What Style of Meditation is Right For You?

What Style of Meditation is Right For You?

Finding the right style of meditation for your needs is important. While meditation may be simple, the practice of meditation is difficult. This is mostly because in our phone-addicted and over-stimulating world, the act of concentration and/or quieting the mind is getting harder and harder to achieve. I’ve been a student of meditation for over 28 years and have been teaching meditation for about 15 years. So, to say that I am a huge fan would not be overstating it.  While there are many physical benefits of meditation, I think the most important outcomes come from the spiritual side of the practice. Finding the type of meditation that will achieve your desired outcomes will help you be consistent so you can reap the benefits of this life-changing practice. 

Styles of Meditation

Before we talk about the benefits, let’s talk about some of the different types or styles of meditation. Each technique and style has its unique focus and approach. Most styles fall into one of two categories. Either it is directive, meaning that you are focusing on a single point, idea or mantra, etc.. Or non-directive, meaning the individual opens up their awareness and just allows things to move in and out of their field of consciousness.  It is important to understand your goals, and what you hope to get out of your meditation practice so you can choose a style that meets your needs.  Try a few and find the one that most resonates with you.

Here are some of the different types of meditation:

  1. Mindfulness Meditation: This style involves paying non-judgmental attention to the present moment, and observing thoughts, sensations, and emotions without getting attached to them.
  2. Loving-Kindness Meditation: Also known as Metta meditation, it involves generating feelings of love, compassion, and goodwill towards oneself and others. It typically involves repeating positive affirmations or phrases.
  3. Transcendental Meditation (TM): This technique involves the use of a mantra, a word or sound repeated silently, to focus the mind and achieve a state of deep relaxation and awareness.
  4. Vipassana Meditation: Vipassana means “insight” or “clear-seeing.” It involves developing a deep awareness of the body, sensations, thoughts, and emotions. This technique aims to cultivate insight and wisdom.
  5. Zen Meditation: Zen, originating from Zen Buddhism, focuses on seated meditation (zazen) and emphasizes direct experience and self-discovery. It often involves observing the breath or engaging in contemplation.
  6. Guided Meditation: In this style, a meditation teacher or an audio recording guides the practitioner through a meditation session, providing instructions, visualizations, or prompts to enhance relaxation and focus.
  7. Kundalini Meditation: Kundalini is a form of yoga-based meditation that incorporates breathwork, chanting, repetitive movements, and visualization to awaken and channel the energy within the body.
  8. Walking Meditation: As the name suggests, this style involves meditating while walking. It emphasizes paying attention to the movement of the body, the sensations in the feet, and the surrounding environment.
  9. Body Scan Meditation: This technique involves systematically focusing attention on different parts of the body, usually starting from the toes and moving upward, to develop body awareness and release tension.

Check out this Loving Kindness Meditation

 

Spiritual Benefits of Meditation

There are so many mental and physical benefits to meditation like stress reduction, increased concentration, and decreased reactivity to situations. But for me, the spiritual benefits are why I have been a student for so long. Meditation is an integral part of my intuitive readings and has provided me with the level of concentration and awareness needed to glean insight into my energy work too.

While the specific experiences and benefits can vary from person to person, here are some of the more common spiritual benefits of meditation:

    • Enhanced self-awareness: Through regular meditation practice, individuals can develop a deeper understanding of themselves, their thoughts, emotions, and patterns of behavior. This self-awareness can lead to personal growth, self-discovery, and a greater sense of authenticity.

    • Inner peace and calm: Meditation cultivates a state of inner stillness and calmness, allowing individuals to experience a sense of peace and tranquility. It helps to quiet the mind, reduce mental chatter, and find a refuge from the stresses and demands of everyday life.

    • Connection with the present moment: Meditation encourages individuals to focus on the present moment, to fully experience and appreciate the here and now. This can lead to a deeper sense of presence, mindfulness, and an increased ability to fully engage in life’s experiences. It is in the present moment that insights and intuitions arise.

    • Spiritual growth and insight: Meditation can facilitate spiritual growth by providing a space for introspection, contemplation, and the exploration of deeper existential questions. It can lead to insights, intuitions, and realizations about the nature of reality, the self, and one’s place in the world.

    • Expanded consciousness: Through meditation, individuals may have transcendent or mystical experiences that expand their consciousness beyond ordinary perceptions. These experiences can provide a profound sense of interconnectedness, unity, and a glimpse into higher states of consciousness.

