Category Archives: Positive Thinking

The Art of Meditation

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Meditation is the art of spending time in quiet thought and can be beneficial to many situations. Healing your mind and body, providing clarity to a problem and cultivating your intuition (also known as your inner voice) are some of the known benefits. Experts say that it can also improve your immune system, written and verbal communication, and productivity.

As Russel Simmons says “meditation can reintroduce you to the part that’s been missing”.  Once I started to meditate on a regular basis I found my decision making abilities improved, and I’m now able to quickly determine if a situation is right for me.

Many people like to meditate in silence by simply listening to their breath. My preference is to use background music which gives me something to focus on. When my mind is particularly     active, I use a guided meditation as it forces me to listen to the instructions. If it’s something you’d like to try there are many wonderful sites such as Brain Sync, Hay House or Youtube which offer both guided and “scratchy noise” music.

If you’re new to meditation you might find that thoughts pop up during what is meant to be a quiet minded session. I’m a task oriented person so I always have a mental list of what needs to be done each day. To calm my mind I find it helpful to imagine a box or container at the start of my meditation, and I use the box to collect any thoughts that pop up during the session.

If you don’t have time for meditation you might want to practice mindfulness during activities that require little concentration – in the shower, during a workout or a walk, while washing the dishes. Every little bit helps and when you assess your schedule you may find lots of little opportunities to fit more mindfulness into your life.

Giving Back

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I believe we’re exposed to different situations in life that help us to become stronger. During difficult times we learn how to cope and what works for us may also help others either directly through the information we share, or indirectly by inspiring people to do their own research. Or you may simply offer hope by showing that you were able to get through a tough situation.

Either way I think it’s important to share learnings and be the change that we want to see. During my husband’s cancer journey I couldn’t find one site that offered “one stop shopping” with helpful information for patients and caregivers to address the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of cancer. That’s why I created Wendy’s Wellness Connection – to pay forward what I learned and hopefully make things easier for others going through the same journey.

It doesn’t take much to share your learnings. You could send an email (which is initially how I started to share my husband’s journey), create a blog, write a book, post information to Facebook, create a group to share information … the list goes on and on.

This also holds true for work situations. Some time ago I was a new employee working for a company that didn’t have much documented about their orientation process. Rather than complain, I compiled a list of all of the info that I felt would benefit me as a new employee. I also met with other new employees to determine what they wanted to know and created an orientation guide which could be used throughout the company’s many locations to help new recruits with “the basics” that no one seemed to have time to show them.

I believe we’re all put on this Earth to collaborate, share and help each other. What gifts do you have that can be put to good use to help others?