How have you shared the benefits of meditation?

Keeping all the goodness to ourselves is selfish. Speaking with our voice and our actions are a conduit to share what we have learned.

I participated in a charity fun run today and received a tour of the facility after the race. Monica, the Director of Family Services, walked us around the existing facility, explaining their process for serving the poor and homeless clients that cross their threshold.

After seeing their long-time space, we walked through the new upstairs expansion. The waiting room is spacious, bright, and will provide a much better experience for the customers that come each week looking for basic necessities. The expansion includes areas for education, dressing for success, a computer lab, and counseling.

Monica's eyes were often welling with tears as she explained the remarkably different experience families will now have due to this change. Shame looms heavily for those living on poverty's razor's edge. Visiting this new space, being treated with respect, and getting help will be a blessing for each family.

Ignacio, a new friend I met during the race, works to influence governments to grant land to indigenous peoples throughout the world. He has experienced successes but sees how powerless these people groups are against their governments without influence from the outside world. Ignacio brings the knowledge and expertise of each government's policies to bring about change.

Today's experiences prompted me to think about how you and I reach out to help those that are hurting and share what we have learned.

Meditation is a gift that can restore a proper balance and perspective to the chaos of our daily challenges. My memories of living close to the razor's edge are near. Left unchecked; current trials and memories build and fight or flight kicks into high gear. The dam that restrains cortisol breaks and anxiety floods my body.

If you knew of a homeless shelter, you would tell the refugee. If you knew political policy could help a people group save land for their tribe, you would show them.

You have discovered benefits of your particular meditation practice, and it can help those around you. Now is the time to be the lighthouse to those in need.

Going Further: How do you share your meditation story? How do you build community with the like-minded? How often do you share the effect your meditation? Why have you resisted to talk about your meditation practice? 

What interior conversations were prompted by meditation?

It's OK to talk to yourself, and it is even ok to answer yourself, but when you start saying "huh," you may have taken it too far.

In his book, What To Remember When Waking, Irish poet, David Whyte (@whytedw), discusses the concept of engaging in a conversation with oneself. Meditation is the perfect mechanism to prompt the discussion.

Just as with a conversation with a long-time friend, there is not an immediate need to arrive at a full answer. This unhurried conversation allows time to breathe. Time to understand what season you are in, and what is in the realm of possibility. Dwelling with the unanswered question and sitting with the silence is part of the process. Multiple seasons may pass before the revelation is before you.

Humans alone, hold the ability to envision an alternate future. The distance between where you find yourself and where you had planned may be vast. This courageous talk is a voluntary, gracious and generous exchange. Closing the gap, reconciling the past and turning to a blank page to begin anew.

This inquiry addresses the practice of meditation and continuing the conversation; not the completion of meditation or halting the conversation. Completeness is not the goal; progression is the goal.

The odds are good that there will be another day to put miles on the running shoes, roll out the yoga mat, kneel in prayer, or open the Scriptures. For the brave, the dialogue continues until the final exhale.

What conversations have occurred, what is ongoing, and what remains? What questions have you shunned?  What discussions brought radical change?

What meditation results surprised you?

What the Hell? Pavel Tsatsouline (@strongfirst), the kettlebell guru, introduced me to this concept in the physical arena. Pavel describes this effect as the result of doing an exercise to build strength in one discipline and experiencing unexpected benefits during other unrelated tasks. This new found ability is punctuated by exclaiming "What the Hell" (WTH).

I have experienced this phenomenon while practicing self-control. Saying "no" to the bagels and donuts in the office kitchenette gives strength to say "no" to buying yet another tool during the evening trip to The Home Depot. Doing the morning workout increases the chance I will get to bed on time, instead of scrolling through two hours of cat videos.

Last week, I waited for a co-worker outside of his cubicle farm before a meeting. I stood still for about 90 seconds, and a manager approached from behind asking if I was alright. I assured her that I was perfectly fine and I was just waiting for my co-worker. This expression of patience was a WTH moment that caught both of us off guard. The office staff doesn't stand still, and this was just one more example of me being a bit strange.

I learned this expression of patience during my mindfulness practice. If the current gig doesn't work out, maybe I can be a statue in the park. I am confident the spooked manager would give me a couple of bucks for my performance.

The Harvard Business Review published the following list of benefits of meditation for CEOs:
Builds resilience
Boosts emotional intelligence
Enhances creativity
Improves relationships
Helps focus

What are your WTH moments you attribute to your meditation practice?

Share in the comments and tag a friend who shared the moment!

