Here are 18 ways that meditation can help you. (from a combined NLP-Buddhist perspective) There’s more! A lot more, actually.
This list forms the basis of our online and teleseminar meditation classes Meditation Teleseminar Classes Click Here. Note: The class will be a teleseminar, so you can attend regardless of whether or not you are in Southern California. All you need is a telephone and a commitment to start putting the tools you will learn over the course of the six-week class into practice. Join our list to be sure you receive registration info.
Also listen to a Podcast on 18 Ways Meditation can change your life.
We also have frequent meditation retreats at Manzanita Village .
Note: This list of 18 is the ‘Why’. The ‘What’ and the ‘How’ will be covered in the upcoming class.
- Focus
Focus is first because it is the most basic. Every other benefit of meditation comes from your increased capacity to focus; how you focus; and what you focus on. - Sensory Perception
Through focus you derive increased sensory awareness, as well as increased awareness of your own internal process. The world becomes more vivid as does your own internal representations of it. - Open options and choices
With greater awareness and clarity comes a greater range of behavioral choices and options, how you live, what you do, the choices you make. - Change State
With more focus comes the realization that you have the ability to choose your emotional state, just as you choose how you respond to events. It’s all up to you. - Let go of what doesn’t work
You can let go of what doesn’t work. Happiness is a real option. - Change perspectives
Meditation leads to greater flexibility and flexibility means that you can change your perspectives as you learn new information - Flexibility
Changing perspectives means that you have greater behavioral flexibility - Deduction and Induction
With focus comes clarity of mind and the ability to learn, inductively and deductively, rationally and intuitively. - Empathy – respecting others’ point of view
When you are able to naturally respect others’ view of the world and interact with them based on who they are rather than who you might like them to be you communicate and empathize naturally. - Gratitude
Appreciation for others, and for the miraculous circumstances of living. - Generosity
A sense of unlimited potential, a sense of intrinsic abundance - Love
Love is an expression of generosity and joy, in celebration of others - Energy
Focus and congruence bring energy - Health
Freedom to make the choices outlined above lead to less stress and greater health - Motivation
Focus brings clarity and the means to effect strategies that work. Clarity also means being clear about and congruent with your intentions, plans, and aspirations. - Levels of perspective and priorities
Focus also brings the ability to see things from multiple levels of abstraction, to see the big picture as well as being aware of the necessary details. - Time and time-line flexibility
Your experience of time is relative. Standing in line at an airport for an hour can seem to take longer than a leisurely afternoon spent with a good friend. Skills learned in meditation allow you to speed things up or slow them down at will. - The Transpersonal Dimension.
All the above contribute to a sense of the interplay and interconnection between the elements of your life and the life of those around you. The world is your lover, the world is you!
These are just a few potential benefits. The specific ways meditation benefits you is something that is revealed over time.
The Secret triggered new interest in Law of Attraction teachings and perspectives. “Think the right thoughts and become a star,” is the way it goes. The trouble is that this misses several important steps. Which is one reason why I turned to Buddhism – years ago – when my father explained positive thinking to me as a way to get good grades at school. Somehow I had the idea that study was important too. Silly me!