    • Cultivation of compassion and kindness: Many forms of meditation, such as loving-kindness meditation, focus on developing qualities of compassion, kindness, and empathy towards oneself and others. This can foster a deeper sense of connection with others and a more compassionate approach to life.

    • Spiritual discipline and discipline of the mind: Regular meditation practice requires discipline and commitment. It can help individuals develop a stronger sense of willpower, focus, and mental discipline, which can be applied not only in meditation but also in other aspects of life and spiritual practices.

So think about what you would like to achieve with your meditation practice. Then choose a style that is best suited to your needs. Then practice, practice, practice. Some days it will be easier than others, but with all of these benefits, it is a worthy pursuit that has the potential to bring deeper awareness and balance to all aspects of your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual bodies.

Check out my library of free guided meditations

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Forgiveness: Seeing a Higher Perspective

Forgiveness: Seeing a Higher Perspective

“Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?” 

 ~ Marcus Aurelius

What is Forgiveness?

One of the best descriptions that I read is that forgiveness is when you can pull your energy out of the situation. What does that mean exactly? It means that you are willing to drop the story you’ve created that allows you to remain justified in your pain. 

We often talk about forgiveness like it is an act done for the other person, but forgiveness is really about our desire to move forward. And it isn’t until we choose to let go of the story that legitimizes our pain that we are able to move on. That is why Caroline Myss describes forgiveness as a self-initiated act of transformation. Because it requires a deliberate and conscious choice to calm our ego’s incessant talk that continually informs us on why we are entitled to our hurt and anger.

How Do We Forgive?

According to Positive Psychology, forgiveness is a process that asks us to cultivate acceptance, see things from multiple perspectives, and re-write the story from those higher perspectives. The first step is accepting what is. Eckart Tolle wrote, “It seems that most people need to experience a great deal of suffering before they will relinquish resistance and accept — before they will forgive. As soon as they do, one of the greatest miracles happens….the transmutation of suffering into inner peace.”

(Here’s another animal guide meditation you might enjoy)

This is not about spiritual by-passing and suppressing our pain or hurt. It may take some time until we are ready to move forward. However, once we decide that we no longer want to identify with that story, we begin the path toward peace. 

A Soul-Level Perspective

Taking a bird’s eye view of the situation is one way to shift into acceptance. Can you witness the divinity in yourself and the other person? Do you trust in divine timing? As Myss writes, “From a cosmic perspective, your life is far more complex than you can measure by the influence of one or two relationships. There is a higher law that rules the spirit, a mystical law…”

Humans are messy and complicated. Forgiveness doesn’t mean that you condone another’s behavior or will forget that they have wronged you in some way. It just means that you aren’t willing to let it bind your energy any further. Are you ready to invite peace into your life? To be fully present in the here and now?

(more…)

Shadow Work with Crow Guided Meditation

Shadow Work with Crow Guided Meditation

 
 
 
This guided meditation is part of a weekly Living Light Meditation gathering in the Chaos & Light Community. This meditation asks you to work with the spirit of Crow and look deep into your shadow. The Chaos & Light Community is an online space for spiritual seekers to collaborate, share, inspire and learn with a community of like-minded people that nurture and foster evolving states of consciousness, and promote personal evolution and well-being.
 
Music credit by StockProMusic ​
Photo credit Canva.com

Cycles of Life Guided Meditation

Cycles of Life Guided Meditation

 
This guided meditation is part of a weekly Living Light Meditation gathering in the Chaos & Light Community. This meditation takes you through the seasons of life and the cycle of creative energy. We explore each cycle through the lens of nature and the elements of air, fire, water and earth. The Chaos & Light Community is an online space for spiritual seekers to collaborate, share, inspire and learn with a community of like-minded people that nurture and foster evolving states of consciousness, and promote personal evolution and well-being.
 
Music credit by StockProMusic ​
Photo credit Canva.com
 
 

SHOW LESS

 
 

We Are Stardust Guided Meditation

We Are Stardust Guided Meditation

 

This guided meditation is part of a weekly Living Light Meditation gathering in the Chaos & Light Community. This meditation takes you through a brief grounding technique called earth breathing. Then invites you to travel back to the original spark of creation as you connect with the light and intelligence at the beginning of the universe. You are then guided to embrace the expansiveness of the cosmos.

