Om
Despite my lack of blog posts, I have been making great strides on the path towards balance and happyness. Having experienced many changes, I’m going to write about the one I have found to be the most useful and all encompassing; meditation. Well over a year ago I purchase mala beads from…
http://www.yogabasics.com/japamalabeads/japamala.html
I knew I needed a little help meditating at the beginning and not only does counting the beads keep me focused, they are beautiful to wear. I committed to meditate every day for 40 days. Tradition says that 40 days of prayer/meditation infuses the beads with powers. It’s a time frame long enough to envoke some serious reflection, without being so long that it dooms me to fail. I had purchased a turqoise jasper and bone mala. Here’s the little blurb about it
“Turquoise Jasper is a nurturing and peaceful stone that is said to promote gentleness, tranquility, comfort, wholeness, and healing. It is believed to stabilize and balance the emotions and is also known for it’s protective powers to drive away evil spirits.”
As you can see, balancing my life has been a goal for sometime. I created a nightly ritual to inspire a peaceful atmosphere. I gently light candles around my my sand Buddha filled with negative energy absorbing crystals and rose quartz. I pull my mala out of a special drawstring bag and take a deep breath. Then I repeat my mantra 108 times, passing a bead between my fingers for each repetition. I feel relaxed and blissful afterwards which prepares me to reflect upon my day. What did I do to help someone today? What did I do that was negative? Being mindful of both improves progress and helps eliminate peace draining behaviors that I didn’t even know I had like talking negative about someone. The odd thing is, my hyper cat curls up next to me as soon as I start and that’s where she calmy waits for me to finish my repetitions.
Sometimes I think what I’m saying sounds a little too intense or bizarre. I find myself explaining that I’m not a new age hippy. Isn’t that something we all do? “I’m not a hardcore feminist” or “I’m a vegetarian but…” I think we fear that people are going to criticize what tools we use to improve our lives. Why do we feel like we owe anyone an explanation? I think if something helps us connect with our God, our body, our community and so on…how could it be bad? I’m going to try to explain what helps me without making excuses for it. That’s my NEW goal.
The benefits have been more than emotional. In the 27 days I have participated in my meditation challenge I have lost 6 lbs! It might seem small to you, but I have attended Christmas parties and kept it off. When you are praying for awareness in general, a lot of things come to light that you didn’t expect. I was eating so much food; 2-4 servings at once! The idea of hungry or full wasn’t a consideration. Now I look at food a little differently. Will it make me feel better, or worse? Will it nurture my body or hurt it? For me, even asking myself those questions is a pretty big deal. Saying ”no” to bad food just makes me plain proud.
