I would like to write a short series on meditation with the intention of giving people the tools and information to have more sophisticated conversations, expand choice, and make better decisions whether they embrace meditation or not.
If you are interested in pursuing some form of contemplation in your own life, this will help you navigate the myriad of options and design something suited to you. If you prefer to hold the posture that meditation is not a good idea for Christians, this will help you create a much more powerful posture than simply "meditation bad!" If you are somewhere in-between that's just fine too.
Here are a few aspects of meditation we can discuss:
If you are interested in pursuing some form of contemplation in your own life, this will help you navigate the myriad of options and design something suited to you. If you prefer to hold the posture that meditation is not a good idea for Christians, this will help you create a much more powerful posture than simply "meditation bad!" If you are somewhere in-between that's just fine too.
Here are a few aspects of meditation we can discuss:
- What it is.
- Why it matters.
- The link between meditation and blood pressure, anxiety, depression, insomnia and other health issues. (There are more than 600 scientific studies conducted at 200 independent universities and institutions in 35 countries documenting the benefits of meditation.)
- How a more regular heartbeat lowers the amount of stress hormones in the body. When your mother said "just breathe" she was on to something.
- How moving into greater states of peace induces, to some extent, a more peaceful state in those around you (EEG, EKG entrainment research).
- How as you increase your capacity for silence you greatly increase your capacity to notice. (Guys, it's not really "woman's intuition" - OK, maybe just a tiny bit.)
- Why people are afraid of meditation the Eastern religion thing the opening up to "other" influences thing and any other things you wish to put forward.
- How using a few basic techniques to release anxiety and create greater heart-rhythm coherence can help you and your family members sleep more peacefully and greatly reduce anxiety dreams.
- How meditation can help you synthesize information more effectively make you smarter.
- How meditation can help bring you into a greater experience of God. (That seems worthy of exploration and is quite intrinsic to several of our 28!)
