Meditation

This one should be under the category of “I wish had known back then what I know now”. I’m writing about this because 3 times in the past week I have had conversations about meditation and stress so the lightbulb went off that maybe I should relay my thoughts to my readers.

I learned about meditation when I started doing yoga about 10 years ago. If you’ve never tried a yoga class I’ll give you a little preview of the end of class. If you are or have been a yogi you can skip this paragraph. Yoga usually starts out with a little warmup, then no matter what form you are doing, you usually end in “corpse pose” which is a resting pose. During this time a lot of instructors will lead you through a meditation to try to teach you to relax. At first, I thought some of the visualizations were kind of silly but after practicing them and letting go of my preconceptions I begin to love the meditations.

After learning to let my mind go to another place I’ve developed my own “go to” meditation. I usually use this when I can’t go to sleep or wake up worrying about something during the middle of the night. Of course, as with most worries, I have no control over what is going to happen and I know that in my mind but sometimes my heart won’t let go. I pray but beyond praying I also have this meditation.

I start out by doing a sort of body check to try to relax every part of my body, starting with my toes and moving up to my head. Next, I go to what I think is the most relaxing place I can be…the arms of Jesus. I place myself floating, as if on a cloud, but the hand of Jesus is holding me up, weightless, with no aches or pains. I can’t see His face but I can feel the heat, like from the sun, but it comes from the brilliance of His glorious radiance. I stay there for as long as my mind will let me, usually just a few minutes and then I fall asleep.

I so wish I would have known how to do this when I had teenagers to worry about (although we always worry about our kids), worried about work, Jacky traveling, money, etc. I may have been a lot less sleep deprived.

I really do sleep well most nights but if you don’t or have one of those nights like we all do from time to time give my meditation a try or find your own place of peace and calm. There are lots of apps and downloads out there that may work better for you. Give them a try. Who knows? You might even lower that blood pressure or be able to ease up on your antacids.

Namaste, my friends.

His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.
Revelation 1:16b