Music credit by meditative

Photo credit Canva.com

Meditation Script

(copyright 2021 Angela Levesque)

So in a seated position, I want you to begin breathing deeply into your belly. Letting the belly expand and become soft on the in-breath. And letting it gently fall back toward the spine on the out-breath.

Continue this for a few moments until you bring your presence fully into your body.

EARTH BREATHING TECHNIQUE

(do not read this title aloud, can be used separately)

Now I want you to begin just focusing on the out-breath alone. Breathe in naturally at your own rhythm and pace and only focus on the exhalation. On the exhalation, I want you to see if you can move your breath down through the body and out the soles of the feet.

Breathe in and on the out-breath, move the breath down the body and into the earth. Do this for a few moments.

Pause

Continue to focus on the out-breath but now I want you to think of that breath as energy and as you move the breath through the body, on the exhalation, let that breath and energy sweep anything that is ready to be released, let it move down the body and out the soles of the feet.

Letting the earth receive anything that is no longer needed or serving your mind, body or soul. Knowing that earth holds the frequencies to neutralize anything you release to her.

Pause

Okay, now we are going to continue to have awareness of the out-breath, but we are also going to pay attention to our in-breath as well.

As we inhale now we are going to draw the earth’s energy up into the body, bringing with it any light, frequencies and intelligence that the body requires for harmony and balance.

And on the out-breath letting the breath move back out and into the earth.

Drawing the earth’s energy up and into the body on the in-breath and moving the breath and energy back into the earth on the out-breath.

Continue this to a point of equilibrium. That is until the energy you are moving feels in balance between what is coming in and what is going out.

And when this feels complete, having a deep connection with the earth beneath you, I want you to contemplate the idea that you are intimately related to not only the earth but the entire cosmos.

Imagine that you are lying comfortably on a blanket in a field on a warm summer night. You are far away from the lights of the city. It is a beautiful clear sky. As you gaze toward the stars, it is lit up by a million soft twinkling lights.

You can feel a slight breeze on your face, the relaxing sounds of crickets in the background. You feel safe and loved. The night holds a quiet magic. You are filled with a sense of awe and expansion as you breathe it all in.

As you gaze at the stars, you are reminded that in order for you to witness their brilliance they were awakened millions of years ago. And yet they twinkle tonight and share this moment with you.

Breathe in light….breathe in darkness. As the night sky reaches out to you.

We are going to take a trip back in time to the deep history of our universe. As you stay still, time travels all around you. You are taken back to a time, to the moment of the Universe’s birth.

You see a brilliant flash of light that fills your entire being. It is powerful, yet gentle. Immense and yet familiar. You understand that it is the spark of creation that you are witnessing. The very birth of all things in this universe.

Breathe in this beautiful light as it connects you to the very nature of your being. To every cell….. to every molecule….. to every atom in your being. Let this spark of creation rejuvenate, activate, and speak to every part of all that you are.

As you hold that spark of creation in your heart, mind and body, witness the expansion of the cosmos from this moment of light.

See its whirl of magnetizing forces as it brings form out of the formless. Witness the beautiful array of colors – deep and penetrating. As it draws together everything that is needed for life in this universe. Calling forth the color, energy and frequencies required for the magic of creation.

Holding that spark of creation in your heart with a deep knowing that everything that birthed those stars, are the very things that birthed you.

Pause

Return now to the blanket…looking over the whole sky breathing in the beauty of both the darkness and the light. Feel a sense of intimacy that exists between you and the stars.

As you bask in the magic of this moment, let go of the boundaries of your identity, the boundaries of your body, the limitations of your mind. Allow yourself to expand and reach out in the wonder of this moment. 

As you sit here on the surface of the Earth, you realized that outward and inward are the same. Space is in every direction, out there, and inside of us.

Sit for a few minutes in the expanded state. Breathing with the universe – her intelligence, her darkness, her lightness – as she holds both the form and formless within her.

Long pause

Take a moment to call yourself back into your heart center. Drawing your expanded self back into the body. Taking a few deep breaths.

Pause

Feeling your body supported by the chair, floor or bed beneath you. Breathing deeply. Following the moment of breath as it moves in and out of the body. Bringing your full attention and awareness into the room around you. Shrugging the shoulders softly, wiggling the fingers and toes. And when you are ready, opening your eyes – aware and alert.

Take a few moments to just sit there until you feel ready to move on with your day.