best meditation techniques

‘Mindfulness practice isn’t meant to eliminate thinking but aims rather to help us know what we’re thinking it, just as we want to know what we’re feeling when we’re feeling it.

Mindfulness allows us to watch our thoughts, see how one thought leads to the next, decide if we’re heading toward an unhealthy path, and if so, let go and change directions. It allows us to see that who we are is much more than a fearful or envious or angry thought. We can rest in the awareness of the thought, in the compassion we extend to ourselves if the thought makes us uncomfortable, and in the balance and good sense we summon when we decide whether and how to act on the thought.

Meditation is like going into an old attic room and turning on the light. In that light we see everything - the beautiful treasures we’re grateful to have unearthed; the dusty neglected corners that inspire us to say, “I’d better clean that up”; the unfortunate relics of the past that we thought we had gotten rid of years ago. We acknowledge them all, with an open, spacious, and loving awareness.

It’s never too late to turn on the light. Your ability to break an unhealthy habit or turn off an old tape doesn’t depend on how long it’s been running; a shift in perspective doesn’t depend on how long you’ve held the old view. When you flip the switch in the attic, it doesn’t matter whether it’s been dark for 10 minutes, 10 years, or 10 decades. The light still illuminates the room and banishes the murkiness, letting you see things you couldn’t see before. It’s never too late to take a moment to look.’

What can mindfulness meditation do for you?

As Marcus Aurelius once said, ‘The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.’ Meditation is exactly that - the starting point for change. If you can change your mind, or even if you can quiet it long enough to hear your heart and soul, you have the potential to change the very direction of your life.

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