Sitting in silence for just a few minutes a day is one of the greatest gifts you can give to your mind. This time allows the brain to slow down and to soften the many thoughts that are being created and clogging up your thinking. The overwhelm of so many thoughts stops you from making clear and well thought out decisions that will ultimately make your life well suited to you. Staying caught up the busy mindset of overflowing thoughts and must do lists keeps you stuck, not able to move on in your life because you can take the time to consider or contemplate one thought before another comes along and pushes the frost thought out the mind and lost forever.
Designing a stillness and meditation practice that works for you is essential to creating a mindful way of living your life. Making the time to sit – or lay down – everyday for a few minutes to rest, where your mind can be in stillness and focus on one thought or decision you would like to make, or do some breathe work to really give the brain a rest, is necessary work for you to understand your self. Your true self will emerge in the stillness and let you know what works for you and what doesn’t. That true self is there underneath all the noise in the mind, waiting to be heard in the quiet stillness to be your guide.
A consistent daily meditation practice is shown to improve the physical structure of the brain. It increases the grey matter In a part of the brain called the hippocampus, where the formation of memory happens, enhanced learning and emotional responses come from. Who doesn’t want better memory and thoughtful regulated emotional responses to life. We all know what it is like to have an upset happen in our lives and to react to that upset aggressively and in an unregulated way, only to feel regret and guilt afterward, wishing we could have handled that in a much calmer way.
Meditation also affects a part deep within the brain called the Amygdala. This part of the brain is responsible for protecting your emotions and your identity. It is fiercely protective, creating fear and anger. This is where the fear based narratives are created that stops us from doing so much in our lives, because we are afraid. When we engage in meditation and quiet the fear, we are actually shrinking that part of the brain. By making it smaller it’s power decreases and it doesn’t have as strong and affect on us. Our fear shrinks and we become balanced in our ways of thinking. The anxiety that comes along with fear is diminished and our lives get a whole lot better.
By having a consistent meditation practice you can change your brain from being overstimulated and under regulated to being in a calmer and clearer state to respond to life! The mindfulness created by meditation will deepen your knowledge of who you are and what you truly want and need in your life. It will guide you to make wise and well thought out decisions, not decisions based on fear and anxiety, because you don’t live in that state anymore. Life will flow with more ease as you nurture your self through stillness.
