Starting and Reflecting

This is my first day on this blog. As a first posting I thought I would offer some history about me as well as the techniques I am about to use.

I have been meditating since 1999. I haven't always been consistent in my practice but I always come back to it. For me, my interest in meditation started as a result of a near fatal car accident in 1996. During my 6 month recuperation I began experiencing images and dreams of light. This light was plasma like and I could feel it surround and pass through me. Later, when I began meditating, I discovered that I could access this healing energy source. To this day it is still a place I can go with little effort.

In seeking wellness I learned that wellness is about balance. This is of course far easier to understand than to achieve. There is also the paradox of wellness which is that to achieve balance we must rest the mind yet move the body. Through our ability to be self aware we can choose to balance our nature. In this case our natural tendencies would be for our mind to be a flow of thoughts and feelings and for our body to avoid activity unless needed. The better our ability to achieve balance the more enhanced our mind-body connection is and the more well we become. As we all know, unwellness is the ultimate result when our body is sedentary and our mind racing. In the context of wellness then it becomes clear that meditation is essential to mental well being. The choice we make to meditate and quiet our mind is as important as the choice we make to exercise our body.

What further drew me to meditation was the experience itself. Comforting memories of when I was child sometimes surface when I meditate that remind me of when I had an unshakable sense of knowing. And lastly the stillness, the quieting of the mind. This was something that made me feel generally calmer with a stronger sense of well being and allowed me to connect better with those around me. What continues to pleasantly surprise me about meditation is that in deepening the understanding of myself, my empathy for others also deepens.

So that is a brief summary of my experiences so far with meditation.