Written by: Lisa Tahir, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
If you are healing from addiction, a past trauma, or abuse, or are seeking inner awakening and deeper connection, meditation is a beautiful way to bring yourself into harmony. Meditation is a means of accessing your internal resources. The incorporation of a daily meditation practice is one of the most powerful ways to shift your consciousness from feelings of fear to peace, while also simultaneously releasing stress.
The renowned Tibetan Buddhist and author Pema Chödrön speaks to the benefits of meditation in When Things Fall Apart: “Meditation is an invitation to notice when we reach our limit and to not get carried away by hope and fear. Through meditation, we’re able to see clearly what’s going on with our thoughts and emotions, and we can also let them go. What’s encouraging about meditation is that even if we shut down, we can no longer shut down in ignorance. We see very clearly that we’re closing off. That in itself begins to illuminate the darkness of ignorance. We’re able to see how we run and hide and keep ourselves busy so that we never have to let our hearts be penetrated. And we’re also able to see how we could open and relax.”
Meditation from a scientific perspective reveals that our brain has the ability to actually remodel itself. Neuroplasticity is our brain’s capacity to change and adapt to the environment. The amygdala is the area of our brain that is responsible for emotions, survival instincts, and memory. Neuroplasticity of the amygdala is enhanced because the practice of meditation creates lasting, positive changes to the brain by merging the logical left-brain with the intuitive right-brain hemisphere.
By causing neural pathways in the brain to release the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin, meditation calms the central nervous system (CNS) and brings autonomic bodily functions into healthy regulation. These neurotransmitters are responsible for regulating the pleasure and emotional response centers of the brain that relieve anxiety, depression, and promote sleep. Meditation also facilitates and improves memory retention, enhances cognitive and functional performance, and
increases affective processing.
Meditation as a healing modality
The personal benefits of meditation can be subtle, but increase over time. With practice you might feel a deeper sense of well-being, calm, connection, gratitude, love, possibility, expansion, hope, health, faith, patience, and/or imagination. These are just a few of the psychological and physical benefits of meditation available to you by just closing your eyes, putting all electronic devices on silent mode, and going within.
Meditation may become a spiritual/religious practice for you as it has become for me. I find that time expands as a result of my practice. I love it and I crave it and I feel a bit off-center without my daily meditation. Life might not pause for us to meditate, therefore we must ourselves create that pause each day to see with our inner eyes the vast universe beyond our temporal world.
Through guided and silent meditations that are steeped in spiritual truths based on unconditional love, we can fully connect to a world beyond this one.
At times I sit quietly with my eyes closed and breathe in love, and then exhale love. While driving in traffic or on road trips, to take a break from music, I sing and hum Om. I like feeling the vibration of Om in my mouth and through my head. I ask that if you take away one thing, put into active practice a daily meditation practice that centers upon forgiveness and love is probably the best thing you can do for yourself and the planet at this time.
The benefits of meditation can be experienced in as little as four minutes. Start with what you can commit to and expand from there.
Over time you will develop the proficiency to drop into your meditative state instantaneously and in any situation. Remember, you are creating an inner sanctum in your mind. A wonderful book to read if you want to learn about ten unique ways to meditate is by my dear friend Benjamin Decker. His book is entitled Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You. Ben outlines many more ways to meditate other than sitting cross-legged in one spot if that is not your thing.
You can additionally choose to call in ascended masters, spirit guides, animal guides, Reiki healing energy, Jesus, Buddha, the arch- angels, guardian spirits, and deceased loved ones to be with you durng your meditation and to otherwise act in your life as guides. They are always available to be with you. I experience Spirit moving through my spirit body, giving me reassuring thoughts, messages, and course- correcting instructions daily. All of the decisions I make, be they business decisions or personal decisions, are based on the directives I receive in meditation. I ask you to consider increasing your commitment to a meditation practice that you can practice alone, with a partner, or in a group. It’s fun to try all of these different settings for meditation in order to see what you favor and energetically gravitate toward.
Embrace what you believe
I realize that not everyone prays. I realize that not everyone believes in a higher spiritual power. Therefore, I ask you to embrace what you do believe in. I ask you to embrace what gives you hope, peace, and inspiration, and what sparks desire and purpose within you. I welcome readers of secular belief systems to utilize your own foundational principles for grounding. For some, prayer may be to a god of your own understanding or it may be in the contemplation of a secular thought that carries transformative power. In science, the law of conservation of energy states that, “energy can neither be created nor destroyed, rather, it transforms from one form to another.”
Borrowing from this scientific paradigm, allowing your thoughts to transform your current perceived reality may be a healing construct that you embrace from a secular perspective.
Learn more about your brain’s neuroplasticity through meditation in Lisa Tahir’s book, The Chiron Effect: Healing Our Core Wounds through Astrology, Empathy, and Self-Forgiveness, endorsed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and available everywhere books are sold.
Lisa Tahir, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Lisa Tahir, is an inspirational podcast host of All Things Therapy, where she seeks to "Change Consciousness One Conversation at a Time.' Her book, "The Chiron Effect: Healing Our Core Wounds through Astrology, Empathy, and Self-Forgiveness," has been acclaimed and endorsed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Tahir draws her strength through combining the psychological with the spiritual, and as a licensed therapist seeks to help others in visualizing and creating their very best lives no matter what has been true in the past.
