How to Meditate Properly

What happens when you start meditating and negative emotions begin to rise up to the surface? Or when you start meditating and the mind cannot remain still?  The blog covers several steps on how to meditate properly and work through negative emotions as they arise. 

What is Mediation?
Meditation is who we are at the deepest level, so it is a practicing art of going back to our true nature. It’s also an art form that requires silence, patience, and practice. You have to dedicate time and effort to meditation, just like you would dedicate time to learning yoga, new software, a new instrument, or a skill.

Why should you meditate?
To regain power over your mind. The mind is usually controlled by thoughts powered by the unprocessed feelings that govern your everyday life. If you do not take the time to unwind and process these feelings, the thoughts they give rise to will control your life until you do.  

You start meditating but you can’t still your mind.
It’s a good sign that you are aware that you’re unable to silence your mind. You are actually realising that although you are in the middle of your thoughts, you are not your thoughts. You are in the hurricane, but you are not the hurricane. You might even begin to question the legitimacy of your thoughts and what is happening around you. You might start asking yourself questions such as:

1. “Am I the thoughts, or the one that is looking at them?”
2. “I am aware of my thoughts and can look at them, but I can’t look at me.”
3. “Why can’t my thoughts remain still?”

In order to try to fix, heal, stop, or repair anything in our lives, we first need to understand why the unwanted action is occurring, how it works, and how to choose something else. If we don’t take the time to understand why something is happening in its full detail, we will not know how to fix or reverse the effect properly. So, think of your mind and your thoughts as being like tools in your toolbox to explore and to understand.

Understanding Thoughts and Feelings

What is a thought?
No one knows. No one has ever even seen a thought. Doctors can open up your brain and perform brain surgery, but never fight a thought…

At an energetic level, a thought is energy vibration moving at the speed of light through your brain. If you imagine your brain being composed of electrical wires, thoughts are the electric currents moving back and forth, delivering information to different areas of your brain.

What is a feeling?
A thought usually comes with a feeling. Feeling is literally feeling the thought that comes through the mind – it’s what gives a thought sensation. Feeling is a vibrational touch of your thought, sort of like touching a rough surface or a smooth surface and deciding which one feels good or not.  If the thought is a positive thought, the feeling will communicate to your excitement, love, happiness, and joy. If it is a negative thought, the feeling will communicate anxiety, resistance, and fear.

How does meditation help?
Meditation is a process in which we take negative thoughts and feelings and transform them into positive ones.

How to transform negative thoughts into positive?

• Separation Process
  Focus on one thought that particularly bothers you and find the feeling that keeps it animated. What is the sensation that the thought gives rise to? It is usually behind the thought. Once you find the feeling, feel it out fully with your entire self. When you are feeling the energy within you completely, you are actually consuming and diminishing the power it holds over you. So, if you are feeling devastated over a breakup, FEEL the devastation as if this is the last feeling you will ever feel your entire life. Just feel the feeling – do not think the thought. This is where courage, strength, and trust come in. It might take a few minutes, a few hours, or even a few months. See what happens to the same thought and emotion after you feel it out fully.

• Exploration
  This method requires more energy and exploration. This is exploring the thought with your feeling and going deep within your psyche, reliving the moment that this feeling first arrived and got stored within your body. Most of our negativity comes from our childhood and the way we were raised by our caretakers. The process is the same as the first, except you are adding the thought, not just the feeling. You follow the thought through memory to its core – the source of why it keeps arising. A good therapist or a spiritual teacher can be helpful through this stage, but you have to find the right one for you. You can also do it yourself, but unless you are brave enough to navigate though your mind, some guidance is required.

In both cases, remember: you are just the watcher of your thoughts and feeler of your feelings. They are just stories and memories that rise up to the surface for you to process. Try it out, make it a daily habit and see how it can transform your life.  

 If you enjoyed reading about how to meditate properly, check out our What does it Mean to "Let Go" blog post. 

Love and Light, 

Moonlight of Eternity