WHY TO MEDITATE

Why meditate? What do you have to lose if you close your eyes for five minutes just to see what happens? 

So, why in the world would anybody want to spend five minutes with their eyes closed contemplating thought? 

Hundreds of scientific studies and five decades later, scientists have found that not only does meditation enhance focus and concentration - and actually make you more productive - but it can also make you a better person. 

My contemplation, in fact, is not about productivity at all. You will become more productive if you choose mediate. Your emotional brain will slow and your rational, logical brain will grow. You will become more focused in your everyday tasks and you will become more efficient and effective. But I believe there is a more important reason to do it. 

Why meditate? Because you, my friend, sometimes are not a nice person. Me too. We all have those moments when we are not our best selves, when we direct our anger at someone else - oftentimes a loved one and, in the saddest and most shameful of moments, at a total and complete stranger whom we choose to deplore for our own emotional gain and who has nothing to do with the root of our anger. In these moment, our anger is us and we are the only source of our anger. We embody all the aspects of the anger we feel inside and we rear our ugly, fire-breathing dragon for the whole world to see. We feel self-justified, complete, and righteous. And we leave the ashes of those scorn in our path. 

And we do it because we DO NOT meditate. Because we do not have a mindfulness practice that allows us to see ourselves in these moments - to be mindful of our actions before they happen. To judge everyone around us simply for "being in our way", rather than stopping before we denigrate ourselves and others. We insist on filling every little space in our day with something productive, something "more important", something externally stimulating, something, something, something, something, something, something, something...

Why meditate? Because the world is so much bigger than us. Because we need to get over ourselves. Because when we do not meditate we lose consciousness of who we truly are - we are, in fact, not our anger - but if you asked someone else to describe us, they might say, "that person is angry." There is no "us vs. them", "me vs. she", "ours vs. theirs". Collectively, we are trying to keep this planet running together and yet we cannot even recognize our own humanity. Why? Because we are too busy, too productive to meditate. 

So stop. Just stop. And take five minutes, to meditate. The world will thank you for it.

Taking a deep breath, bring the hands to heart's center. Keeping the eyes closed, start to focus on the steady flow of energy from the pelvic floor, through the navel, along the inner-most part of our ribs, around the heart's center, passing through the throat, to the third-eye, and finally the crown of the head (these are the areas of the seven chakras, or energy centers, in our bodies). Imagine this energy flowing softly, smoothly - like a wave.