Medita..what?

Part of living a lovely life for me includes meditating. You probably saw my page, and noticed that I'm a Life Coach for a meditation program called Consciously Awesome™. I've meditated since I was in high school. The short term and long term benefits that I have seen play out in my life are absolutely astounding, and they've helped me to create a more joyous life. So tell me, have you ever tried to meditate?

According to https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/types-of-meditation#overview, there are nine types of meditation:

• spiritual meditation

• mindfulness meditation

• focused meditation

• movement meditation

• mantra meditation

• transcendental meditation

• progressive relaxation

• loving-kindness meditation

• visualization meditation

Not all meditations are created equal. Spiritual meditation is just what it sounds like, meditation where you can connect with God. Many times this happens over a cup of coffee while you're reading your Bible. Perhaps you've been meditating for years, and didn't know it!

Mindfulness meditation is the most common type of meditation. This type of meditation focuses on noticing the thoughts that come in without judgement, and watch them as they leave.

Focused meditation is meditation where you focus on the 5 senses, either internally or externally. This is where many people use mala beads, hold onto stones, or stare at something.

Movement Meditation is another one of my favorites - Yoga, gardening, walking - anything that is movement, yet being mindfully present at the same time.

Mantra meditation is where you sit and recite chants, like the stereotypical, "Om."

Transcendental meditation is a type of meditation where you close your eyes and try to imagine being in a white room, and try not to think about anything. You can create your own mantra. One of my favorites comes from Adriene Mishler, of Yoga with Adriene. It is: "The universe is for me, and so is everything else." I LOVE that.

Progressive Relaxation is a type of meditation where you slowly clench one part of the body and let it go. It helps to relieve a lot of tension.

Visualization Meditation focuses on visualizing positive scenes, or imagining a positive outcome of something.

Not on the list though, is guided meditation and Conscious Meditation™. Guided meditation is meditation with someone guiding you. There are a ton of Apps out there to help guide you in your meditations. One of my favorites is the "Calm" app. Even though these Apps guide you, they normally just ding a bell to remind you to come back and focus on the meditation at hand.

If you're anything like me, you've tried meditating before and could just. not. sit. still, and couldn't keep your mind from wandering. It's absolutely normal to feel like you can't quiet your mind. Something that many don't know is that you're not supposed to have a totally blank mind. We can't control our thoughts - at least not all of them. That's the beauty of Consciously Awesome™. Consciously Awesome™ is engaging and allows you to interact with what you're seeing and the instructor. It doesn't pressure you to have a blank mind. It allows you to ground into the physical and still feel everything that is being offered to you.

So, why should you meditate then? What are the benefits? Meditation brings a tremendous amount of calm and peace. It helps relieve stress and anxiety, and even lowers your heart rate. It helps you to see new perspectives, become open to new beginnings, increases your creativity, increases gratitude, and so much more. Perhaps my favorite part of meditating is the awareness that it brings to your life. You start to notice little things. You may notice that you have less reactivity as before. You begin to be mindful about every little thing that crosses your path. Trying to be mindful about what you're eating? Yup, meditation will help with that. Trying to instill more calm in your life so you won't snap at your husband or your kids? Meditation will help!

That's the thing about meditation: It will help EVERYTHING. There's literally no harm it can do. So, what are you waiting for? Get meditating!

<3 Laura