My Learnings, Halfway through the Meditation Course

As I mentioned in an earlier article, I had the pleasure of joining a meditation course a few weeks ago.

We’ve had practices every week and within the week, we practice what we learn during the sessions.

Here, I’ll be sharing what I’ve learned so far.

So far, we’ve focused a lot on awareness. A lot of emphasis has been put on remaining open-minded during uncomfortable situations and a big thing we’ve been working on is training our ability to stay completely open to our environment through peripheral vision.

While I’ve heard of this practice before, where you try to take in all that your eyes can without focusing on anything specific, I’d never thought of the purpose of it.

Our instructor said a line about how we tend to perceive what we want to see and not the full reality and I’d never thought about this in a physical sense.

It resonated with me because I realized that in being intentional of not ignoring what’s right in front of you, you feel grounded and brings your mind back to your surroundings while it’s off on its own trip.

This practice is also said to be useful when stuck in an uncomfortable situation. Reason being, listening (and therefore being present in your environment) is the medium through which we connect with one another on a personal level.

As said by our instructor:

Opportunities are missed when you lose your capacity to listen and check out.

Therefore, maintaining the ability to remain consciously engaged in an environment that doesn't feel good is a skill.

Another big theme in our practice is physical touch and internal awareness.

Unlike we tend to think, our emotions can frequently manifest themselves physically in the body.

Therefore, the way to deal with them is not always finding a solution to the problem or trigger causing the emotion, but first, simply taking awareness of your state and getting in tune with your body.

The gateway to do this is much simpler than I initially thought; physical touch.

We practiced putting our hand on our heart and stomach in order to practice this “mind-body-spirit alignment” and while it did feel a little funny at first, I found that it heightened my sense of awareness of the rest of my body.

There is power in pausing.

The idea that our mind and body are like entities that can often lose touch with another was a completely new concept to me and this goal of “getting the whole humanity of you to work together” made a lot of sense when I tried it while experiencing stress.

A final note on is that just like anything else, it is still valuable to practice meditation activities that you learn when you feel like they go over your head.

At one point, we tried to “take all the love we have for others and direct it inwards” — and let me tell you, I was clueless as to how. A few other times down the line, this happened to other people as well.

What I learned was that with certain things, the “how” is not always obvious or explainable without having to just try yourself. It’s for this reason that you just have to make your attempts, see what worked, and continue.

I’m excited to continue on with this course, hopefully improving my ability to focus and get better at getting in touch with my whole self, and updating you here as well.

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