Tools for Transformation-Meditation


Two Perspectives on Personal Transformation


Two Perspectives’ is a monthly column with two different perspectives from two different continents, genders and cultures on the same topic viz.



Janet Smith Warfield (based in Florida, USA) and 

Dr Amit Nagpal (based in New Delhi, India).


Janet Smith Warfield's Perspective


Background: Meditation is a mind-body-spirit practice originating in ancient Eastern spiritual traditions and used throughout the world for thousands of years. It calms the conditioned mind, relaxes the body, and allows the practitioner to connect to a much larger, more encompassing energy, variously labeled “God”, “The Tao”, “Higher Power”, “Allah”, “Jehovah”, “Universal Consciousness”, “YHWH”, “intuition”, “creativity”, Cosmic Energy. The practitioner learns to trust this power because of the amazing growth, freedom, and spiritual strength it provides.


Benefits of Meditation:
Relaxed awareness
Stress release
Letting go of fear
Channeling rage into constructive action
Mental self-regulation
Improved focus
New ways of thinking
Single pointed concentration
Correct understanding
Humility
Effortless speech
Effortless action
Building internal energy
Developing compassion, love, patience, forgiveness
Openness to synchronicities that effortlessly resolve challenges
Indestructible sense of well-being
Bliss
Transformation

Make Sure to Enhance Your Experience with:
Quiet location
Comfortable position
Open attitude
Mental focus

Some Forms of Meditation:
Mindfulness meditation
Transcendental meditation
Mantra meditation
Zen Buddhist meditation
Breath meditation
Relaxation response
Action meditation
Sound meditation
Reiki meditation
Guided meditation
HeartMath meditation
Walking meditation
Crystal bowl meditation
Chanting
Rituals
Jungian meditation

Areas in Which Scientific Research is Being Done:
Relief of chronic back pain
Minimizing hot flashes in menopausal women
Relieving asthma
Improving the ability to focus and prioritize
Releasing stress in caregivers of elderly patients with dementia
Fibromyalgia
Cancer
Hypertension
Psoriasis
Changing brain and immune functions in positive ways
Anxiety disorders
Women’s health

Here is one example of a guided meditation:


Here are some other resources:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfFJ6BI1l_E
Enjoy!
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Dr. Janet Smith Warfield serves wisdom-seekers who want understanding and clarity so they can live peaceful, powerful, prosperous lives. Through her unique combination of holistic, creative, right-brain transformational experiences and 22 years of rigorous, left-brain law practice, she has learned how to sculpt words in atypical ways to shift her listeners into experiences beyond words, transforming turmoil into inner peace. For more information, see wordsculptures.com, janetsmithwarfield.com, and wordsculpturespublishing.com.
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Dr Amit Nagpal's Perspective

For introverts and silence lovers, meditation is probably the most powerful personal transformation tool. The extroverts can also benefit but may need a little more persistence. While chanting and Vipassana may be good examples of formal meditation techniques, living in the moment, silence and simply observing your breath may be good examples of informal meditation techniques.

Here are some of the major benefits of meditative/contemplative practices:

Finding Joy and Peace
The conscious mind is the source of stress and limiting beliefs. Silencing the conscious mind helps us not just relieve stress but rather find peace and joy. I personally believe, “Meditation should not be used as a reactive tool for handling stress but rather used as a proactive tool for creating joy.” In fact my collaborative book (with 19 thought leaders from 6 countries) highlights that money is not the only source of joy but connecting with self, discovering our deep passion and so on are sources of joy which the society is yet to fully tap.

Understanding our Passion and Purpose
Self-reflection with the help of meditation is the best way to discover our true and deepest passion. We can use many spiritual and non-spiritual tools to discover our passions but using meditation can make the process of discovery much faster. If you feel more comfortable with self reflection or plain contemplation or sitting silently surrounded by nature rather than meditation, it is very much fine. The sub-conscious provides us the wisdom, intuition and clarity of thinking to find out what we truly want. We have many passions in life or many hobbies we feel passionate about, but it takes time to discover our deep passion. Here is a post I wrote, “Discover Your Deepest Passion.”

Boosting Our Creativity
Meditation releases Theta waves which boost our creativity and provide us inspiration. My advice to creative professionals is to practice meditation to see exponential growth in their creativity. Meditation boosts our creativity through reflection, though practice and repetition play a critical role in honing creative skills. A desire to boost creativity through meditation can create stress and expectation, which may backfire. So just meditate to relax and improved creativity will be a side benefit. Here is an interesting post, “How I Regained my Lost Creativity.”

Beauty and Charisma
When one has peace within, the face being the index of the mind reflects that as peace written all over you which makes you look beautiful and attractive. Inner beauty comes from a stress-free mind and a confident, giving personality. Someone has rightly said, worry is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you anywhere. Here is a detailed post on “Beauty and Charisma through Meditation.”

Tapping the Sub-Conscious
Prayer and meditation also increase levels of dopamine, often referred to as the brain’s pleasure hormone. During meditation the conscious mind gets silent. As a result, we are able to hear the sub-conscious mind or we can say that the sub-conscious gets activated. Then begins the sweet journey of creativity, joy, wisdom, intuition, awareness and in fact, a point of ecstasy and oneness, where none of these matter.

 (If you fail at meditation or have failed in the past, then you must read this post.)
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Dr Amit Nagpal is a Personal Branding Consultant & Deepest Passion Coach. He is based in New Delhi, India and specializes in personal branding with a holistic touch. His philosophy is, "Enlarge as a Human Being, Excel as a Social Media Being and Evolve as a Personal Brand"

To know more about him, click here.

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