What is meditation?

How I define meditation is – the practice of using certain techniques to control what your mind is focusing on. Essentially meditation is training your attention so that you can be more aware of not only your inner thoughts but also what’s happening around you in the present moment. It’s not about being able to stop thoughts into coming in, but instead being able to stay aware of them and not letting them take control over you.

What I have learned is that people turn to meditation because they want to begin making positive changes to some aspect of their life. Some of these aspects could be breaking bad habits, feeling closer to friends/family,  making better decisions, being able to bounce back quicker from adversity, and overall being at ease with their own minds. Meditation helps them feel more confident about these changes and gain a sense of wholeness during the process. It doesn’t give them a permanent state of bliss or mean that they’ll never experience bad times, anger or sorrow. It just makes them feel more happy, loving, and peaceful.

What Meditation isn’t

There are many myths to meditation that need to be busted.  Here is a small list of them:

• It doesn’t eliminate anger, sadness, or difficult times in your life.
• It is by no means related to religion.
• It doesn’t require a large portion of your day
• It doesn’t attempt to stop you from thinking or only have positive thoughts when you do think.
• It doesn’t require a certain skill set or lifestyle.
• It isn’t only for people who don’t have a busy/hectic life. Anyone can do it.

The Benefits of Meditation

There are countless benefits that come to your everyday life when you practice meditation. What scientists have discovered over time is that meditation is as important as physical exercise to your well-being. We know that the more you exercise physically, the more results you’ll begin to see. This could be becoming more flexible, having bigger muscles, running faster, etc. If you meditate more frequently you’ll also see results such as being calmer, feeling deeper connections with others, improved focus, and feeling happiness more often.

Meditation trains 3 important skills:

1. Concentration

The way meditation trains your concentration skills is that it makes you focus on something you’ve known how to do your whole life which is breathing.  Doing this can help you let go of distractions which can be a huge waste of energy.

• Here is a quick exercise to try: Close your eyes and start thinking about something going on in your life (work, school, relationship, or even how stupid this is).  Then all you simply do is notice where your mind has wandered off to, let go of that thought, and transition to focusing on the in-and-out of your breath. You don’t judge yourself for getting lost in that thought, but instead be proud of yourself for becoming aware of it and being able to begin the process again.

2. Mindfulness

Mindfulness gets rid of all the fog in the world so that you can fully connect with whatever life throws at you. The practice of mindfulness shifts our awareness from the breath onto anything inside or outside of the current moment. This could include smells, bodily sensations, sounds around you,  sights, etc.  You don’t cling onto whats pleasant or push away whats painful. You accept it which creates a more accurate assessment of what’s really going on in the present moment.

3. Lovingkindness

This skill is one of the most important skills to have as a human in my opinion. Lovingkindness is awareness towards compassion. It can be transforming in the way we not only treat ourselves, but our family, friends, and the rest of humanity. Through meditation, you spend more time with your thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Understanding them opens an opportunity to genuinely begin loving ourselves for who we are and accept all the imperfections. Only after this can you really become better at seeing people and appreciating their complexity. In return, you will:

• Find better ways of dealing with a difficult person. You’ll be more inclined to wish that person well instead of getting pissed off.
• You will also be able to let go of the past and deepen your connection to relatives or friends.
• Begin offering friendly gestures to people you might have previously ignored.
• Feel more inclined to be kind and polite to strangers.

Steps to Begin Practicing Meditation

These are steps I took in order to begin meditating:

• I expanded my knowledge of meditation(reading books and online articles).
• Began listening to a meditation podcast called 10% Happier. They talk about everything related to meditation and even have guest appearances by people like the Dalai Lama. These gurus can provide such beneficial wisdom.
• I downloaded apps that teach you how to meditate and guide you through it. The two apps I used are the 10% Happier App, and Stop Breath & Think
• You can’t expect to start and be able to meditate for hours. It’s a skill that requires constant practice in order to improve. It’s exactly like running. You’ll have to start with being able to run 1 mile before doing 2. When you first begin meditating try going only for like a minute and from there working your way up.
• You can have a mix of both guided and unguided meditations. The reason why its good to have a mix is that you can use the techniques from the guided sessions in your own unguided sessions.
• What’s interesting about the guided meditations is that they can remind you of different things like gratitude, love, peace, and kindness.  They also teach you how to become more compassionate and feel more empathy towards others.

Conclusion

Meditation has been part of my life for about 6 years now. I can’t claim that it’s the sole cause of my happiness, but it definitely is a small factor. I constantly catch myself using my meditation techniques in so many different parts of my life. When I began applying my mindfulness practice while I traveled; it was a game changer for me. I was getting more immersed in cultures, creating relationships with locals more often, and appreciating small details in the world I had never noticed before. It’s honestly like I had unlocked a sixth sense. So I can confidently say that meditation has worked wonders for me and changed my life. Essentially it’s what helped me fall more in love with traveling and be able to create Blissful Backpacking.