 2 minutes only. Really. 

More and more, research is proving that a regular meditation practice lowers stress, anxiety and blood pressure levels while increasing attention, focus, calmness and a sense of peace.

While most people meditate longer than 2 minutes, even 2 minutes can help. For those two minutes you aren’t multitasking and therefore you’re giving your brain a stress break.

See? A happy making situation.

“I can’t meditate because I can never stop my thoughts.”

This is the biggest complaint I hear from people when I tell them how meditation not only keeps me grounded but helps me deal with stress.

Meditation is not about stopping your thoughts. It is about being aware of them but not engaging in them.

You will never be able to totally stop your thoughts. If you didn’t have thoughts, you wouldn’t be breathing. You would be free of stress though 😉

When a thought comes to mind, and it will, just observe it. Watch it like you would a train going by. It comes into your field of awareness and passes out of your field of awareness. Don’t engage it.

What do I mean by not engaging in the thought? For example, you are meditating and think “I have to go to the grocery store today.” Rather than diving into that thought further with “And I have to pick up bread, mayonnaise, cereal, etc.” just imagine the thought moving by. There will be a different one right behind it. Do the same for that one, too.

With practice, will get better at this and your thoughts will slow down.

If you can start and sustain a meditation practice you won’t regret it and you will be happier.

Here are 5 of my tips that I hope will help you.

  1. Don’t worry about “doing it right”. This is everyone’s worry. If you are sitting in stillness and silence, you are meditating correctly.
  1. Start small. Don’t try to meditate for 30 minutes your first time out. That’s like trying to run a marathon on your first outing. Start with 2 minutes a day. You can work up from there.
  1. Don’t beat yourself up for engaging in your thoughts. It’s going to happen. It happens to everyone. Just pull yourself out of your thought and refocus on your breathing or your mantra.
  1. Don’t worry about what others are doing. Deepak Chopra meditates for 2 hours everyday. Ha! That’s never going to be me. I experimented and learned 20 minutes is just right for me and that’s all I care about.
  1. Don’t give up! Everyone’s time is precious but if you stick with a regular practice, it will make a huge difference in your life.

Meditation Resources

There are many different types of meditation. You can sit in silence and listen to your breathing. You can silently repeat a mantra to yourself. You can focus on an image. You can listen to music. And so on.

Here are a few places to learn more about a few of the different types of meditation practices

Primordial Sound Meditation http://www.chopra.com/ccl/what-is-primordial-sound-meditation

(The Chopra Center also offers free Meditation experiences a few times a year. I’ve done many of them and highly recommend them. One of my favourites was called “Finding your Flow” and was based on the 7 Chakras.)

Mindfulness Meditation http://franticworld.com/free-meditations-from-mindfulness/

(These are free mindfulness mediations you can try. I haven’t tried them nor have I read the related book. This was a referral in Arianna Huffington’s book “Thrive”)

Your public library. Libraries usually carry a number of books and cds on mediation. You can try out several at no cost!

Do you meditate? How has it helped you? We are interested in hearing about your experiences. Please comment below, on our FaceBook page or on Twitter.

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Overcome Your Fear of Spirits

Do You Fear Spirits? You’re Not Alone. We Can Help.

Fear is a normal reaction

Except for babies and young children, fear is pretty much everyone’s first reaction when they encounter spirits. It certainly was for us. Knowing where it comes from is the first step in overcoming it.

Fear of the unknown

I think its fair to say that many of us fear the unknown. The first time we do or try anything, it’s a little scary because we don’t know what is going to happen or what to expect.

This applies when you first encounter a spirit. You most likely weren’t expecting it and a typical reaction is “What the heck?” And you’re scared. Not surprising at all.

Fiction helps fuel it

Writers and Hollywood have also done a great job of instilling fear of Spirit in the general populace. Amityville Horror. The Exorcist. Poltergeist. The Shining. (I’m showing my age…) The Others. Paranormal Activity. And let’s not forget all the scary stories we tell each other growing up. Doesn’t do much to make you confident that spirits are loving and kind, does it?

We all dread bad news

None of us like to get bad news. We fear it. And we fear that spirits are going to bring us bad news. We might be even be afraid that our passed loved ones are going to say something to upset us. Avoidance often becomes our choice.

Here is How You Can Overcome Your Fears:

Stop and think

If you have had visits from Spirit before or they are happening now, take a moment to think about what actually happened. Did anything bad happen? Or did you just feel a presence? Is your fear more about the fact that you were surprised and didn’t understand what was happening?

If you think about the encounter during or after, you will most likely see that the Spirit was just making it’s presence known and wasn’t doing anything bad to you. They just wanted your attention.

Remember fiction is imaginary

As for books, movies and stories about Spirit, it makes great entertainment but is hardly based in reality. The purpose is to scare us silly, not represent the truth. The truth is that spirits are not out to get us or do harmful things to us. They simply want to connect and communicate with us. Remember, its fiction. [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][Maybe a lot of these storytellers are using their medium to work through their own fears 😉 ].

Ask for highest guidance and love to come through

When we channel Spirit, we always ask for the highest love and guidance to come through for our clients. You can do this, too, if you are making the connection yourself (see Karen’s blog 4 Tips to Meet with Your Spirit Guide). This ensures that the messages you receive are of the highest intent and therefore there is nothing to fear.

Know you will only get messages you need

When spirits communicate with you, they are doing so because you need the message they have to impart. Spirit knows exactly what you need to hear at the moment of connection and they will never give you information that you are not capable of handling and processing.

Most of the time, your messages will be positive and filled with love. Yes, I said “most” of the time. Does this mean that you might get bad news? It is a possibility. One of my clients put it this way, “Sometimes we get what we need and not what we want.”

If you do get sad news, odds are it is something that you are already know and it is given to you to prepare you. If you do receive such a message it is because you can handle it.

For example, when my Dad was ill, I received messages that his death was close. I knew he wasn’t going to live a long time but having this confirmed by Spirit really made it sink in. It wasn’t happy news but it prepared me for his passing. Also, had I not had these messages, I may not have made as much effort as I did to spend as much time with him as I could before he died.

Know that spirits are not here to harm you

Please remember, the spirit world is not here to terrorize you. Rather, spirits and the messages they bring are here to help you on this journey we call life. They just want to connect and give you a message. You can let go of the fear.

I hope this has helped you overcome any fears of Spirit you may have had. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. We love getting questions from our readers. You can post them below or email them to support@channeled-wisdom.com.

We encourage you to share any experiences you’ve had with Spirit with readers. Especially if you started out from a place of fear and had it turn into one of joy.

Are you interested in hearing messages and insights from our Guides? Join our free membership and receive monthly messages as well as exclusive member benefits.

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