Going Further: How long did it take before you experienced any benefit from a meditation practice? Have you encountered any unexplained benefits? Has your disposition changed since you started? Are there any benefits you have yet to realize? What about your practice are you most encouraged?

What meditation tactics do you use?

My greatest meditation aid is an alarm clock. Given a choice, I will choose sleep over most activities.

Getting out of bed on time is my primary way to make space for this quiet time. If it doesn't happen first thing, then it becomes another item on the to-do list and must wrestle for priority with everything else. Additionally, the morning hours are a sweet period of new beginnings to put away the previous day in anticipation of this day.

What is your preferred time for contemplation? What is your favorite daily location and what is your all-time favorite spot? What natural positions do you find yourself most comfortable and alert?

My spiritual meditation includes both Scripture reading and prayer, and guided mindfulness meditations are from either an app (Calm (@calm) or Headspace (@headspace)) or Tara Brach's (@tarabrach) archive. I am consistent for periods of time then drop off, only to jump back in after noticing the impact of not keeping up the practice.

What tools do you depend upon to help you conduct your practice? Have you altered these tools since you began? Why did you choose your current tools? Do you want anything more out of them?

For those that use physical activity as meditation, how do you incorporate this practice into your routine? How are focus, inspiration, and a sense of connectedness achieved during the exercise?

I would love to say that I nail the practice every day and the experience is out of this world, but sadly that is not the case. Getting too comfortable and falling asleep is my most common issue. When focused on prayers or meditation while in the parking garage before work, kind strangers have knocked on my car window to ensure I am ok. As a reward for their kindness, we both get a bit startled.

A dear friend strained her neck due to bowing her head in prayer over several extended prayer meetings. Thankfully, her neck mobility returned after working the muscles and a posture change.

What stories do you have from your practice?

Our methods are as diverse as we are. Variations exist even within close groups. Talking about our practices, experiences, and learning help us all to grow. Listening to someone with radically different beliefs provides a new language to bring back and enhance your practice. Your neighbor is waiting to chat.

What benefits have you realized from meditation?

I move quickly and try to make the most of every moment, but for the first time, I stopped, and it was bizarre.

I handed my boss the memo routing package and expected to come back in a few minutes to answer questions, but he asked me to wait. So I sat and waited, and waited some more. The package took him 15 minutes to read before he had his first question.

I didn't read the pictures on the wall, the papers on his desk, think of my incomplete to-do list, or get impatient. I realized waiting was the most important thing for me to do and would serve him best.

I had recently begun mindfulness meditation, and this was the first real-world application I found myself doing without deliberate effort. Historically, I would resemble a caged animal trying to escape. I was shocked at my patient response during my walk to my desk to incorporate comments into the letter package.

What are your results?

Meditating in prayer and reading the holy scriptures have provided peace, encouragement, resolve, and a stronger faith. I have periodically turned this time into a legalistic religious practice over the years, and the results were stale. Approaching my time with a heart of gratitude and openness results in a radically better perspective.

Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, neuroscientist, Dr. Sara Lazar has done multiple studies analyzing the effects of meditation on the brain. Studies revealed increased gray matter in four areas and reduction of the "fight or flight" amygdala. I figure any help I can get to enhance gray matter performance ain't much of an option; it's critical!

Going Further: What are your stories of change and success as you have pursued meditation of various types?

What is your meditative practice?

If a friend jumped off a bridge would you do it? Maybe, if it was tall and I had a bungee cord tied to my legs, or if it was very short, over deep water and on a hot day. I am glad my parents never asked that question; it might not have ended so well.

The desire to tap into the unseen is universal.

Humanity has sought a higher power and a belief in something greater than itself for millennia. The ancient practice of meditation is a primary means to achieve this connection.

Meditation may include silence, song, movement, prayer, reading, drawing, or even running. Today's world is too connected to everything else and requires a deliberate action to still the internal voice and listen.

The practice of mindfulness has caught on as a major trend. Expanding beyond the hippie communes, into urban centers, out to the suburbs, and apps on the smartphone.

I jumped off the proverbial bridge with friends and tried several different meditative practices over the years, and have by no means exhausted the list. 

This experimentation has opened my eyes to the beauty of expression and language I had previously resisted. I believed there was only one way to meditate. I had a handy set of metrics I would use to chart my progress, and didn't need anything else. Thankfully I have grown. Sometimes it requires a crazy friend and a bridge to learn something new.

The variations are endless, but the commonality is a deliberate, regular, repeatable, contemplative, practice. There are plenty of ways to identify what group we belong, but let's start with humanity.

Going Further: How did you arrive at your current practice? How long have you been using this same practice?