Meditation 101

Seven years ago I watched an Oprah Winfrey interview with David Bach, bestselling author of Smart Women Finish Rich. He was a top financial advisor on Wall Street and described how his stress-ridden life had become divided into “15-minute units”. One morning he arrived at the office, looked at his calendar and found he had one ‘unit’ unfilled. He went into a mild form of a panic attack. This, followed by a big ‘ah hah’ moment, changed his perspective of life and his destiny forever.

It is very easy for most of us to fill up every ‘unit’ of our day with work, commitments, emails, and now, for many, frenetic text messaging. But when and if we finally get a little break, we immediately look to fill up that space and find something else to occupy our mind.

As the founder of a premier wellness destination in Canada, I teach meditation regularly. I’ve witnessed how the mere mention of the word ‘silence’ can cause anxiety within.
However, research has proven that any type of relaxation that quiets the mind can immediately lower stress on the actual heart organ, calm nerves and heal cells. Why? Because of the electricmagnetic field or the ‘bio-energy field’ that surrounds every living thing, including cells.

The task does not have to be complex, uncomfortable or time-consuming. Here’s the key: you just need to find the one thing that causes you to become ‘wordless’ for a couple of minutes a day. Some folks find this in knitting, doing puzzles, painting, or if you are like me, taking a walk with Mother Nature. These are all forms of meditation that can still the mind chatter.
When we are doing something relaxing, we unconsciously start to take a deeper breath, which in turn calms our nervous system. The electric aspect of our bio-energy field responds deep breathing and calm state, bringing the energetic flow back to balance by keeping all systems in check, including the blood system.

Regardless of what you do in this world, whether you are the CEO of a corporation or a single mother doing her best, everyone can and needs to take a few minutes to turn off the ‘occupied mind’ and to get ‘wordless’ in a wordy world. A calm, happy person equals peaceful, functioning cells, so take a break, breathe deep, get quiet and be happy, healthy and wise.