How do we meditate on compassion for politicians when we’re completely fed up with politics as usual, or when our preferred party doesn’t seem to be getting it right (or maybe our least preferred party seems to be getting it “wrong!”) Try these four steps:
For many of us, when we begin to meditate (or even if we've meditated for a while), we can experience a certain amount of "failure" while trying to meditate. Even if we've been successful in the past, our efforts may be met with what we believe to be failure. But, what if failure weren't an option? What if there was no such thing as "failing" at meditation? What if meditation included failing to meditate?
If meditation can heal your mind, can it also heal the state of healthcare? I've never been known to think small, so my ideas about how meditation can help to bring change to the world of healthcare aren't small either. But what about this title, "Meditation Heals Healthcare's Woes!," is it possible? If you can learn to stabilize your mind, and heal its negative habits, can you take that healing into the workplace? Let's see...
Do your feelings and emotions rule you? If you're like me or if...you're human, then you've probably experienced anger, sadness, jealousy (or envy?), or emotional exhaustion. And, if you're like me, you're happy and grateful when those emotional states and feelings go away, right?! What do you do when you experience strong emotions? How do you deal with difficult feelings that just won't go away? What do you do when these experiences persist even when you try to push them away?
What is meditation anyway? (Do you get tired of me asking this?) Do people even know what meditation is? What I hear when I talk with people in my day-to-day life are things like, "Learning to meditate takes too long," and, "I tried but couldn't stop thinking," and, "I'm not religious." Yikes! People don't know what the hell meditation is! Here are a few things meditation isn't. If any of them are familiar to you, welcome to the club. If some of these seem obvious, read on. Most people get hung up on what they believe meditation is and never [...]
And can nursing change the world...? I have to say that somewhere in my heart, I hold the aspiration to "change the world." Not in a Gandhi or Mother Theresa kind of way; those individuals are as rare as stars in the daylight. I'm thinking more about making a small contribution to the world, something that can make a difference to a few people who can then in turn, bring benefit to others. As a nurse, it's easy to get caught up in the "caring" aspect of nursing while forgetting that every time you care for someone from a "meditative" [...]
This post is inspired by my friend Erric Solomon, blogger and administrator on the site, What Meditation Really Is. His post, Ten Reasons Why We Should Never Meditate, inspired me to write a similar post. I know that this site is loaded with advice and how to meditate, where to meditate and why you should meditate. But...maybe you shouldn't meditate. Maybe meditation is really a waste of time, a waste of time that you could be using for other things like surfing the internet, watching TV or playing video games (the list goes on, doesn't it?!) Here is a list, [...]
What Stops You in Your Tracks? I've always been a sucker for guitar solos, especially ones that invoke a strong emotion of sadness or intensity. For me, when the message of the music hits the heart of the lyrics, it brings me to a state of stillness or reflection...similar to meditation. When I think of something that can stop me in my tracks, something that causes me to catch a glimpse of something beyond myself, music stands out clearly in my mind. What about you? James Joyce used the phrase of "aesthetic arrest" to describe a state where [...]
Meditation is the practice or the art of non-distraction and compassion (in meditation) is the art of being compassionate for ourselves when we are distracted.
If you want the greatest benefits from your sleep, whether eight-hours of uninterrupted sleep, or a four-hour insomniac’s sleep, you've got to meditate!