The following was written as a guest post for: www.lorisreadingcorner.com
Why meditate? – The Emotional Cleanse!
Meditation seems to be ever more en vogue (well, I might be prejudiced as I workin the industry, and mainly hang out on e.g. spiritual Facebook forums, but it seems to be featuring more in mainstream media too!). Meditation is said to have many beneficial effects, e.g. :
- It can help to calm the mind, help us manage stress
- heighten one’s senses and intuition,
- we can learn to view emotions and thoughts more detached (to not be drawn in as much anymore, especially by negative thoughts and emotions),
- and ultimately it may supposedly help us reach some state of enlightenment.
The benefits of meditation can even be measured physically, as the practice causes beneficial long term changes to our brains. 1)
I’d like to talk about another potential benefit of meditation though – The Emotional Cleanse!
On my spiritual journey I had plenty of epiphanies. Moments when things suddenly just come together, I reach a higher understanding, ranging from e.g. understanding why I or someone else behaved in a certain way, to more life altering understandings about life, energies or The Divine. Such moments are usually great, they often feel quite empowering. E.g. I might have understood that anger is a very uncomfortable energy, and that as such forgiveness is not only great because some guru told me so, but because should improve my overall wellbeing! I therefore decide to apply forgiveness to all my troublesome relationships here and now – past, present and future- and look forward to a life without anger.
My rational mind got it, but somehow the next time I see an ex-lover, there is still all those feelings of e.g. anger, disappointment or hurt. Should they not be gone now that I practiced forgiveness? Why am I still apparently dependent on ‘time’ to heal my wounds? - Over the years I have come to understand that just because my rational mind understands something, that does not necessarily translate to my emotional body processing those comprehensions. It feels like emotions are stickier than rational thoughts. Some emotions might actually really have dug in and refuse to heal, change or leave. Such emotions do not give a hoot that your rational mind has decided to forgive and let go. Luckily though there is tools we can use to speed up emotional healing processes – e.g. meditation!
Why does meditation speed up emotional healing? For one, as mentioned above, it can help the regular practitioner learn to become more detached. Learn to view his/her emotions with a bit of distance, a bit like watching a theatre play, and with this not have emotions envelop him/her, and or dig in, as much in the first place. Mainly though, the way I understand it, with an attuned meditation2.) we connect to a higher source of Energy, Love and Wisdom; through this connection we get healing energies flowing‘in’, which help dislodge and dissolve stubborn emotions, plus when we then release such emotions, they are taken up and disposed off safely. Depending on what you are working on/ trying to release – not everything is going to vanish with a 30min meditation. More complex and or traumatic energies can take a few sessions. E.g. getting over my last ex, who turned out to be quite a nasty narcissist, and with the relationship only lasting circa 3 months, took a good 5 weeks of intense cleansing. That can feel like a lot, but then I remind myself that in pre-meditation times any break up took a minimum of 6 months to heal, with the initial pain being much more all-consuming…
And why meditate regularly? Well, most people’s lives can be quite stressful. There might bethat bit of road rage on the commute to work, that impossible co-worker, plenty of bad news on the news channels, a troll on your social media feed, etc, etc. Meditation can be a bit of an emotional reset button, getting rid of day-to-day emotional turmoil too.
Meditation is not the only spiritual tool available to optimize emotional healing - other (spiritual) tools are e.g. – Spiritiual Healing/ Reiki, special visualizations, special prayers, or EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique).
Alexander King is a Spiritual Healer and author living and working in London, United Kingdom. He promotes free critical thinking about all things spiritual, and teaches practical and realistic tools to use on our spiritual journeys. You can read more posts like this on his blog http://www.alexander-king.com/blog-1/ or buy his book – Tours and Cures of a Lightsoldier; Surviving the Path to Enlightenment.
1.) https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/use-your-mind-change-your-brain/201305/is-your-brain-meditation
2.) http://www.alexander-king.com/blog-1/2016/4/22/how-to-easily-deepen-your-spiritual-practice-yoga-meditation-mindfulness-etc